Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

internetworkers - [internetworkers] "Autistic Social Software"

internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Alan MacHett" <machett AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [internetworkers] "Autistic Social Software"
  • Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2004 23:59:45 -0400 (EDT)

...doing a little research concerning networking websites -- we're one of
them, after all! -- and I came across this interesting transcript from
just a few days ago:
http://www.danah.org/papers/Supernova2004.html
<excerpts>
> "Autistic Social Software"
> danah boyd
> Supernova Conference
> June 24, 2004
>
> [This is a rough, unedited crib of the actual talk.]
>
> OVERVIEW
>
> As technologists, we often frame technological use rather than build
> technology based on users' practices and needs. In this talk, i step
> back and offer a different framing for what we have done and what
> kinds of values we have instilled in users.

> While autism is not nearly as chic as ADD, there are aspects of it
> that are promoted in our culture. Geek culture has always eschewed
> ideas of acceptable social interaction and its members pride
> themselves on having the right to act any way that they want. Don't
> get my wrong - i've been a rebel all of my life. But there is a value
> in understanding social life and figuring out how to interact with
> people on shared terms.

> In the last year, hundreds of companies have decided that social
> networks are the hot thing and must be incorporated into everything.
> I'm often told that social networks are the future of the sociable
> Internet. Guess what? They were the cornerstone of the Internet,
> always. What is different is that we've tried to mechanically organize
> them, to formalize them. Doing so did not make social networks suddenly
> appear; formalization meant that they became less serious, more
> game-like. All other Internet social networks are embedded into
> another set of practices, not seeking an application to validate their
> existence.

> CONCLUSION
>
> I'd like to conclude with a quote by Douglas Adams in "Stop Worrying
> and Learn to Love the Internet" - "Working out the social politics
> of who you can trust and why is, quite literally, what a very large
> part of our brain has evolved to do."
>
> Let's stop trying to dumb down people through technology. Let's step
> back and build technology that will make sense in the everyday lives
> of those who use it, that will empower them to use their evolved brain
> in a meaningful way.
>
> [Thanks to Cory Doctorow, Scott Lederer and Kevin Marks for good
> pointers and conversation.]
</excertps>




  • [internetworkers] "Autistic Social Software", Alan MacHett, 06/26/2004

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page