Technology can get you in trouble

Easter morning, my dad walked into the choir room at church to a long-faced choir member, Jeff.  He asked Jeff what was wrong, and Jeff told him that his sister's husband, who is Syrian and currently working in Syria as an IT support guy, had not been heard from in three or four days.  That was not like him, for he regularly updated his Facebook and Twitter accounts and Skyped or phone-talked with his wife at least twice per day.

It turns out that the husband had been captured by Syrian officials and imprisoned.  He was brutally beaten but released a few days later.  Apparently his Facebook contained some anti-government sentiments that were neither overlooked nor taken lightly.  He cannot even go to the hospital to mend his bruised/broken ribs for fear of being recapture and further abused.

What I find so interesting about this occurrence is the ability for something like Facebook to act as a double-edged sword.  He was using the medium as an outlet to vent, protest, complain, whatever.  But it turned into a weapon used against him very quickly.

Has anyone encountered something like this?  Obviously not to this extreme, but how has technology both helped and hurt you at any point?

Bert Laden & Over-sensitivity

I once heard that humor is humorous because it is unexpected.  If the punch-line to a joke is the logical ending to the story being told, then no one is going to laugh.  I feel like this is true.  One is not going to laugh if the punch line to a "Your mom is so fat" joke is "she should be concerned about future cardiovascular issues" - unless of course you were expecting an outlandish and offensive ending, in which case this might be found humorous because the listener is caught off guard.

In this day and age of political correctness and bicyclists having their own lane almost as wide as those intended for cars, I feel that people are just too sensitive.  That was my reaction upon reading this article.  Sure, a lot of the world hates America and is looking for any slip up we might make to shower us with negative press.  But does anyone honestly think that a puppet was in cahoots with a terrorist mastermind?

In this convergence culture in which we live, we must pay closer attention to the kinds of communities in which we involve ourselves and the types of people in those communities.  This attention to detail must include things such as the topic at hand as well as the other community members' religion, age, gender, sexuality, nationality, political beliefs, and preconceptions.  When you log on to the world-wide web, distinguishing these details is not as easy as one might think.  Even if you know a person's religion, age, gender, etcetera, that does not mean you necessarily can understand their motivations or beliefs because their frame of mind may be completely different than your own.

The quote from the creators of Sesame Street also concerns me.  I understand that Bert is their intellectual property, but for Ignacio to create the humorous images of Bert merely for entertainment, with no financial desires, it seems quite ludicrous for the producers to threaten with legal action.

What types of misunderstandings have some of you experienced online?  Did these stem from differences in beliefs or upbringing?  How can the framing of something affect its reception by a wider audience?

SNS - How we interact

I think that danah and Boyd's defintion of SNS makes a find distinction but one that is so true and necessary.  Facebook, for instance, I believe started out with the goal of networking in mind.  Though, today, even with all the distant acquaintances that I call "friends" on Facebook, I do not expect them to have any "networking" relationship to me in the future (i.e. for a job).  And I have some sort of pre-existing relationship with all of them outside of the internet world (even if that means we have only met once).

Sites such as LinkedIn and even dating sites were however made with this idea in mind - that forging new relationships will benefit the users in some way.  I am neither a member of LinkedIn nor any dating sites, so I do not know what these sites are doing differently, or if they even are intentionally doing anything differently from Facebook, MySpace, etcetera.

I did actually meet someone in an online setting in high school.  Keep in mind doing so is completely out of the ordinary for me, but the guy turned out to be completely not creepy - he is a first-year pharmacy student at UT's pharmacy school.  I guess you could say we had three degrees of separation, but we had never actually met, until we decided to go to Sonic one night.  After that, he ended up dating my friend for two years.

Now I am curious - what kinds of things do sites do to intentionally (or not, I suppose) act as social network sites versus social networking sites?  Are there any differences other than the ways in which users perceive the site and what they are hoping to get out of participation with the site?  Are the sites themselves doing anything to create or alter these perceptions?

