technoculture314-09

Luke mentioned that online social networks function as sites for "phatic communication." Phatic communication is interaction that has as its fundamental purpose that very interaction, as opposed to the actual purposeful exchange of information. Many people on Facebook and Myspace write messages to the peers in their immediate ‘offline’ friend circle more for the ‘act' of communication rather than for its actual content. There is an emphasis here on the 'exchange value' of communication rather than the 'use' value (actual content) of communication; exchange value in the form of 'social capital' (Putnam) - we write messages because they flaunt to others in our network that we are socially adept (subconsciously). This can explain why we ‘facebook’ friends arbitrary remarks we could just text them or exchange in person – to be 'seen’ communicating is more important than 'what' we are communicating. The whole makeup of Facebook and other social networks construct this – the ‘wall’ and the ‘news feed’ show us who is communicating and to whom. What people are saying in many cases becomes the second priority (Twitter is the epitome of this, majority of tweets having no real communication use-value e.g. what we are eating for breakfast). De Botton's theory of 'status anxiety' is also relevant to all this because news feeds and inter-profile browsing on social networks actively creates hierarchies of social capital we are encouraged to track and aspire to, which are then crystallized into ‘number of friends’ on Facebook, ‘profile views’ on Bebo, and ‘sexiness and personality ratings’ on Orkut. Callum