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| | | -- By ScottMcKinney - 07 Dec 2009 | |
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< | Ready for comments from anyone. | | | Introduction
Everyday, the internet society becomes more and more interconnected in a complex web of social networks. Users now have the ability to easily interact with their social networks anytime and anywhere through the use of internet-capable smart phones. As the privacy ramifications of social networks have been covered on this wiki in detail (see Makalkika's paper, Kamel's paper, Heather's paper, and Donna's paper), this paper seeks to explore the possible cognitive ramifications of social networks.
A recent paper by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger raises several interesting questions: In the context of open-source, anarchist production of software, can reliance on social networks actually inhibit the production of innovative code? In general, is the ability of people to connect with others around the globe hurting creative thinking? | |
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- You mean, like the well-known collapse of innovative thinking that followed the invention and adoption of the telephone? Surely it is possible to recognize nonsense when you come across it?
| | | Groupthink
Mayer-Schönberger argues that social networks produce a phenomenon known as groupthink. Groupthink occurs when a social group becomes extremely cohesive and acquires the ability to function together with minimal explanations. A group is especially vulnerable to groupthink once it becomes insulated from outside influences. The negative effect of group think is that members of the group avoid radical views and are naturally discouraged from “outside-the-box” thinking—as this would disrupt the cohesion of the group.
Open-source products like Linux and Firefox can theoretically be modified by anyone. As Eben covered in class, thousands of programmers throughout the world can work to debug, fine tune, and innovate open-source programs. Hopefully, the best solutions find their way to the top. However, sometimes the groupthink mentality brought about by social networks can actually inhibit open-source development. For instance, a product like Firefox might develop quickly at first, but as the group of developers become more interconnected, innovations become more miniscule. Now, most changes to Firefox are extremely minor tweaks. Instead of huge jumps forward, radical individual innovations are either naturally discarded by the group, or not put forward at all because the individual does not want to stir the pot. | |
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- Unlike all other social process growth curves, which show the same exponential growth followed by transition to incremental change? While it would be right to say that most of the changes made to a very large, widely-adopted middleware program like a browser will be bugfixes, security patches, and other "minor tweaks," because large projects require maintenance and maintenance to those who think of programming in terms of feature-creation is "tweaks," it would be wrong to suppose that therefore the "out of the box" project work doesn't get done. Part of it migrates to the API boundary: most of the innovation around Firefox now occurs through add-ons, because the plug-in APIs are mature. The rest is carried on the project's roadmap for major version changes. You also don't take into account the branches of Firefox, like Conkeror, that are meant to explore directions that the mass of users probably don't want to go.
- But you don't get to that point in part because you're thinking of free software as resulting from the groupthink of developers, instead of asking how users contribute to the design of big, mature, end-user products like the browser.
| | | Furthermore, Mayer-Schönberger and others point out that with open-source software, a “lock-in” effect can occur. For instance, when Facebook opened up its API it quickly overtook Myspace, as third party developers became free to develop applications to work with Facebook (Myspace uses a notoriously closed system). Essentially, Facebook got thousands of programmers to develop its site for free; this open-source system worked incredibly well for Facebook. Unfortunately, after years of development using the API, it’s now much harder for Facebook to change its API, because thousands of applications within the Facebook community rely on the old API, and are essentially entrenched or “locked in” to the old way of doing things. Combine the locked in effect with groupthink, and programmers are not likely to invest time in radical innovations, because these innovations would simply not be implemented into the existing system. | |
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- That's in relation to a closed system with some open features, like Facebook, which doesn't actually deliver any software to users, but simply provides a web service. Why didn't you ask about the development path of free software projects that deliver software, are complex and serve a large number of dependencies. How do they fare on this supposed API lock-in problem? The Linux kernel would be a good subject of study, as would something that has been around for a lot longer and has an even more complex dependency environment, such as X. I think such a study would prove that what's being suggested here is the most ridiculous arrant nonsense, because much radical improvement in programs takes place without changing APIs or by extending existing APIs without breaking them, but perhaps I'm wrong.
| | | Positive Developments
Despite the negative implications of groupthink, social networks and social media have positive effects on human cognitive processes and society in general. Social network users are constantly bombarded with a variety of information. People often worry that encountering too much information reduces their ability to retain it. However, a study by Sanda Erdelez shows that this is not the case. In fact, people who accidentally discover or “bump into” random information are generally able to recall that incident (it is not lost in the shuffle). Furthermore, social networks and media provide a limitless supply of unexpected opportunities. When is the last time that you discovered something new and interesting—something you would otherwise likely never have considered—through trivial use of an online social network? It happens to me all of the time. As a result, I learn new things, appreciate ideas from a different point of view, and generally expand my horizons. |
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