Asynchronicity

Most of the ideas on this blog come about as the result of some combination of talks, articles, books, events, or conversations to which I've recently been exposed. The most recent combination: a great talk by Nicole Ellison at Michigan's School of Information, a TED talk from Sherry Turkle, and the book Nudge.

The first part of Ellison's talk concerned online dating and deception: when, why, and how much are online daters willing to stretch the truth about themselves in their profiles. In her interviews with several online daters, she found that they often excuse online exaggerations about themselves by saying that it either once was true of themselves (e.g., a person who, when they made their profile, did not smoke but then took up smoking and failed to update his/her profile) or, hopefully, will be true in the future (e.g., a person who anticipates losing a few pounds or getting a slightly better job). This is excusable in the arena of online dating because the dater never knows exactly when he/she will be contacted by another person. You could easily "forget" (or say you forgot) to keep your profile up-to-date and you could easily lose those pounds or get that job by the time Mr./Ms. Right contacts you. Asynchrony (i.e., some lag time between when you put some information about yourself into the world and when you get a reply) is a defining characteristic of the online dating world; norms of deception reflect that.

Turkle was a bit more broad and impressionistic in her analysis of the recent increase in technologically mediated communication, at times indulging in the kind of cynical hand-wringing about "Technology" that, I feel, isn't the most fruitful approach to improving our interactions with technology and with one another. The overlap between the two talks related to asynchrony: Turkle pointed out that many of her interviewees preferred texting to talking face-to-face, and that this was likely due to the amount of control it offered them in terms of what they would say and how they would present themselves.

Early versions of various communication technologies are often asynchronous: think of the postal service, email, and texting. As technology became more advanced, people could engage in synchronous communication: telephone and Skype. But maybe people don't always want the loss of control over one's presentation of self that comes with synchronous communication. Even a small lag of 30 seconds allows the person to have an immediate reaction, think about what the other person wants to hear (or about what will make them react in a way that's desirable), and send that message. Both Ellison and Turkle note that this is a kind of tailored self, likely different than the un-tailored self that cannot help but come across in face-to-face interactions. In Goffman's terms, those who use asynchronous media like Facebook and texting instead of talking face-to-face or on the phone are all front stage and no backstage.

At the same time, people have noted the dangers of impulsive texting, suggesting that people don't take time to consider their initial emotional reaction and merely text or post without considering the consequences. I think this worry may have to do more with the permanence of the message (unlike the impermanence of something said in conversation) and the fact that the person might not consider the context in which the message will be consumed because he/she is not in that context (unlike face-to-face conversations in which folks see, immediately, the consequence of what they're saying). Its also possible that there's simply more conversation going on with asynchronous communication technology than there was without it, particular conversation with certain others (people you care about a lot, and not people you happen to physically be around). The more you converse, the more likely you are to say something impulsive.

There are a few reasons why the extent to which communication is synchronous or asynchronous appeals to me as a research topic. First, its an attribute of a media experience and not a medium or an application. Attributes like temporal proximity, assortment size, or synchrony are like mass or volume: they never change; television and Facebook change all the time, making it hard to know for sure if what applied to them 5 years ago still applies today. Secondly, you can easily measure synchrony: just gauge the average amount of time between posts, texts, emails, etc. Lastly, you can tweak it pretty easily. This brings me to Nudge. The book's premise is that there are many attributes of our choice environments that weren't considered when they were designed. By tweaking them in ways so subtle that most users don't notice or mind (e.g., changing the number of mutual funds a person picks from when investing via an IRA; changing the choices on multiple-choice questions about organ donation) you can profoundly affect what people choose. Email, texting, Tweets, and Facebook posting don't really have much in the way of temporal constraints. What if you introduced some: requiring people to reply within 10 seconds or requiring them not to reply for 1 day? Yes, of course, people would notice these constraints and would likely mind them. But technically, it wouldn't be very hard at all to make these changes. Most of these applications already have artificial constraints (think of Twitter and its 140 character limit). You'd just have to sell users on the benefits of such constraints. 

