LJ meta

[cellio]

A friend asked me about LJ last night. She commented that she's missing out on the grapevine by not reading it.

In thinking about it, though, I don't think that's really true. She said, for instance, that she wouldn't have known about the power surge taking out a bunch of our electronics if she hadn't been talking to an LJ friend, but that's not true. It's just that I hadn't seen her since then; I would have told her tonight if it hasn't come up otherwise, but this wasn't important enough to send email about.

Email is push technology. It's not as "push" as a phone call, but it's much more active than posting in an LJ, which is "pull". If you want to read it you do; if you don't; you don't have to. With email (I mean the personal sort, not mailing lists and spam), there is an expectation of a reply and perhaps a dialogue. Email says "you should read this"; LJ posts say "feel free to read this". It's a big difference.

There are some things that I'm posting on LJ that would have otherwise rated email. Some of my religious stuff would have gone out to select people in email (though written differently). Some of it still does, actually. I definitely would have sent out email to selected friends with the "where should I buy a computer?" question. There are probably others. The last joke I posted here I also sent via email to some people.

I do sometimes wish that my LJ friends wouldn't say "I saw that in your LJ" in front of non-LJ friends, because it probably makes them feel excluded. Oddly, saying "I saw your post on rec.arts.comics about X" doesn't cause quite the same reaction; I wonder if it's just that LJ doesn't have the penetration that Usenet has -- or had back when such a statement from me would have actually been accurate.

Comments

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm confused.... except for your protected entries, doesn't your friend have the option of reading your journal?

No one should feel excluded because they've chosen not to include themselves in a forum that would make them feel like part of the "inner circle."

[cellio]

I think I can see how she would have that impression, though I don't think she's really being excluded. As you say, she can read almost everything if she likes, and I do see her and chat with her on a regular basis.

But on the other hand, it can look sort of like someone saying "sure, you can continue to schmooze with me, but I've decided to hang out at this pub across town so you'll have to come to me there". The option is there but the bar is higher. If I were really sharing stuff only via LJ I would worry about this, but even though that's not the case I can see how one can get that impression. And impressions matter more than reality sometimes in interpersonal relationships.

This same person tends to chat with folks via email, and I'm sure I miss a lot of stuff that way (not too long ago she said she didn't forward me the fluffy stuff that goes around because she thought I wouldn't be interested), but I figure she'll still share the things that ought to be shared. The trick is for her to see that LJ really isn't that different.

She asked for an invite code last night (which I gave her), so we'll see what happens next.

[fiannaharpar.livejournal.com]

Now that you put it that way.....

I was thinking about the difference between my main communications modes: email, AIM, LJ, phone, and grapevine.

It doesn't seem to upset people when you hear things via email if they don't have it or they aren't on the list.

It doesn't seem to upset people when you hear things via phone.

It doesn't seem to upset people when you hear things via grapevine, if the data is correct.

When you comment that you "see" someone every day on AIM, that seems to kind of get to some people. Personally, I love the fact that AIM lets me keep in touch with lordandrei in LA and revlainiep in Chicago and rani23 in Washington County. But you also see what those people have in common, they are also on LJ. The real time conversation that is available by AIM makes a huge difference in my relationships with these people. It seems to give breadth to the "depth" offered by LiveJournal.

I also see what you mean, and I have a good idea of who you're talking about, and when that hit me I realised that I don't think that i'd be entirely comfortable with them being on LJ and being able to read some of my posts. It hadn't really struck me what difference there was in the minds of other people between hearing something via email and hearing something via LJ.

Hmmmmm, more stuff to think about.

[cellio]

It doesn't seem to upset people when you hear things via email if they don't have it or they aren't on the list.

On the other hand, 10 years ago it did and 20 years ago it definitely did. AOL really did change people's views of email -- they created lots of socialization problems on the net, but they did make email a routine concept for Joe Average. Before that I was accused of being "elitist" often enough that I knew it wasn't just one or two people with axes to grind.

Email was special and now is not. Then the web was special (1994 was very different from today) and now it's not -- even though the web, unlike email, really was accessible, technically, to everyone from the beginning. (All you had to do was download a client, but most people didn't.) Ditto chat rooms, I think, though I never got into that so it's hard for me to say. Eventually online journals will be ordinary, but they aren't yet.

[goljerp]

the web, unlike email, really was accessible, technically, to everyone from the beginning.

Well, in both cases there was a fairly high barrier: you needed to have a computer and a modem and know what to do with them. Heck, I was at a university, had used Gopher a few times, and my advisor told me "hey, there's this cool thing called Mosaic I loaded onto the workstation..." and it still took me at least 6 months to really try it out. Of course, I haven't stopped using it since then :-)

[cellio]

Well, in both cases there was a fairly high barrier: you needed to have a computer and a modem and know what to do with them.

