The semantics of Silicon Valley Capitalism are precise, measured, and designed to undermine preexisting definitions of the things such capitalists seek to exploit. It is no coincidence that digital connections are often called “friends,” even though the terms “friend” and “Facebook friend” have very different meanings. And then there is “social,” a Silicon Valley shorthand term for “sharing digital information” that bears little resemblance to the word “social” as we’ve traditionally used it. From “Living Social” to “making music social,” “social media” companies use friendly old words to spin new modes of interaction into concepts more comfortable and familiar. It is easier to swallow massive changes to interpersonal norms, expectations, and behaviors when such shifts are repackaged and presented as the delightful idea of being “social” with “friends.”

But is this “social” so social? Yes and no and not quite. To elaborate, we propose a distinction: “Social” versus “social,” in which the capital-S “Social” refers not to the conventional notion of social but specifically to Silicon-Valley-Social. The point is, simply, that when Silicon Valley entrepreneurs say “social,” they mean only a specific slice of human sociality. more...

This is a GIF picture from the 4th Annual Hallowmeme costume party in New York City.  I got it from this awesome AngleFire site I found: http://www.hallowme.me. I couldn’t go because it was too expensive and none of my friends with licenses wanted to go. What is up with that? Sometimes I think people who are really excited to get some government document are secretly lame. Its like the government tells people to think that the people with licenses are cool so that people will get more licenses. I don’t think making people drive cars to get places is a great way to build cities and towns, etc. What is up with that? Anyway, I think its interesting that people like to dress up like things on the Internet and take pictures of each other and put them back on the Internet. more...

“Hey, don’t let me forget to TiVo Two and a Half Men”—said nobody ever.

NPR has been running a series that looks at the ways in which new technologies are changing how we consume television[i].  The latest installment, based on an interview with Jessica Helfand, author of Screen: Essays on Graphic Design, New Media and Visual Culture has a troublesome tone. Helfand worries that on-demand television is ruining our attention spans, as we consume only what we want, when we want. She worries that we watch on our own time, rather than as part of a collective schedule-following community. She worries that content will have to get shorter, more easily consumable, and that the focus will shift from away from the story, and towards the medium itself. Referencing a colleague, she labels today’s media consumption environment as a “narrative deprivation culture.”  Below are a few representative quotes from Helfand: more...

When I first began as a graduate student encountering social media research and blogging my own thoughts, it struck me that most of the conceptual disagreements I had with various arguments stemmed from something more fundamental: the tendency to discuss “the digital” or “the internet” as a new, “virtual”, reality separate from the “physical”, “material”, “real” world. I needed a term to challenge these dualistic suppositions that (I argue) do not align with empirical realities and lived experience. Since coining “digital dualism” on this blog more than a year ago, the phrase has taken on a life of its own. I’m happy that many seem to agree, and am even more excited to continue making the case to those who do not.

The strongest counter-argument has been that a full theory of dualistic versus synthetic models, and which is more correct, has yet to emerge. The success of the critique has so far outpaced its theoretical development, which exists in blog posts and short papers. Point taken. Blogtime runs fast, and rigorous theoretical academic papers happen slow; especially when one is working on a dissertation not about digital dualism. That said, papers are in progress, including ones with exciting co-authors, so the reason I am writing today is to give a first-pass on a framework that, I think, gets at much of the debate about digital dualism. It adds a little detail to “digital dualism versus augmented reality” by proposing “strong” and “mild” versions of each. more...

“The digital and the physical are becoming one”

“Design is one of the linchpins of capitalism, because it makes alienated labor possible”

“My hologram rendered somehow less complete. A broken stream in the data mind”

“Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world”

“Facebook is broken, on purpose, in order to extract more money from users”

““Invisible Users” is one of the few texts explicitly dealing with the Internet that will not feel dated in five years”

“Writing for a general audience, he said, was “a responsibility of scholars”

“Given a city block, the challenge will be to excavate and present that information which the most people are curious about at the precise moment they walk through it”

“Scrobbling might be “social,” but it’s not very personal”

“Wikipedians may be their own worst enemy”

“a Predator parked at the camp started its engine without any human direction, even though the ignition had been turned off and the fuel lines closed”

“I would challenge the idea that trolls, and trolls alone, are why we can’t have nice things online”

“Memory on the Internet is both infinite and fleeting”

“EDM lets listeners experience what feels like risk, and excess but is actually very tightly and carefully controlled”

“In this climate, it gets hard to draw strict distinctions between living systems and mechanical ones”

“A machine does far more than the task it performs. It is forged of historical moments, acts as a flash-point for contemporary questions, and always, inevitably, produces new cultures of its own”

Follow Nathan on Twitter: @nathanjurgenson