April 2011
31 posts
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Sam Yagan is the co-founder and CEO of OKCupid,...
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A global shift in the social relationships of... →
Hogan, B., Li, N. and Dutton, W.H. (2011) A Global Shift in the Social Relationships of Networked Individuals: Meeting and Dating Online Comes of Age. Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. (full text pdf) This report comes out of the cross-national research Dr Bernie Hogan has been doing at the OII on the Me, My Spouse and the Internet project. Abstract
This paper reports on an analysis...
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Me, My Spouse and the Internet: Meeting, Dating... →
From the Oxford Internet Institute, led by Dr Bernie Hogan.
Abstract:
The project uses survey data from Australian and UK couples to look at the significance and impact of the Internet on intimate relationships, including how people use ICTs to meet each other and maintain relationships, and how ICTs affect their behaviour.
Some very interesting papers here.
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Virtual Attraction: What Rocks Your Boat →
Levine, D. (2000). Virtual Attraction: what rocks your boat. Cyberpsychology & Behavior. 3(4): 565-573.
I first read Levine’s paper in 2003, when I was starting my MSc in Social Psychology. It subsequently became an important part of my thinking about how relationships - romantic and platonic - are formed online. I particularly like the way she maps an existing offline romantic...
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Interview: Prof Aaron Ben-Ze'ev (University of...
Professor Aaron Ben-Ze’ev is the President of the University of Haifa. He was trained as a philosopher, and his research has focussed on the subtleties of emotions. He’s published papers that examine the implications of elements of computer-mediated communication that are different than offline interactions (for example, our penchant for online openness, honesty and self-disclosure),...
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““new to LambdaMOO, enchanted by its fluidity and playfulness but still...”
– Julian Dibbell’s lovely description in his 1996 book My Tiny Life of his infatuation for two of his fellow participants in LambdaMOO, a popular (and well-studied) text-based online community in the mid-1990s
his observations about these infatuations: “it’s very unlikely I would...
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OkTrends →
OkTrends is original research and insights from OkCupid. We’ve compiled our observations and statistics from hundreds of millions of OkCupid user interactions, all to explore the data side of the online dating world.
OkCupid is the biggest free dating site in the U.S.; since we went online in 2004, we’ve collected an enormous amount of data on human interactions. This blog was started...
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"Love over the wires" (Chapter 8: The Victorian...
Tom Standage’s book The Victorian Internet was a revelation when I read it. As a cub academic, one of my colleagues in the psychology department - a woman who’s been doing fascinating research on smart homes - recommended it as an “airport read”. I’m very glad I did (although my book group didn’t find it nearly as fascinating and worthy as I did). It felt like...
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The Online Dating Scam: research project (Whitty &...
When Monica Whitty and I connected for an interview for this blog, she also told me about some ESRC-funded research that she is conducting looking at an online dating scam (pdf).
Practically, the scenario’s pretty standard: scammers extract money from victims. However, the implications reach beyond personal finance; it tells us something about the intensity of the online environment as a...
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Interview: Professor Monica Whitty (University of...
Professor Monica Whitty is a researcher at the University of Leicester with a hefty back catalogue of books, articles and chapters about online love. I contacted her to find out about the changes she’s observed in love - from the development of relationships to infidelity - since the dawn of the Web.
How is the typical trajectory of a relationship different from the development of an...
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The Cyberspace Era: The Best and Worst of Times... →
From Psychology Today, by Prof Aaron Ben-Ze’ev (read more of his online love posts on Psychology Today here).
He argues that the web demands that couples must make more romantic compromises. The connections made online are often accompanied by intense (but short-term) emotional spikes, and the availability of potential (attractive) others provide sufficient temptation.
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“The paradox of the internet is that you have less information about each other...”
– How Well Should You Know Your Online Lover?
From Psychology Today, by Professor Aaron Ben-Ze’ev
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Love Letters: the development of romantic...
Whitty, M. (2007). Love Letters: the development of romantic relationships throughout the ages. In A. Joinson, K. McKenna, T. Postmes & U. Reips (eds). The Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
An excellent overview of the differences and similarities of online and offline courtship by @cyberpsy.
—-
My notes:
Concepts of love
the notion of romantic...
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WatchTopic: Love
“Mawwidge is what bwwings us togevva today,” says Peter Cook’s vicar in The Princess Bride to the unhappy royal couple and their wedding guests. And, yes, royal nuptials inspire this fortnight’s Untangling the Web topic: Love.
This is a biggie: it covers everything from the nature of online relationships to how we know who to trust to the reported rise of...
