When I asked my Italian flatmate if she used Facebook a few months ago, she replied with a resounding “NO!!!“, and breathlessly continued to explain that she had never had so much pressure to sign up for something in her entire life. You would have thought I had asked her to do something awful. It was clear to me that she had huge barriers against socialising online, and perhaps also the idea of meeting people online. This she pointed out, I think, because I had met my other flatmate online. (Both flatmates, two months later, are now on Facebook.)

It occurred to me that it’s become socially acceptable to talk about Facebook and internet-socialising whilst actually socialising in the ‘real’ world. Chatting online, when the internet was first becoming mainstream and excitement about dot coms was brewing, was largely considered geeky or nerdy. It definitely wasn’t cool to talk about it with your friends, since it was unlikely you’d be mixing with them. There was a taboo about using your real name online. I think there was a lot of actual fear about who might be “out there” if you can’t see them, or detect information about them by how they look, speak, and act: people (and dogs) are invisible. I’ve seen a trend towards using real names instead of ‘handles’: the fear over revealing your identity online has dissipated. There is generally a greater embrace of the medium to communicate with your friends, and other people, online.

I would argue that Facebook is the first significant instance where socialising online has become totally mainstream and normalized. I would also argue that it has made a huge effort, in its core design, to bring synthesis to the online/offline worlds. Here are some of my thoughts.

Facebook’s appeal to offline socialisers (or “real people”): clear walls and restrictions
Facebook is designed in a way that restricts itself to people we already know. It has an emphasis on importing existing contacts. This restriction is built deep into its core, in its division of networks that are geographical, work-based, school-based, college-based.

As a point of contrast, Myspace leaves us open to the unorganized, chaotic web-without-walls. We can find people we know, sure. But there are also few barriers and few restrictions.

A social network is defined by its restrictions. It is defined by what it doesn’t allow, and who it doesn’t invite. It can do this in subtle ways too: it was pointed out to me that Virb, for example, is clearly trying to attract a certain kind of audience, via its design and copy.

Having the quality of being a “walled garden” has been cited as one of the 5 reasons social networks fail
“They do not want to share information with others for fear that it will dilute their power as THE central hub for all relationships.” — Tristan Louis, the interim CTO for Boo.com.

I think having the quality of walls is essential for the success of social networks.
Giving structure to the unchartered, massive, growing internet is something people are looking for. People like simplicity, and we look for order and pattern in all our experiences. Social networks are a way of making sense of the internet. Walls give structure — and Facebook gives people a clear system for finding other people, and letting people into your network.

Friends?
One of the interesting questions Tristan Louis raises is how do we define, in words, the nature of our relationships? “Relationships are not binary. It’s not either someone is my friend or not.” (Louis).

Easy enough on to define on LinkedIn: people added to your network are professional contacts. But what about the word friend? The word doesn’t seem to fit the contacts I have on my Facebook friend list: it encompasses many different ‘categories’ of people in my life. The word ‘friend’ no longer seems to fit. Relationships don’t exist in language, and they are not really defined successfully in language. Human relationships are amorphous, always changing, things (are they really “things” — tangible?). The word ‘contact’ doesn’t satisfy totally either.

Offline, human relationships are maintained by contact and communication. They need constant maintenance. (Virginia Woolf: “I have lost friends, some by death, others through sheer inability to cross the street.”)

What’s the online equivalent of failing to cross the street? And what happens when a friendship or a relationship breaks down? A contact presence can’t simply fade naturally through lack of communication. Relationships offline are defined immaterially by contact and communication; relationships online are defined materially by presence on your contact list, whether or not you are actually in contact.

Deletion of a contact is abrupt and difficult to reverse politely. You can’t bump into a deleted contact in the supermarket and initiate a conversation to respark the friendship. A deleted contact is more like a divorce: final and material; remarriage is rare.

Using a different model for online interaction
Perhaps because the way we socialise offline is governed by neurosis, niceties, and the platitudes of social oil, we can’t translate it well online. Different models for interaction should be considered, given the context.

This idea is particularly relevant to flirting, which is something else I’ve been thinking about, provoked by a friend’s suggestion.

It was pointed out to me that real-life flirting, in a bar, for example, is based on the external: physical looks. But often physical looks are overruled further into the dating process as you gain a sense of someone’s character, which may wither attraction. Online flirting circumvents most physical attraction, despite the fact we may have photographic proof that we are attractive human beings in the real world, as we are somewhat disembodied personalities.

It was pointed out to me that some things can’t be faked in a virtual social setting: “just like a rather frumpy looking person can’t pretend to be a fashion model in the real world, one can’t really pretend they have a great “sense of humour” when they meet somebody online”. The models for dating sites and flirting ‘mechanisms’ are faulty, then, because the way we interact online is fundamentally different from offline.