To return to Turkle's point about control, its not just that these technologies allow users the time to have control over their presentations of self. They also allow them to choose how long to wait: whatever amount best suits your needs. Meanwhile, the person of the other end can feel quite powerless, causing a strain on the relationship. Maybe its not particularly important that sending letters via mail required folks to wait days or weeks before getting replies or that face-to-face requires instant replies (though with mail, one could choose to write back later rather than sooner). Maybe its more important that imposed constraints put the interlocutors on common ground.

I'll get back to you

I haven't checked my email lately. And by "lately", I mean roughly 12 hours. I feel a dual pull: the desire to put off other important work by checking my email, i.e. the desire for immediately gratifying distracting novelty stimuli, and the worry that I may be missing something important, i.e. the desire to be responsible. To neglect one's email is to deprive both one's short-term and long-term desires. That's how I feel, but how do the people on the other end of those emails waiting in my inbox feel? How long do you have to wait to be considered neglectful?

Email, like texting, is an asynchronous form of communication. With any asynchronous form of communication, there is no obvious answer to the question above. These two ways of communicating have vastly different norms as to how long one can wait to reply without seeming rude. In fact, I would argue that email does not really have a norm, and that lack of a norm may cause some animosity toward the person with whom the email user is communicating as well as animosity toward the medium of email.

Thinking about how long is an acceptable gap between message-received and message-reply prompts me to think about the power dynamic between the sender and the receiver. One may always hide behind the fig leaf of busyness ("sorry I didn't return your email sooner. I've been totally swamped!"), and certainly some emails take longer to reply to than others. Some require that you look up other information or do some work in order to craft an acceptable reply, and this may take time. In some cases (as in mine right now), the receivers may not be aware that he/she received any message, and thus can plead ignorance (for about 12 hours or so, right?). But in many cases, the receiver prioritizes. All other things be equal, the receiver puts the sender somewhere in a hierarchy. They can afford to put off answering a co-worker but not the boss, a brother but not a wife, etc. To be upset about not being replied to sooner is, sometimes, to be upset at one's place in another's social hierarchy. Because email is asynchronous and it lacks the norms about time-to-reply than texting has, it is ideal for exposing these hierarchies.

One interesting solution to this problem might be to develop a thorough email policy: you're guaranteed a reply within one week, barring vacation or illness. You get a reply in 48 hours (excluding vacations and illnesses) if the reply requires less than 5 minutes of work. Within work hours, you can expect a reply in 4 hours if the reply requires less than 5 minutes of work. If the reply requires more work, the amount of estimated time of work in minutes = the required reply time in hours (20 minutes of work = 20 hours to reply). No exceptions, regardless of whether you're my boss's boss's boss or my intern.

I'm sure people would think you're pretty weird for setting these rules, but norms have to start somewhere.

"The Thug Finding the Gutenberg Press"

What is the role of digital media in cases of social disorder, be it a riot or a revolution?

The answer on the tips of every social media guru's tongue is that social media - text messaging, group messaging, social networking sites - make organizing protests and mass looting easier and faster. Without this tool, the argument implies, the young men (and it is mostly young men, for what that's worth) would not overthrow the government or burn down the business. Another argument states that it is the way the rulers are behaving (austerity measures, police brutality, and a gap between rich fat cats and the proletariat) that inevitably leads to this kind of behavior.

Both of these arguments seem unsatisfying to me. Riots and revolutions happened without social media and there have been plenty of nations throughout history that had huge disparities between ruling classes and non-ruling classes that didn't erupt into violence for long periods of time. Perhaps both of these things contribute to the likelihood of these events, but perhaps there are other ways in which the new media landscape contributes to this likelihood.

Media content, be it what we see on television, what we read on our favorite site for news, or what we see in our Facebook feed, influences our ideas of what is normal in society or the sub-segment of society to which we believe we belong, which in turn affects our actions. By framing a certain behavior as more or less normal, a message sender can affect behavior of the message receivers. Its possible that various kinds (both positive and negative) of coverage of social unrest frame it as something that angry young men at a certain place in time do, enforcing a kind of norm to engage in civil disobedience, violence, or destruction of property. Instead of relying on the depictions of protesters, freedom fighters, and rioters that the mainstream news give us, we can get a first-hand look at them on social media sites. Even if only 5% of the population goes to these sources instead of MSM for coverage of the unrest, if its the right 5% (i.e. the 5% inclined toward real-world action), it matters. Perhaps this gives readers the impression that these aren't just objects on the screen to be watched, but people who are similar to the readers, who could interact with the readers. Maybe that makes identifying with them easier.

