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."

[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.

[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.

[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).