Yes. But by the time the web hit, computers and modems had sufficient penetration that email was not unusual, yet the web was still obscure even though it had similar technical requirements. The difference, I think, is that email had been around for a while and the web was new. So maybe in several more years online journals will be considered common and ordinary, the way the web is now.

[beegle.livejournal.com]

I do sometimes wish that my LJ friends wouldn't say "I saw that in your LJ" in front of non-LJ friends, because it probably makes them feel excluded. Oddly, saying "I saw your post on rec.arts.comics about X" doesn't cause quite the same reaction

I think the difference is that a usenet post is a public declaration: "Hey world, here's what I think!" LJ is a more private thing. It's more of a "Dear Diary, other people are watching"

[geekosaur]

I do sometimes wish that my LJ friends wouldn't say "I saw that in your LJ" in front of non-LJ friends

Hm, did I trigger that one? I recall mentioning one of my own LJ posts but not making reference to yours; I considered it and then decided not, for much the reasons you state, and felt a little funny referring to my own. (And stuttering a bit over it. sigh)

I've been uncertain about LJ as a communication channel; I tend to consider non-restricted posts as "public" (LJ as the latest incarnation of the soapbox) but am aware that not everyone is aware of it, not everyone knows who uses it, or what their names are --- which does lend a certain "elitist" feel to it. Confusing.

[cellio]

Hm, did I trigger that one?

I don't think so. It wasn't a targetted comment; I was describing a trend I've seen from a number of sources over time, not any one incident.

I think you have LJ pegged about right. Anything posted here is not a secret. Restricted posts are similar to people telling you things in private, with the caveat that you have to pay more attention on LJ because when someone takes you aside to tell you a secret, it's really really obvious that it wasn't a public occurrence -- but you might not notice the little lock symbol if you're skimming.

I think of LJ as one of several intersecting social groups. Choir members don't have context for my synagogue social group, the D&D crowd doesn't have context for my coworker group, the Claritech gang doesn't have context for the SCA gang, and so on. Treat LJ as another one of these groups and I think all will work out. It's not that I don't talk about the SCA with the Claritech folks, for instance, but that I know I have to provide some explanations up front. Same with LJ.

[fiannaharpar.livejournal.com]

Hey, don't you steel my thunder, I was busily accepting blame for this one already :-)

[geekosaur]

Dear, you're not the only one who specializes in guilt-tripping themselves. :/

[goljerp]

The only reason I'm not feeling guilty is 'cause I haven't met Monica in person yet...

[goljerp]

As usual, an interesting and thoughtful entry.

Email says "you should read this"; LJ posts say "feel free to read this". It's a big difference.

Yes! I often feel guilty when I don't respond to an E-mail, but what if there isn't anything that I really have to add? The New York Times had a piece on this a few Thursdays ago (titled "The long goodbye", I think) about how some E-mail conversations just go on and on... awkardly. Of course, there's the temptation to do the same thing in LJ, partly to get in the last word, and partly just to be friendly, etc.

I send out two types of E-mail. Every once in a while, I get the urge to write a mass mailing (called, unsurprisingly, "The Goljerp Gazette"). This goes out to about 35 people or so, and I usually try to make it funny, interesting, and a spark for more personal E-mail (which, of course, is the second type). I actually put a fair bit of effort into the Gazettes, and their frequency seems to have some sort of inverse relationship with how stressed I am. (I wrote lots of them in Grad school).

On the other hand, I feel more free to sort of do stream-of-consciousness stuff with LJ... although it is annoying that my ISP tends to disconnect me when I'm writing a particularly long entry (because I'm not actively using the connection) (yes, I still have just a modem).

[cellio]

Gazettes: I've done that too. (I especially did something like that during the transition to Judaism. I had a small group of friends and advisors who were interested in all the details. I may have been the first person to give my rabbi too much to read; he usually has to pester people to keep journals. :-) )

Client problems: have you considered using a text editor to compose your entries? You can then just paste them into the LJ form, and if the connection drops yo haven't lost anything.

[goljerp]

Client problems: have you considered using a text editor to compose your entries? You can then just paste them into the LJ form, and if the connection drops you haven't lost anything.

My problem isn't losing entries; it's that after I've spent 15 minutes working on an entry, I'm annoyed when I can't post it, but have to dial up again just to send it off. Also, while I can afford the extra 10.3 cents Verizon will charge me, but I hate the idea of giving them more money than I absolutely have to...