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“Well, you saw what I posted on Facebook, right?”

I don’t know about you, but when I get this question from a friend, my answer is usually “no.” No, I don’t see everything my friends post on Facebook—not even the 25 or so people I make a regular effort to keep up with on Facebook, and not even the subset of friends I count as family. I don’t see everything most of my friends tweet, either; in fact, “update Twitter lists” has been hovering in the middle of my to-do list for the better part of a year. And even after I update those lists, I probably still won’t be able to keep up with everything every friend says on Twitter, either.

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Many have linked political conservatism with “the authoritarian personality,” which, in part, involves the willingness to view power structures as legitimate, less reluctance to submit to those in authority over you, and an increased tendency to exercise authority over the less powerful. Social media is often seen as counter-authoritarian, however, we also have good evidence that the Web in general, and social media in particular, also replicates existing power structures.

With these different concerns in mind, we might wonder if those with different political orientations use social media for politics in different ways. More specifically, are those on the right, even in a social media environment that permits more expression, voice, and creativity, more likely to submit and follow? Theodore Adorno, pictured above and pioneered work in this line of thought, I think, would predict that Republicans would be more passive, more likely to listen and restate, whereas those on the left would be a bit more likely to create new content.

I post these very brief thoughts (certainly much more would be needed to substantiate the sweeping claims I just made above; this is only a short blog post!) because The Pew Internet in American Life Project just today released some new findings on Social Media and Political Engagement [pdf]. Here are most of the findings:  more...

(This post originally appeared at Peasant Muse on 17 October 2012)

Alexis Madrigal has a very interesting article over at The Atlantic on a topic he calls dark social, or web traffic driven by non-referred sources outside of those generated on traditional social platforms. Even though the dominant narrative places the innovative crown of web-connection on sites like Wikipedia, MySpace, Facebook, and so on, the article provides undeniable proof that so-called ‘dark social’ forces- links shared over gchat, email or personal connection- actually drive the majority of web traffic.

Madrigal interlaces his data-backed revelations with anecdotal tales on his use of 90’s era communicative platforms like ICQ and USENET to share links with his friends, the contrasting effect meant to convey a sense of experiential validation on the larger thesis of the piece. If almost 70% of traffic occurs through means outside of those facilitated by, say, ‘liking’ and ‘sharing’ something on Facebook or retweeting an interesting link shared on Twitter, then what does that say about the narratives telling us how we use the web? On a larger level, what does inclusion of this ‘dark social’ data say about our levels of perception and the limits circumscribed therein?

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I’m posting to get some feedback on my initial thoughts in preparation for my chapter in a forthcoming gamification reader. I’d appreciated your thoughts and comments here or @pjrey.

My former prof Patricia Hill Collins taught me to begin inquiry into any new phenomenon with a simple question: Who benefits? And this, I am suggesting, is the approach we must take to the Silicon Valley buzzword du jure: “gamification.” Why does this idea now command so much attention that we feel compelled to write a book on it? Does a typical person really find aspects of his or her life becoming more gamelike? And, who is promoting all this talk of gamification, anyway?

It’s telling that conferences like “For the Win: Serious Gamification” or “The Gamification of Everything – convergence conversation” are taking place in business (and not, say, sociology) departments or being run by CEOs and investment consultants. The Gamification Summit invites attendees to “tap into the latest and hottest business trend.” Searching Forbes turns up far more articles (156) discussing gamification than the New York Times (34) or even Wired (45). All this makes TIME contributor Gary Belsky seems a bit behind the time when he predicts “gamification with soon rule the business world.” In short, gamification is promoted and championed—not by game designers, those interested in game studies, sociologists of labor/play, or even computer-human interaction researchers—but by business folks. And, given that the market for videogames is already worth greater than $25 billion, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that business folk are looking for new growth areas in gaming.

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I’d like to point readers to a terrific three-part essay by Laura Portwood-Stacer on three reasons why people refuse media, addiction, asceticism, and aesthetics. We can apply this directly to what might become an increasingly important topic in social media studies: social media refusers, already (edit: and unfortunately, as Rahel Aima points out) nicknamed “refusenicks”. There will be more to come on this blog on how to measure and conceptualize Facebook (and other social media) refusal, but let’s begin by analyzing these three frameworks used to discuss social media refusal and critique some of the underlying assumptions. more...

The Jager Bomb:
Ingredients:

• One 8 oz. can of Red Bull
• One shot of Jägermeister
• Willingness to overpay for an overhyped experience

The shot of Jager is dropped into a glass of Red Bull and chugged until all evidence disappears down the throats of the youthful.