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'Faith 2.0: Religion and the Internet' podcasts
Audio from yesterday’s event at the RSA.
Religious identity: how should we understand the nature and activities of online faith-based communities? with Heidi Campbell (UTTW interview here)
Building New Communities: How has the internet created space for new religious communities to come together?
Sr Catherine Wybourne’s keynote (UTTW interview here)
Religious Authority and...
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Vatican Bans Confession Via iPhone App →
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Give Me That Online Religion →
Brasher, B.E. (2001). Give me that online religion. Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick.
This is the Google Books link.
From Publisher’s Weekly:
How is cyberspace transforming American religion? Brasher, an independent religion scholar, believes that the Web’s new transcendence spells nothing short of a bona fide Reformation for religious traditions. Just as the printing...
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SpeakingTree →
“India’s first spiritual networking website.”
I spoke with Madhuri Khanduja, who launched the site in November 2010, when I was in Delhi in December. She has some crazy ideas about making spiritual ascension game-like, with badges:
For example Facebook wherein you can connect with your friends, listen to their updates, today you can follow people, understand what is the ...
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The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace (Chapter 6:... →
Wertheim, M. (1999). The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet. W.W. Norton & Company.
This is the full pdf of this chapter from science writer Margaret Wertheim’s look at the almost ecclesiastical way we looked at the web in the years before the boom.
Publisher’s Weekly said:
In this serious and intriguing, if far-fetched, study, Wertheim ...
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Networked Individualism: or, how social media has...
University of Toronto sociologist Barry Wellman has been writing about online community and networked interactions for several decades, observing some of the earliest wired communities, and reporting on the social changes that have resulted. One of the most prominent effects that he describes has been the rise of “networked individualism,” which has a potentially transformative impact...
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iMuslims: Rewiring the House of Islam →
by Gary Bunt (2009): UNC Press.
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Virtually Islamic: Research and News about Islam... →
Gary Bunt’s homepage. Gary will be speaking in the afternoon session at the Faith 2.0 event on Thursday 14 April 2011 at the RSA in London.
Via @julaybib
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Professor Heidi Campbell is an authority on...
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Interview: Dr Paul Teusner (RMIT)
Several years ago at an Internet Research conference in Brisbane, Australia, I met Paul Teusner. We were both in the moderately painful part of our PhD theses - not quite in the final throes, but close enough - and we spent a significant amount of time talking about our respective interests.
Paul was in the midst of his work on Emerging church bloggers in Australia: Prophets, priests and rulers ...
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Interview: Sister Catherine Wybourne (Holy Trinity...
Sister Catherine Wybourne (aka @Digitalnun) is a Benedictine nun and blogger. Trained as a banker but called mid-career to the Catholic faith, she is the Prioress of the Benedictine Nuns of Holy Trinity Monastery, a community in Oxfordshire with an online presence that includes online retreats, blogs and virtual prayers (via the medium of email).
Sr Catherine is an active web advocate for faith...
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Faith 2.0: Religion and the Internet →
Timely (free!) event at the RSA in London all about this week’s topic of Untangling the Web.
Here’s the blurb:
As the winds of political change are channelled through fibre-optic cables and wireless internet waves across North Africa and the Middle East, we are reminded once again of the remarkable paradigm shift ushered in by the internet. This shift has impacted nearly every...
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“Previous research on religion and CMC has focused primarily on Christianity and...”
– the abstract from the introduction to the special issue of religion and computer-mediated communication (including the Web) by Ess, C. (2007). Cross-cultural perspectives on religion and computer-mediated communication. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(3), article 9.
my notes:
*...
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Digital Diplomacy: Understanding Islam through... →
a report for the Carnegie foundation by @josholalia & @ritajking, from February 2009.
The Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project specifically endeavored to consider how the Internet can lead to a greater firsthand understanding of Islam for policymakers, diplomats, and people worldwide, and to explore how the Internet allows people to experience the culture of Islam in a...
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Surge in Satanism sparks rise in demand for... →
“The internet makes it much easier than in the past to find information about Satanism,” said Carlo Climati, a member of the university who specialises in the dangers posed to young people by Satanism.
“In just a few minutes you can contact Satanist groups and research occultism. The conference is not about how to become an exorcist. It’s to share information...
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Topic: Religion
Throughout this series, I’ve argued that socio-cultural artifacts have migrated online. One of the greatest socio-cultural artifacts of human history, of course, religion.
Faiths of all colours and creeds has seeped into the very fabric of the Web. It is practiced, extended and experimented upon. This fortnight, as the Christian holy time of Easter is celebrated by the faithful (no,...
