The Internet and Social Relationships

History

created by Jack Dorsey in march 2006

Older adults on their first networking site

Originally created for use by businesses

Currently- 175 million users, 65 million tweets, 800,000

search queries/day

Accessed online, through

compatible phones, or SMS

(short message service)

now multilingual and available

worldwide

What is twitter?

Privately run online social networking and “micro-

blogging” service

140 character limit “tweets”

Use

For brief instant updates on thoughts and activities

“follow” people, and others can follow you

follow companies or groups, like Facebook fan pages

Features

hashtags (words or phrases prefixed with a #) allow

searches

the letter d followed by a username allows private

messages

@ sign followed by a username mentions or replies to

others

“twitter lists”- allows users to follow/mention/reply to

multiple people

Features

Type of Social Network

Asymmetric or one way relationship

Leads to large input by few

More flexible

Online Network Relationships

On average, people follow less than 100 people

Asymmetric follow means people have less back and

forth contact

Small number of “friends” with two way contact-

average of 13

Likely to have these relationships with real-life friends

Small, well connected groups

Online Network Relationships

More followers means more activity and vice versa, up

to a point

10% produce 90% activity

Goes along with real- life interactions

Impact on Professional

Relationships

Backchannels

Live feed tweets that a presenter utilizes

Direct feedback as it’s happening

Can be positive for focus,

or negative for distraction

Positive Impact on Real Life

Relationships

Shield of internet may facilitate relationships outside of

the internet

May help socially awkward keep up with peers, like a

“leveling” of the social playing field

Facilitates learning of how people behave and interact

Quick communication may increase social relationships

with others

Keeps people in touch when they cannot physically see

each other

Positive Impacts on Real Life

Relationships

Can offer insight to different cultures

May become familiar with a certain area of choice

quickly by reading discussions on topics

Lack of face to face content means appearance matters

less, and what they have to say matters more

Negative Impacts on Real Life

Relationships

Can hurt work relationships with inappropriate

comments

Less social life outside of online

Easy to see what other people are doing without

actually making contact

Lose verbal and non verbal skills of communication in

real-world interactions

Overall Effects

No true answer to whether it is positive or negative

Can just as easily get lost in it as use it to improve your

social life

May have no effects

Depends on how you use it