As I (and a record 8 million other live Youtube viewers) witnessed Felix Baumgartner jump from a floating platform 128,000 feet in the air, I could not help but think about those little red bulls on his helmet. Red Bull, the ubiquitous energy drink and funder of all things Extreme™, had branded nothing less than a moment in human history. A monumental achievement brought to you by a peddler of a sugary drink that has fueled some of the worst decisions in the world [NSFW]. There was a day when the United States government was in the business of dazzling humanity with its feats of technological superiority and raw tenacity. For three years we were landing on the moon almost every six months. We made it look easy. Baumgartner’s jump is truly incredible, but it also makes me a little angry. I am tempted to bemoan the fall of civic life and the rise of corporate-sponsored spectacle, but ultimately I cannot find a moral handhold. Do I want an arms race or consumer capitalism to fund the greatest technological achievements of my lifetime? more...

“There is an essential lack of any heroic narrative in most films about the second Gulf War”

“In twenty years universal television will be an everyday affair” (1927)

“Romney campaign’s presence on Tumblr is more subdued”

“the apocalypse of the coming Reputation Market, in which all humans will be searchable, sortable and assigned a value by a judge, jury and executioner of their peers across the Internet”

“The pay-to-promote feature disrupts the interest-based algorithm”

“social media encourages thinking of authenticity as moment of external confirmation; others decide if you have been true to yourself”

“The symbiotic relationship between us and our apps will be seamless”

“there are two different settings for the privacy of your phone number in two different places. Because that’s the way Facebook rolls”

“ESC became a kind of “interrupt” button on the PC — a way to poke the computer and say, “Cut it out””

“the concept of ‘internet addiction’ relies on a fundamental misunderstanding of what the internet is”

“Will there ever be a laptop that needs to be broken in, and improves as you use it?”

“With these gardens as crypto-water-computers, they were taking measurements of the universe”

“A troll exploits social dynamics like computer hackers exploit security loopholes”

“The point again is Internet is REAL & deciding that it’s unreal, virtual, trivial etc. is a function of the privilege it accords the denier”

“the fighting of war is now augmented – war by physical and digital means are now inseparable”

“there is no compelling evidence that any online dating matching algorithm actually works”

“Ensconced in the home, the 3-D printer is a step toward the replicator: a machine that can instantly produce any object with no input of human labor”

Follow Nathan on Twitter: @nathanjurgenson

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Last week I wrote about a pattern I’ve been seeing, one for which I wanted to create a new term. I’m still working on the terminology issue, but the pattern is basically this:

1) A new technology highlights something about our society (or ourselves) that makes us uncomfortable.
2) We don’t like seeing this Uncomfortable Thing, and would prefer not to confront it.
3) We blame the new technology for causing the Uncomfortable Thing rather than simply making it more visible, because doing so allows us to pretend that the Uncomfortable Thing is unique to practices surrounding the new technology and is not in fact out in the rest of the world (where it absolutely is, just in a less visible way).

The examples I sketched out last week were Klout and Facebook’s new “sponsored” status updates (which Jenny Davis has since explored in greater depth); this week, I’m going to take a look at ‘helpful’ devices and smartphone apps. more...

Social media blurs private and public, production and consumption, play and work, physical and digital. There. I just saved myself about 500 words worth of work.

Now with this blurring framework in mind, let us take a look at Facebook’s newest feature:  Pay-to-Promote posts. more...

“I still want to be a cyborg”

“we’ll have a crack team of GIF artists cranking out instant animations of the best debate moments”

“And independent voters? The top term was “LOL,” short for laugh out loud”

“bad photos have found their apotheosis on social media, where everybody is a photographer”

“I am only as secure as the last time I was retweeted”

“everyone else seemed so natural in their tweeting. for me it was agony”

“the friction of the digital divide in academia requires only the slightest irritation to hit a rolling bubbling, um, boil”

“it’s strange to write a serious research proposal & have half of your bibliography be science fiction”

“let’s stop shaming teenagers for exploring sexual imagery through the cell phone shutter, instead of our own lens of 1960s nostalgia”

“Pinterest is now jammed with inspirational quotes, some of which could have been lifted from fortune cookies”

“the hate-blog phenomenon is basically anti-fandom”

“low-tech objects that are the paraphernalia of hipster culture”

“the public assumes that what is printed or pressed or somehow physically produced is of better quality”

“the only way to not be used by the Internet is either to not use it, which is ridiculous, or to make something out of it”

“is Klout trying to smack a glossy veneer of Science™ onto social ranking?”