The panoply of opinions and ideologies on the internet makes finding justification (and a group that makes your thoughts about behaving in a certain way more normal) easier to find as well. I think this gets lost in the discussion of how easy social media facilitates the logistics of social unrest. You may start out with anger, but if that anger can't find justification, its unlikely to manifest itself in action. Sure, a mind sufficiently detached from reality can find a justification pretty much anywhere, but even those with a firm grip on reality can find reasons to act in ways that they couldn't when the messages were manufactured by people with too much to lose to advocate civil disobedience, violence, or property destruction.

Perhaps the default sentiment toward authority in complex societies is anger, an instinct that we feel from perceiving that we do not have much control over our fate. But that anger gets channeled into avenues other than civil disobedience, violence, and property destruction when we can't find justification or a group performing these actions to make them seem more normal.

(quote from Mike Butcher, TechCrunch Europe)

The Pecker at the Party: Immediate gratification, social media, and social situations

Imagine you are at a cocktail party. Most individuals are talking to one another while some are pecking at their smartphones. One of the guests at the party confronts a “phone-pecker”, explaining that she finds this behavior to be rude and cannot understand why the individual is engaging in what appears to be “anti-social” behavior at a party. The “phone pecker” retorts, claiming that he is actually being quite social, just with people who do not happen to be in the room at that moment. He is looking at photos of friends on Facebook, answering emails and sending text messages, reading tweets. How, he asks, is his socializing any different (or inferior) to the socializing that is happening at the cocktail party?

This situation - in which an apparently solitary individual stares at a screen and pecks at the screen or a keyboard or, in some cases, talks to the screen - is increasingly common. More social interaction is mediated - taking place via text messages, emails, social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter) - and more people are concerned about the implications of this for individuals and society. The cocktail party guest’s identification of this behavior as “rude” suggests a breach of etiquette, but the perception of these acts as rude may only be a symptom of some people’s failure to understand how the technology is being used. Such a failure might be a result of the rapid diffusion of the technology and the predictable failure of social mores to evolve at a similar rate. Older generations lamenting the corrupting influence of new technologies is likely as old as technology itself. Once the technology is sufficiently common, such complaints are seen as the mark of a curmudgeon rather than a legitimate qualm. So the fact that this is seen as rude fails to distinguish between a public act that is simply new and will eventually be harmless and no longer seen as rude and an act that is, in some way, harmful to the social fabric and will always be seen as rude or aberrant.

Before proceeding, it is worth noting that the phone-pecker may not be being social at all. He may be scanning his Facebook feed (the equivalent of looking at other guests at a party while not conversing with them) or checking sports scores. Given the size and orientation of networked mobile devices and the expectation of privacy that is associated with the use of such devices, it is difficult for observers to be able to tell the difference between social interaction on mobile devices and non-social behavior.

Let us assume the phone-pecker is interacting with others via the mobile device. Are there really no differences between the nature of heavily mediated person-to-person relationships (that is, those that take place chiefly via text message, email, Skype, and Facebook) and those that are not as heavily mediated?

Older individuals often marvel at the sheer number of texts that teenagers send in a day. Half of all American teens send over 50 texts per day, according to Pew, 2010. Some teens send hundreds per day. This number is not shocking if one considers the text messages to be similar in purpose and content to turn-taking conversations. Teens engaged in long turn-taking conversations on land-line telephones and, before that, in person. The length of statements in such conversations was and is likely to be short, no more than the 150 characters allowed by most SMS (i.e. texting) services. So the length of individual statements and the frequency of text messaging and social media use, while initially seeming alarmingly different, do not to differ significantly from other existing forms (mediated or not) of communication.

