The Coevolution of LANGUAGE & SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES Source: flickr.com/photos/nathanf Roland Smart Vice President of Social and Community Marketing Oracle @rsmartly SXSW - March 9, 2014
This presentation explores the hypothesis that language and social technology are in a coevolutionary state. The narrative cites arguments from Evolutionary Linguistics and showcases examples of how social technology is changing the way we communicate.
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1. The Coevolution of LANGUAGE & SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES
Source: flickr.com/photos/nathanf Roland Smart Vice President of
Social and Community Marketing Oracle @rsmartly SXSW - March 9,
2014
2. Father, Designer, Social Technologist, B2B/B2C Marketer,
Life Hacker, Thinker, Entrepreneur, Maker, Blogger, Manager,
Innovator, Rock Climber, Mountain Biker, Aspiring Changemaker
@Oracle
3. Language is not, as we are led to suppose by the dictionary,
the invention of academicians or philologists. Rather, it has been
evolved through time...by peasants, by fishermen, by hunters, by
riders. Jorge Luis Borges and by technologists and technology
users.
4. MEMES: the basic unit of change a word, phrase, idea, style,
symbol, idiom, or behavior that spreads from person to person
within a culture. #SocialCreole Source:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjcockell/4398929160
5. The research tools: EVOLUTIONARY LINGUISTICS and
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
6. 1 2 3 Social technology is a primary driver of language
evolution. As social technology augments language, it becomes part
of the language. As language and social technology coevolve expect
more intermediation.
7. COEVOLUTION: the influence of closely associated species on
each other in their evolution
8. Mobile is breaking down geographic barriers. Source:
Statista and StatCounter
9. Social applications are breaking down cognitive
barriers
10. as well as basic translation barriers.
11. Even if the numbers of people who speak a language are
growing numerically, their portion of the overall landscape of
languages that their language occupies is being compressed by the
larger languages growing even faster than they are. -David Harmon,
Terralingua Source: National Geographic
12. Even if the numbers of people who speak a language are
growing numerically, their portion of the overall landscape of
languages that their language occupies is being compressed by the
larger languages growing even faster than they are. -David Harmon,
Terralingua Source: National Geographic
13. Source: MIT Technology Review and Semiocast
14. For the most part, users arent learning how to use these
technologies from school/parents/mentors Source:
flickr.com/photos/departmentofed/9607170927
15. 77%of all U.S. college students use Snapchat every day.
instead, they rely on peer exchanges and intuitive design. Source;
Sumpto
16. GENE MEME LOW Rate of Inheritance HIGH Rate of
Inheritance
17. a more accurate explanation: THE DESIGN OF SOCIAL
TECHNOLOGIES + THE AFFORDANCES OF THESE DESIGNS are powerful
behavioral agents
18. Amount of time required to publish has decreased
substantially Amount of data shared has increased substantially
Feedback loops are much shorter, with the net result being more
total interactions
19. Consider the affordances and limitations of email Source:
flickr.com/photos/restlessglobetrotter
20. The average WhatsApp user (there are 450 million of them)
sends and receives 3,534messages each month. Source Statista
21. To send a message, just blink an eye and talk: Sources:
fiickr/photos/gmprod and dakirby309.deviantart.com Hi Allison - Im
front row at the concert! Want me to send a live stream to your big
screen right now?
22. Actually, you can talk voicelessly if you want. Source:
Dominic Hart, NASA
23. Read 1,000 WPM. Dont worry about content overload. Spritz:
Focused on text streaming technology.
24. 2 As social technology augments language, it becomes part
of the language.
25. In social situations where adults communicated using a
pidgin, children who had only the pidgin as input transformed it
into a creolea full language with all of the properties of
languages which have developed through normal language evolution.
Stephen Pinker, The Language Instinct Turning Pidgins into Creoles
Source: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Slaunger
26. MEME: SYMBOLS Nov. 2, 2006: The first @ conversation on
Twitter May 30, 2007: Twitter officially launches an @ feature,
complete with user Replies pages Source:
qz.com/135149/the-first-ever-hashtag-reply-and-retweet-as-twitter-users-invented-them
27. MEME: SYMBOLS Aug. 23, 2007: Chris Messina proposes the #
symbol to organize tweets for groups; Twitter executives originally
deem the idea too nerdy July 2, 2009: Twitter officially launches #
feature; Facebook and G+ follow suit Source:
qz.com/135149/the-first-ever-hashtag-reply-and-retweet-as-twitter-users-invented-them
28. MEME: IDIOMS & SLANG tl;dr ELI5 FTFY ITT Have an upboat
_
29. MEME: NORMS & BEHAVIORS Who is @neiltyson?
Astrophysicist. Am Museum of Natural History: Author: Space
Chronicles, Pluto Files, Inexplicable Universe [Video], Host:
StarTalk Radio. Who is @adamsavage? I play a scientist on TV.
Obsessive maker of things. Host of Mythbusters on the Discovery
Channel.
30. These are all examples of foreground content; social
technologies have added these symbols, words, norms, and behaviors
to our everyday languages. But what else is there?
32. Explicit Implicit Foreground Content Social Messages + Some
Metadata (e.g., Hashtags) Insights (e.g., segmentation/affiliation,
bias, sentiment) Background Content Metadata (e.g.,
Location/Environmental/Healt h Data) Source:
flickr.com/photos/lizjones
33. 3 As language and social technology coevolve expect more
intermediation.
34. Analyzing (Supposed) Randomness
35. Source:John Bryden, Sebastian Funk, and Vincent Jansen and
theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/mar/15/twitter-users-tribes-language-analysis-tweets
The research on Twitter word usage throws up a pattern of behavior
that seems to contradict the commonly held belief that users simply
want to share everything with everyone. In fact, the findings point
to a more precise use of social media where users frequently
include keywords in their tweets so that they engage more
effectively with other members of their community or tribe. -Jason
Rodrigues, The Guardian
36. Digital Body Language - Primary Interests - Primary
Dislikes - Purchase Intent - Brand Sentiment - Income Level -
Social Popularity - Intent to Switch - Susceptibility to Material
Incentives - Habits Based on Hidden Data
37. Andrew Pole had just started working as a statistician for
Target in 2002, when two colleagues from the marketing department
stopped by his desk to ask an odd question: If we wanted to figure
out if a customer is pregnant, even if she didnt want us to know,
can you do that?
39. Interpreting Social Data to Help Us Strengthen Our
Relationships
40. Providing Helpful Relationship Reminders When the
relationship starts ("day 0"), posts begin to decrease. We observe
a peak of 1.67 posts per day 12 days before the relationship
begins, and a lowest point of 1.53 posts per day 85 days into the
relationship. Presumably, couples decide to spend more time
together, courtship is off, and online interactions give way to
more interactions in the physical world. Source:
facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-science/the-formation-of-love/10152064609253859
41. What will you build? How will you change the languages of
social technologies? The new media have caught on for a reason.
Knowledge is increasing exponentially; human brainpower and waking
hours are not. Fortunately, the Internet and information
technologies are helping us manage, search, and retrieve our
collective intellectual output at different scales, from Twitter
and previews to e-books and online encyclopedias. Far from making
us stupid, these technologies are the only things that will keep us
smart. -Stephen Pinker Thank you! @rsmartly
