When in Rome
Author Ashley Peterson
entered on 07/23/2008
In my last blog post I said that the best way to understand how to perform Social Media Optimization was to use the social media the way your audience does. That is very vague advice. I turn to social science as a new way to learn how to explore and use social media.
The authority in understanding technology from a social science perspective is Sherry Turkle. Sherry Turkle arrived at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) in 1977 as a professor in the program for Science, Technology and Society. Turkle was, “struck by the intensity of the relationships my students had with technology. I had never thought much about computers as anything more than information processors.” From this spark of understanding Turkle wrote two celebrated books, edited three books and authored many popular press articles on the subject of the relationship between humans and computers. Her work earned her the title of “Margaret Mead in Cyberspace.”
In her first book about technology, The Second Self, Turkle probes the relationships between people and machines. She calls the computer an “evocative object,” or an object to think with. Objects such as these carry ideas and ways of seeing the world.
Turkle says humans use the computer to, “Search for a link between who we are and what we have made, between who we are and what we might create, between who we are and what, through our intimacy with our own creations, we might become.” The way we use technology reveals intimate facts about ourselves.
During her years at MIT, Turkle has seen computers’ usage change from tool-like to musical instruments. In her second book, Life on the Screen, she says computer don’t just change individuals; they change the way individuals interact with society. Turkle notes this paradox invokes both physical isolation and intense interaction with other people. She also observes that people use computers in ways that complement their personalities.
Although Turkle has not written about blogs and other social media, her method to understand and utilize blogs as your audience does still applies. Social media are more than applications people use. Social media sustain relationships and carry emotions. Each tweet is a wisp of the intimate self and each blog entry has social roots.
Look at social media interactions as intimate disclosures and try to understand the emotional connection between the person and the application. That connection is your key to becoming Roman.
|