208B: Blog Assignment 4
For this assignment I decided to browse http://personals.nerve.com/.
How do these services support/fail to support dating and/or friendship?
Nerve definitely seems configured to support dating... and maybe friendship. Each little people-profile has a ton of information (actuall, too much information, I think) about things that people consider important when looking for someone to date. In the end though, I think all of these types of sites are oriented mainly towards two different types of users: voyeurs and swingers. That is, I can imagine people surf these sites briefly now and then to see who is new that shows up in the listings (the voyeur). As well, I can imagine the heavy users of these sites that actually make face-to-face connections don't do so for the more traditional kinds of relationships... probably mostly for casual sex and something to do with their boring-as-hell evenings.
However, I do know of quite a few people that have gone into one of these sites determined to find someone special... and they have. I wonder how this type of user is facilitated... that is one who has a lot of activity right after registration and then systematically dates a list of people they find looking for Mr./Ms. Perfect.
Analyze the service with particular attention to the analysis of �profiles� using Goffman�s concept of the presentation of self. How well does this analysis derived from face- to-face encounters apply to online encounters? Can it be modified, or are these fundamentally different kinds of encounters?
I really thinkt that these are fundamentally different types of encounters... it's amazing how much a face-to-face interaction can change what "self" the person on the other side of the equation is either articulating (on-line) or presenting (face-to-face). It's the small details that are lost... while most of the profile data is big things or "show-stoppers" (like sexual orientation). For example, I was just talking to someone who dated another person on-line who found their date to have a "really annoying" way of talking despite seeming so stellar on paper.
One thing that would be interesting�but nearly impossible like so much interesting stuff�would be to have some sort of "Veracity Indicator". I'm not sure how such a thing would work but the idea would be: take the articulated version of ones identity and figure out how much that matches other people's estimations of this person's identity. It could also be called a bullshit-o-meter... as the more you fudged your profile, the higher the bullshit meter would be.
Analyze the service considering the issue of deception and identity.
I guess I did a little bit of that in the last point... the gist is that most people put forth only what they want to put forth and even when they do admit to a flaw, it's likely to be more of badge of honor to them or something they take pride in.
The really interesting material is the small things... the things that you don't talk about with people to their face, or that you don't talk about even with people that know the person out of fear that it might get back to them and hurt their feelings or put you in an awkward social position. Some of this kind of detail is either very sensitive to most people or they don't realize it. But they, just as easily as the big stuff, can be "show-stoppers".
For example, I'll use myself: One thing I've recently realized about myself that people don't tell me is that I tend to talk down to people. That is, when I know something well or think I know something well, I can be quite patronizing. I don't like this... I don't even notice it! If you know me and have read this far, call me on it!
Posted by joebeone at Abril 30, 2004 01:33 PM | TrackBack