Will the Tragedy of the Commons doom social networking?
Is Social Networking a Tragedy of the Commons?
I’m starting to think so. They’re pretty cool. They let you share yourself and your life with your friends. You find out more about them, they find out more about you, you swap cool stuff. Life is good.
And therein lies the problem. Life is so good that everyone is saying, “Gee, let’s start a social networking sites.” So more start. Then the originals come up with cool ideas, plug-ins, upload-your-address-books, etc. so everyone will stay on those original sites. They make it really easy for all their members to invite still more members.
The Commons here is any given member’s free time to spend doing social networking. At this point, I’m on Friendster, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and some “friends” have uploaded my name to Plaxo and Cardscan, who are now clamoring for attention.
The problem is that I enjoy social networking, but six sites? Give me a break. I’m lucky to have 10 minutes a day for these sites. Unlike many of my 21st century counterparts, I like doing things in the real world(*), which limits my online time.
Sadly, I’m now at the point where I ignore many new friend requests. I ignore it when my friends send me a “vampire bite” or electronically “chest thump” me. It would be fun to play, but there’s just too much coming at once. Picking and choosing is a necessity.
As more and more players decide that building community is the way to go, people will either ignore new communities or will have to devote less and less time to more and more communities … thus making those communities more shallow and less satisfying.
Where will it end? I’m curious to find out. My guess is that over time, we’ll have a couple of major social networking sites. The smaller sites will die off, and a few specialized communities will stick around. But which will vanish and which will survive? If you’re smart enough to figure that one out, give me a clue so I can buy stock today.
(*) How ironic is this for a kid whose social life was exclusively online until age 16, in an era when no one was online, so I was endlessly teased about it.
[...] also think social networking sites are a Tragedy of the Commons. I’m not yet completely sure, though. Time will [...]
November 10th, 2007 at 12:24 pmI’m with you Stever. There is so much vying for our attention, it’s just not possible to give all of my attention to every social networking site.
That said, I’m not sure that it’s a bad thing to have many different social networking opportunities. It’s not so much different in the offline world, as far as networking groups are concerned. It seems that everywhere I turn another one is popping up in my community and someone’s banging down my door to get me to join!
Great post, Stever. Thanks.
November 15th, 2007 at 12:20 amBy the way, Stever, I don’t know how you do all the things you do and still have time to eat and sleep, let alone spend time social networking!
You’re amazing.
November 15th, 2007 at 12:22 amHi, Tshombe. I don’t really know how I do all the things I do and still have time to eat and sleep. I even have time to relax and socialize, somehow. As I figure it out, listen for it on my new podcast (http://getitdone.quickanddirtytips.com).
November 15th, 2007 at 12:29 amHi Stever,
I see this as more of a natural evolution of things, a survival of the fittest, rather than a Tragedy of the Commons.
Tragedy of the Commons refers to a situation where there is a positive benefit to individuals while the negative effect is spread amongst many. So if individuals receive a benefit of +1.0, the price is spread across and paid by many, say, -.10 per person. Plus there is a time delay and at first, the damage isn’t noticed. Then one day it hits everyone and reduces the value of the benefit. The interests of the individual clash with those of the community.
With social networking sites, the interests of the individual DO tend coincide with the interests of the community. The greater the value to each individual, the greater the value to the community. So the social networking sites that provide the greatest benefit to the most people will survive, like any other product or service category.
Furthermore, while Tragedy of the Commons refers to a conflict over resources, the scarce resource you refer to here is time. But time is not a scarce resource in the way that grass is on a prairie – the original analogy used by Garrett Hardin. We all have the same amount of time – and I cannot choose to take only 23 hours today so that you may have 25. We allocate our time according to where we perceive it will give us the greatest benefit. And if we are interested in social networking, over time, we will gravitate to those sites that give us the greatest return for our time spent.
Regards,
November 19th, 2007 at 6:11 amDov Gordon