Monday, May 18, 2009

Ambient sociability



Well, this is a revision in the light of Twitter feedback on the idea of ambient intimacy (see yesterday). Although one or two liked the idea, others felt that intimacy over-stated the case or over-emphasised the phatic. So, instead I'm going for ambient sociability instead. Ambience seems to catch the sense of lightweight contact that typifies microblogging, and sociability leaves it open to both the level of friendship and the sort of exchanges that are transacted. Ambient sociability can now become the first of the three. On its own its not enough though, because you can achieve this through mobile messaging and even through regular text exchanges. OK, this is theory-building in action and many thanks for the feedback (tweetback?)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your thoughts on Twitter. I'm still not really sure what to make of it, but I'm starting to think it is more phatic than deeply communicative. Does it depend on personality type? I think it would make a very interesting study...