Thursday, April 24, 2008

What "Words" Reveal About Facebook

I recently used a Facebook application called Lexicon, although, for some reason I can't find it anymore. As far as Facebook applications go, this one was truly educational. Sort of sociological.

What it lets you do is see exactly when and how frequently certain words (one or two at a time) are used on "wall" posts. [NOTE: I mistakenly wrote that it searched the words used in the captions on photos; that was before I found the application again.] The results go back everyday to last September and are displayed on a horizontal line graph.

Here's what I found out in my brief study:

Going with typical Facebook vernacular, I searched the term "sooo cute" and was at first surprised when I saw a big spike on November 1st. I remained puzzled until I realized that that's the day after Halloween, the day most people of the Facebook generation do their sexiest dressing. Subsequent searches for similarly slangy compliments revealed the same consistent post-Halloween spike.

The word "hammered" had its big spike on January 1st and 2nd, and you can guess why. Less exciting, and just as obvious, were the December and April spikes for "exam".

Besides specific words, though, there were also some general patterns.

No matter what word I searched (i.e.: idiosyncrasy, book, bitch) there was always a lull at Christmas time, except, of course, for the word "Christmas". The reason is obvious enough: people are actually spending time with other people in the flesh, instead on the screen.

Also, no matter what word I searched the line graph always showed the same exact wave shape with the exact same set of equally spaced dips. When I zoomed it I saw that the dips fell consistently and precisely on the weekends, and that the line on the graph always rose again on the Monday and Tuesday. So, like with Christmas, on weekends people spend time together in the flesh, take lots of pictures and then upload them and add captions after the weekend. It didn't matter what the word was, the pattern was always the same.

So what does this teach us about "social networking"? Well, what we already knew: that when people are actually socializing they're NOT on Facebook, and when people ARE on Facebook, they're not socializing.

I'm still not convinced that the Internet, for all its potential, "brings people together", as most people claim it does. The real strength of the web is as a commercial tool, that is, to divide people up, let them withdraw into their familiar, narrow set of specific personal interests, desires and fetishes, and away from the world of flesh and dirt where you have to confront the unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

Facebook's Lexicon application shows that, as usual, words reveal more than what they merely say.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Matt Hogan: As seen on The Internet

Here are all my articles that have so far appeared on the web. The good, the bad, and the easily refutable:

From "The Republic of East Vancouver":

A piece about Science and Religion in which I unfortunately refer to economics as a science. Not because I think it is an exact science, but because some people treat it as though it were.

Here's a review of David Cayley's book, where he interviews Ivan Illich, the ex-communicated priest who believed that Western Civilization is fundamentally a perversion of the New Testament.

This article is still, probably, what I consider my best work. It's about how corporations are not, will not, and should not become "ethical" and/or "creative". They're meant to make money, and they should do just that, within reason (that is, regulation).

Here's my plug for Canadian writer Brian Fawcett, and his book Virtual Clearcut: Or, The Way Things Are In My Hometown.

I got the idea for this piece about Democracy and Education while riding the bus to school. See why.

And I got the idea for this article about Remembrance Day while taking a leak in a urinal. Curious?

Here's my most counterintuitive piece yet, in which I argue that apathy is a natural and noble political stance, given the state of today's politics (and activism).

For my college paper, "The Capilano Courier":

Since their website only went back up recently, all I have are these two article from the Spring 2008 term. One is about the NGO Brain Drain (a term I proudly coined), and the other is about my experience with SFU's Undergraduate Semester in Dialogue, about which I'll post a follow-up blog.

However, the University of Manitoba's student paper, The Manitoban, and the University of Lethbridge picked up an article of mine on the College-University Press (CUP) wire, about wartime rhetoric and governmental Orwellian Newspeak.

And for the Simon Fraser University paper, "The Peak":

My first article for a university paper, and it was a diss of student journalism. It elicited this response from someone who felt they needed to come to the defense of the idea of political revolution, which I had discounted as a sensible option in the initial article. So I responded with this article, explaining in more detail my distaste for the romantic and currently appealing, anti-establishment fad of revolution.

Here's a piece comparing John Ralston Saul and Brian Fawcett, two of my favorite (and two of Canada's most important) writers.

This is my rant about students not talking enough in class, and about classroom dynamics in general.

And here's my polemic against the assumption that art is mostly about self-expression.

Well, I think that's it. Please send thoughts, threats and refutations my way.

Your humble servant,
Matthew William Hogan

Baby's first Blog

Hey Friends,

Despite my snobbish reluctance, laziness, and e-igonorance, I've started a blog.

My plan here is to put up all the stuff that won't get publised elsewhere. But that makes it sound as though I'm a rebel writer, thinking and writing stuff that's too extreme for The Man. This isn't the case. This blog is the stuff that I simply can't (and probably shouldn't) get published elsewhere. But we'll see.

I'll be talking about everything from politics to reality TV, and from books to what happened to me that day on the street. I said "On Everything", and I meant it.

I'll also try to make the entries short, sweet, and, hopefully, entertaining. And your feedback, kind blog-reader, will be more than appreciated.

Your humble servant,
Matthew William Hogan