Cybersubculture Report - foursquare

In their article giving the definition and history of social network sites (SNSs), danah boyd and Nicole Ellison differentiate between the terms network and networking, stating that the latter implies “relationship initiation, often between strangers” (boyd).  They argue that this is not the main focus of most SNSs.  Instead, pre-existing relationships are cultivated and nurtured.  A prime example of such a site is foursquare, a community of which I have been a member for some months now.

foursquare was founded in 2009 as a location-based SNS.  The application employs GPS-based devices (i.e. smart phones) to “check in” at various venues and, potentially, allow users to meet up with other users at the same venue or in the area.  There are many perks to using the application, some intangible and some material.  Mayorships, badges, points, and specials have all been incorporated into foursquare, making it not only fun to participate but sometimes beneficial as well.

To use foursquare, members “check in” at venues.  That is, they can either choose their venue from a list, or they can search for their venue in a search bar.  Either way, a GPS signal is enabled to provide near-by venues from which to choose.  After selecting a venue, users can see a Google map of the location, who the mayor is, and who else is currently checked into the venue (whether those people are foursquare friends of theirs or not).  There are two screens to go through before the check-in is complete – the first being the information page described above, the second allowing you to users to personalize their check-in with a comment and/or picture as well as the option to link the check-in to Facebook or Twitter.

After checking in, users are awarded points based on various criteria.  One point is awarded for checking in at a venue you have already been to – three points if you are the Mayor.  Two additional points may be awarded if, for instance, “the Mayor is in the house.”  Three additional points may be awarded if it is one’s first time at a particular venue or at a particular type of venue.  When foursquare’s servers were overloaded a few weeks ago, and I tried checking in but couldn’t, I went back to the application a few hours later to catch up on checking in at all the places I had been that day.  foursquare has a safeguard against this kind of activity: there is a certain radius you cannot exceed to check in to a place (though I was not successful in nailing down a specific distance) and you will be rewarded zero points for that check-in.  Also, foursquare users cannot check in to more than four places in a five minute time period, thus preventing rapid-fire check-ins and building up their points.

All of the points you do earn add up on a “Leaderboard,” which accounts for points earned in the last seven days, down to the second.  So, I could be #1 on the Leaderboard at 9:59:07, and someone could pass me at 9:59:43 because a set of my check-in points no longer count, for instance.  This feature works not to discourage new users, as this is an instance in which they are not at a disadvantage in comparison to foursquare veterans.  There is no reward for being at the top of one’s Leaderboard (which is made up of only your foursquare friends, so everyone’s is, essentially, unique).  It seems to be more about the act of having the #1 spot for the personal satisfaction of it, one reason that the application is so appealing to competitive spirits.

For certain achievements, members can unlock badges – two-inch, two-toned graphics that denote accomplishing certain things.  Examples include checking in at twenty-five different venues (called the “Explorer”), checking in four+ nights in a row (called the “Bender”), and checking in at the same place three times in one week (called the “Local”).  foursquare likes to toy with its users, not revealing the action necessary to earn a badge until the action has taken place and the badge has been earned.  There are a few sites that I have found that list all of the badges and their corresponding achievements for those of us who do not like surprises.

When I checked in at the airport over winter break, I unlocked the “Swarm” badge, denoting that fifty plus people were also checked in at the Orlando International Airport.  I have not since experienced even close to that many foursquare users at any venue, so I seemed to be in the right place at the right time to unlock such a badge.  As with the Leaderboard, earning badges does not earn users any sort of material compensation.  It is, again, for the intrinsic value and the personal satisfaction of earning a badge.

If a member has checked in to a particular venue more days (only one check-in in a twenty-four hour period counts toward a Mayorship) in a sixty day time period than any other foursquare user, that member becomes the Mayor of that venue.  Not only do you get more points as a Mayor upon checking in at a venue, some places (including businesses and restaurants) have incentives for becoming and remaining Mayor of their venue.  For instance, on the 28^th of every month, the University Co-op rewards the Mayor with a $50 gift card to their store!  The only stipulation is that the Mayor comes in and proves his or her Mayorship.  For those venues that do not have mayoral incentives, to be Mayor is still a pat-on-the-back experience at the very least.

