Individual Analysis:

In “Autistic Social Software,” which presents a portion of Danah Boyd’s talk at the 2004 Supernova Conference, Boyd argues that most “sociable media” is designed without consideration of the practices and needs of its intended users.

Boyd discusses how people feel the need to create multiple identities on the Internet in order to protect their privacy and conceal who they are. She criticizes those who encourage people to “fragment their identity,” and believes it results in an online version of multiple personality disorder. Boyd refers to this as “asinine” and asserts that “people aren’t fragmented.”

Only a portion of her larger talk is published here, so it’s possible that I’m taking her words out of context and misrepresenting her beliefs. However, it seems that Boyd is overlooking the advantages of the ability to create different identities using social software. In the anonymous setting, people are able to explore aspects of themselves that they feel they must conceal in the real world. Socially inhibited people can act boldly in virtual communities where they feel they belong; when private User Names are used in learning settings, timid students or students whose opinions differ from those of the mainstream may find a strong voice in class discussions. In cases like these, social software offers the opportunity for people to free themselves from the bounds imposed in real life. Over time, they may find ways to unite their “separate identities” and, in this way, redefine themselves in the “real world.”

Boyd presents three ways to make technology work in the context of peoples’ lives. Briefly, these entail 1) put a technology out there and demand that it fits into peoples’ lives; 2) put it out there and see what about it catches on, and use that information to understand users and how the software fits into their lives; 3) Understand the people and their needs and then develop a technology that complements their practices. Boyd believes that the second and third approaches are proper ways to design social technology. When it comes to using software in learning environments, I argue that only the third approach is acceptable. A formidable obstacle to technology integration is that people feel that technology will waste class time and fail to support relevant knowledge development. As responsible instructional designers, we cannot market social learning software (and we shouldn’t even attempt to develop it) until we have a thorough understanding of the perspectives and lives of target learners, their learning needs, and the learning objectives of their environment. If enough formative research is conducted throughout the planning process, social software that is developed for the classroom will be flexible enough to meet students’ diverse needs and goals. To postpone efforts to learn about users until the technology is already in the classroom seems like a waste of time, resources, and opportunity.

Did anybody interpret her words differently?