Data portability, yes. But in the ideal I'd prefer a version where I had all the info on a site *within my own purview* or at least open source and community-owned (vs. a site owned by others such as FB, NewsCorp., you name it) and could port it out to other sites in pieces at will. Wholesale taking one's profile elsewhere doesn't fix the problem of wanting to maintain differentiated presences on multiple sites. Though we tend to conduct our studies in either generic ('do you use social networking sites? yes or no') or site-specific ('what's happening on myspace?') ways, many people's experience is neither generic nor site-specific.

That's why I'd argue for data portability, not aggregation. Allow my to choose my own context for which to share my personal information. If I tire of the culture at Facebook, I should be able to easily port my profile to another site.

No?

On Jul 2, 2007, at 4:23 PM, 'Gail Taylor wrote:

...

I am hesitant to say 'yes' to the suggestion there should be a way to aggregate social networking sites. I think it would lead to homogenization of practices for the user, who is currently having a 'multi-cultural' experience interacting with others in various online spaces. For example, the culture of Facebook is similar, but also different, than what one might expect hanging out in MySpace or other product that enables networking with others. This approach to aggregating processes is also one that decontextualizes information that is extracted from other souces, as opposed to allowing the user to interact in an environment where the information would be contextualized. There would be advantages and drawbacks to this approach. Depending on the knowledge and expertise of the people developing the aggregator, the program could be great or not so great for the end user.

/Gail

--------------------------------------- Gail D. Taylor, M.Ed. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Human Resource Education Ph.D. Student Educational Psychology Teaching Assistant Library & Information Science Research Assistant

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--- Conor Schaefer <conor.schaefer@gmail.com> wrote:

For some reason, this aspect seems "new" and unique to technology to a

Conor - I think this is well explored in the personal communication literature that covers role play, identity theory and so on. I certainly put on a different 'face' for each role I play - work, home, etc. This is from a former post, the following is their abstract and references on the topic of computer identity. I believe that multiple computer identities are assumed to be fairly normal in the CMC environment. Bishop-Clark, C., B. Beth Dietz-Uhler, et al. (2003). The Formation of and Adherence to a Self-Disclosure Norm in a Computer-Mediated Setting. Social Psychology Dept. at Miami University located in Oxford, OH, Miami University, Ohio. One of the hallmarks of communication on the Internet is the ease with which users self-disclose (Wallace, 1999). In Internet chats and on-line discussion boards, Internet users reveal a good deal of personal information about themselves, typically with positive consequences (McKenna & Bargh, 1998). In a recent investigation of self-disclosure in computer-mediated communication (CMC) settings, Joinson (2001) found that participants disclosed more personal information in CMC than face-to-face settings, and did so under conditions of high private self-awareness and low public self-awareness. However, it may be possible to explain those results using the Social Identity Deindivuation Model (SIDE) of norm formation (Postmes, Spears, & Lea, 2000), which argues that norms emerge in groups through referent informational influence (Turner, 1982). The present studies tests whether norms of self-disclosure emerge and whether these norms are adhered to in a CMC setting. Procedure Students (n = 8) in an online Introductory Psychology course participated in an asynchronous on-line discussion as part of the course requirements. Students were not anonymous and had never met face-to-face. The topic of discussion was the stigma of mental illness. Transcripts of the communication were coded for number of self-disclosing (e.g., “I am manic-depressive”) entries. Also coded were the number of entries supportive of self-disclosing (e.g., “It must be tough being manic-depressive”) and non-self-disclosing statements (e.g., “I agree that the mentally ill are stigmatized”), to assess the strength of conformity to a norm of self-disclosure. Results There were 298 entries, of which 6.4% were self-disclosures, 1.7% were supportive of prior self-disclosures, and 4.7% were supportive of non-self-disclosing statements. Correlational analyses indicated that there were more self-disclosing posts over time (r (296) = .22, p < .001), more self-disclosing supportive posts over time (r (296) = .12, p < .05), and less non-self-disclosing supportive statements over time (r (296) = -.14, p < 02). In an ANOVA examining the effects of time (divided into four periods) on the ratio of self-disclosing posts (to total number of posts), results indicated significant effects of time on self-disclosing posts (p < .05), self-disclosing supportive posts (p < .05), and non-self-disclosing supportive posts (p < .05). Discussion Results provide support for the SIDE model of norm formation. A norm of self-disclosure emerged and was reinforced by more supportive feedback for self-disclosing than non-self-disclosing statements. Once a norm of self-disclosure developed, there was pressure to conform. References Joinson, A. N. (2000). Self-disclosure in computer-mediated communication: The role of self-awareness and visual anonymity. European Journal of Social Psychology, 31, 177-192. McKenna, K. Y. A. & Bargh, J. (1998). Coming out in the age of the Internet: Identity “demarginalization” through virtual group participation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 681-694. Postmes, T., Spears, R., & Lea, M. (2000). The formation of group norms in computer- mediated communication. Human Communication Research, 26, 341-371. Turner, J. C. (1982). Towards a cognitive redefinition of the group. In H. Tajfel (Ed.), Social identity and intergroup relations (pp. 15-40). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Wallace, P. (1999). The psychology of the Internet. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

lot of researchers; like this doesn't happen in face-to-face interactions, for instance. On this subject, can anyone point me to research which does draw parallels between the two paradigms?

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