Having a lot of friends on foursquare is also a status-builder.  Friendships on foursquare are mutual (as in, you don't "follow" someone who isn't "following" you, as is the case on Twitter).  And it is possible to friend strangers, but that is not the usual practice.  There are implications about privacy when forging a foursquare relationship with people.  Those who you already know are less likely to abuse the knowledge of your check-ins, and therefore your whereabouts, to negative consequences.  This cannot necessarily be said of strangers.

Therefore, in general, foursquare friends are people that you already know in some capacity and have some sort of mutual relationship with.  I, personally, only have about ten friends.  Having more, however, can open up some opportunities to you.  If your friend is the mayor of a particular venue, you get extra points on your check-in.  This can be a double-edged sword for Mayors if their friends are creeping up on their spot on the Leaderboard.  And foursquare is not as widely used as, say, Facebook or Twitter, so the likelihood that your friend has a foursquare account is lesser.

A certain hierarchy has developed through the different versions of the foursquare application due to these sorts of status symbols.  And gaining status is so simple to do that it becomes sort of a competition.  Even without the material incentive that a Mayorship has, users are encouraged to check in frequently, wherever they are, because the higher one’s stats, the more experienced a foursquare user s/he becomes.  This, again, is more about the personal satisfaction of it all, but one must keep in mind that there are others checking in a moving their ways up the Leaderboard.  The air of competition is so thick on this SNS!

Membership is easy and, best of all, free.  Anyone can join the site, though, as previously mentioned, a smart phone is necessary because the application has to be supported, and it is a necessary tool to perform check-ins.  While smart phones are more affordable and more widely accessible than even a couple of years ago, there are still socio-economic or class implications as to who owns a smart phone and, therefore, uses applications such as foursquare.  Also, from my experience, the types of people using the application on a regular basis are going to be outgoing, attention-seeking, and competitive people: outgoing or attention-seeking because they want to advertise their whereabouts to others and competitive because of the hierarchies created by the point system, mayorships, and badges.

For instance, I have a friend on foursquare who rarely checks in – probably once a month at most.  The other week, I got a notification that she had checked in, and I was curious as to see where she emerged.  Her check in was at Seton hospital.  This seemed kind of odd to me.  After thinking about her check-in a little bit longer, I concluded that everyone gets something out of using the application.  And I suppose what she is getting out of it is attention.  There is nothing wrong with that – she wants to advertise that she is at the hospital to get sympathy from fellow users, and she got just that.  Various people commented on her check-in to make sure she was okay.  And she responded by informing people that she “merely twisted” her ankle, but it was “swelling so big” she wanted to get it checked out.  There was more interaction after that one check-in than I have seen my entire time using foursquare.

The foursquare profile starts out very simplistic.  All a user has to provide is a name (though it does not have to be your name), a profile picture (though it does not have to be your picture, and a picture is necessary to be eligible for Mayorships), and the area in which you are active (you cannot really lie about this because, remember, GPS must be enabled for the application to work).

The rest of your profile unfolds as you actively participate with foursquare.  The places at which you check in become part of your profile.  And other statistics are built around your trends.  The online supplement to the foursquare application, foursquare.com, provides users with such stats as “days checked in,” “number of check-ins,” “average check-ins when out,” and “percent of check-ins at new places.”  All of these statistics and the venues at which you check in add something to your profile and say something about you.  For instance, people can infer about how much leisure time you have available to you, if you tend to be adventurous (go to many different venues) or have your routine down pat (go to work, school, and home, for instance).

 People can also develop their profile based on how they want others to see them.  For instance, another one of my foursquare friends checks in at “trendy” places to build people’s impressions of her personality.  Her check-ins tend to be at coffee shops, boutique-style clothing stores (such as Anthropologie), and Mayfield and Pease parks.  She seems to be selective about her check-ins to portray that she is trendy, a little hipster, and very Austin-y.