What about the people participating in the interaction? There has been fear surrounding social media and one-to-one technology (dating back to the introduction of the telephone) that remote communication devices would facilitate relationships between vulnerable populations (e.g. children) and those seeking to take advantage of these populations (e.g. sexual predators, advertisers, etc.). Though there have been instances of such behavior, the bulk of mediated social interaction (on Facebook and text messaging, if not on Twitter, which, in any case, operates more like a micro-broadcast medium like blogging and less like a rapid interaction application) is still between parties that are acquainted with one another from non-mediated social worlds like school, work, and get-togethers in real world locations like bars and parties. In other words, the people on the other end of the phone-pecker’s pecks are likely to be similar, in terms of their connections to the phone-pecker, to the other cocktail party goers. So it seems, again, that what initially appeared to be different may not be that different at all.

But there's another possible area of difference: the nature of the relationship. The maintenance of relationships, like any other endeavor, is comprised of acts that are immediately enjoyable but do not pay long-term or collective dividends (being able to complain about work to a friend, flirting with a married co-worker, playing a game of basketball with a friend) and other acts that are not immediately enjoyable but do pay off in the long run (changing a diaper, attending a boring work meeting, discussing a difficult topic with a spouse). This isn’t to say there aren’t many (if not most) social interactions that are both immediately gratifying AND help foster long-term gains for the self and others (great sex, great parties, enjoyable collaborative work), but that some relationship maintenance, like many other things in life, is not immediately gratifying but pays off in the long run. An overindulgence in immediately enjoyable social interactions and a failure to engage in any other kind of social interactions may lead to shorter-duration relationships as individuals more frequently (and accurately) accuse one another of being selfish. A failure to think about one’s long-term goals in relationships goes hand in hand with being self-centered or selfish.

Throughout most of human history, our relationships were constrained: by the surveillance and judgment of others, by geography, by class, by time. The proliferation of networked communication devices allows us to (at least partially) remove these constraints. For some, this is a good thing: relationships hindered by repressive regimes are allowed to flourish online. For others, I think it is not. These constraints often kept immediately gratifying interactions at a distance, forcing us to talk with co-workers about work when we would rather be flirting with our partners, to talk with our parents when we would rather be talking with our long-time friends, conversing with our long-time friends when we’d rather be talking to someone new and exciting, talking to our spouses when we’d rather be flirting with a co-worker. They were shaped by the randomness of geographic distribution, by the history of institutions developed by those in power, and in these cases, circumvention of such constraints is, ultimate, a good thing. But either by accident or by design, those constraints kept us from indulging our every social whim.

Again, this isn’t to say that individuals without networked communication technology did not indulge in selfish interactions not in their or anyone else’s best long-term interest. However, when you make immediately gratifying options more easily accessible, you make them more likely to be chosen, particularly by those low in self-control. Why would the choice of whom to interact with and what to converse about be any different than any other decision (in which the temporal and spatial proximity of temptations make them more likely to be chosen)?

To return to the phone-pecker, it is possible that he simply prefers talking to someone who is not at the party. The pecker was invited to the party because of an assumed mutual interest in interacting with those at the party, but given his inattention to other party goers, he cannot count on this assumption lasting very long. He uses technology to develop and nurture several intense, mutually beneficial relationships with co-workers (frequently answering work emails), romantic partners, and close friends (frequently texting at parties), but ignores those very same people at other times so that he can communicate remotely with others. When spending time with his romantic partner, he frequently converses with friends through text and answers email, neglecting his relationship with his partner. When spending time at work, he frequently blows off work to flirt with his partner. It isn’t that he ignores certain people, but that, given the choice between one conversation and another, he chooses the more immediately interesting conversation.

By doing this, he may be training himself to become intolerant of social situations that are not immediately gratifying, becoming accustomed to the immediately gratifying interactions provided by networked communication devices. At a party, this is relatively harmless, though he might find himself invited to fewer parties in the future. But if he bows out of important discussions/ arguments with his partner before they can be resolved, if he pays more attention to work emails and less attention to his children, if he talks to his partner more than his co-workers about work, or flirts more to his sexy co-worker than he talks to his partner about their finances, eventually, his relationships with all parties will suffer through lack of attention.