“T. Erickson and W. A. Kellogg, “Social translucence: an approach to designing systems that support social processes,” ACM Trans. Comput. Interact., vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 59–83, 2000.“
This paper deals with a design theory, “Social Translucence”. Social Translucence can be characterized by Visibility, Awareness, and Accountability. These principles guided the design of a system called Babble, a socially translucent medium for interaction in and conversations.
Accountability is one of the key factors in the translucency of a Social Media Platform. And accountability should not only mean that of users but also that of the Platforms’. Eg: Facebook is as responsible at curbing fake news as much as the user’s themselves. Another consideration that the Social Media Platforms make while making themselves translucent is visibility and ephemerality. Story-based platforms such as Snapchat pictures disappear after seconds of a user opening them. Not only that, but the Sender is notified of attempts to take a screenshot by a given user.
The paper firstly defines the term social translucency. It identifies that visibility, awareness and accountability are the building blocks of social interaction. It also identifies how naturally constraints come into picture and the importance of shared understanding of these constraints. The author then goes on to describe various systems that facilitate these functionality.
The privacy concerns associated with a system like babble is warranted. But could you bring in the notion of privacy in such systems and implement them? One could enable functionality through which one can peruse through another’s post history or go into circles anonymously. But how do you prevent misuse of these features. One could create social pressure by notifying users on who viewed their profile like in the case of Linkedin or have viewed their post history. Given the need for “windows” and not “walls” in digital ecosystems, would require the transportation of data that constitutes as social information along with the actual information. Although such a system is important would such a bandwidth heavy requirement create barriers to users who do not have access to them? Although, internet access and speed is improving, the transplant to a fully digital world will only take place when the universal access to broadband becomes reality.
The paper does not relate to my class project, but it does to my research. Interestingly enough, after a pilot study for my research, several of the participants in the chat said that they would prefer that the chat messenger not show them that someone is typing, especially in a large group! In light of this, it makes me wonder if preferences can change in a matter of 19 years (albeit contextually) and how many such concepts that we have universally agreed upon as truths have newer corollaries and conditions for their validity.