Businesses are learning to utilize foursquare as well.  Some venues offer specials on various products at various times.  Examples include discounts on tanning lotion at Aruba Tan and free chips and salsa with every check-in at Chili’s.  There is even a German dog food company, GrenataPet, who set up a billboard to dispense a dog treat every time someone checked in at their billboard (Foursquare).

My favorite example of foursquare helping businesses to bring in customers occurred at County Line BBQ.  I had lunch there with my parents and checked in.  A note popped up telling me that after my fifth visit, I would get $5 off my meal.  In the months following, I would eat dinner at County Line periodically, making sure to check in each time.  When my friend could not decide where to have his birthday dinner, I insisted we go to County Line (I had checked in four times at that point).  He complied, and I got a discount on my meal.  Not only that, but we took a party of about twenty people with us, most of whom would not have chosen to eat barbecue for dinner that night.

The language of foursquare is pretty simple – there is a short learning curve to “getting it.”  Most of the language is colloquial, modern, and commonplace (venue, friends.  Even words like "check in" have become common from other sites like Facebook using the same location-based feature).   Users quickly become familiar with the meanings of words (such as mayor) and how the point system (and Leaderboard) works.

My biggest challenge with the literacy of the application came about because I missed an app update for my phone.  The point system was installed after I had begun my participation, and after I had increased my participation for the sake of this report.  I was earning points for my check-ins, but I had no idea why.  After updating the applications on my phone, the Leaderboard feature came up – which turned out to have no real point to it (thought the competitive side of me thoroughly enjoys the feature).

For the most part, foursquare does not have hard-to-understand language, and it is very user-friendly.  The "explore" feature (kind of like a venue roulette) seemed like it would be confusing to use, but the app gives users suggestion that teach them how to use the feature.  For instance, under "nightlife," it will prompt "Try 'margarita'" in the search bar.  Once the user types in margarita, foursquare generates nearby(ish) venues that either advertise their margaritas or have specials for them (during happy hour, for isntance).  So users learn by example, making it very simple.

As far as managing and censoring the site, it is very interactive, adding another facet of “play” for users.  I have not encountered any comments being taken down or reported for vulgar or inappropriate nature.  However, the application gives users the opportunity to “flag” venues.  They can flag them as duplicates, meaning there is more than one foursquare venue set up for merely one actual building or venue.  Sometimes, I think this is an honest mistake and people add a venue by mistake when one is already established.  On other occasions, I have the feeling that people add a venue they frequent with the sole purpose of becoming Mayor of that venue (which is totally cheating!).  Users can flag the address information for a venue as wrong or as the business being closed (for good).  This utilized the theory of collective intelligence that our class discussed throughout the year, and holds users accountable.

I have noticed that foursquare utilized the honor system and is very trusting of its users.  foursquare users must also be trusting of their friends, believing they would not just walk by a Starbucks and check in without actually going inside merely for the points or possible Mayorship.  This also says something about the types of people using the application.  In most cases, users are honest about their check-ins, so they expect their friends to do the same.  People are expected to hold themselves accountable, and I have not run across anyone abusing this liberty.

foursquare is a prime example of an SNS according to boyd and Ellison’s definition.  The goal of the application is not to meet new people, and foursquare users would actually most likely be disinclined to friend strangers because of the privacy issues that could arise.  The interactive nature encourages both newcomers and veteran users to continue participation.  Overall, foursquare is a cyberspace community that is simple to navigate, encourages continued use, and does not consume an exorbitant amount of users’ time (check-ins only take about thirty seconds).  Plus, it is really fun to be at the top of the Leaderboard.  

Works Cited:

boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html

"Foursquare Check In Activated Dog Treats! | Digital Buzz Blog." Digital Buzz Blog | Digital Campaigns, Online Marketing, Social & More. 28 Mar. 2011. Web. <http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/foursquare-check-in-activated-dog-treats/>.