With all these social networks springing to life on the Internet, some interesting observations are emerging about the way people interact in a community. For example, one short paper I recently read postulates that in RL (real life) we do not always act and present ourselves equally to all the various people we know. We project facets of our self, based on some decision process, but really we see all these people as being one network. Another, slightly more "new age-y" explanation postulates we are all suffering with fragmented personalities. I prefer facets to fragments. Facets allow us to reach out to a more diverse network of relationships, because we can change in a safe manner. Fragments imply that we need to be put back together, to re-attain some imagined wholeness of the past or some guru's ideal. At best, defragmenting would produce a boring person, at worse someone rigid and intolerant.

On the Internet, we see many networks being created, each forcing us to express ourselves in a singular fashion. This is much closer to the Fragmented view, where each social network is equivalent to having another personality. A poor approach in my view. How can explicit and competing social network software providers support a single self and multiple facets?

So far, the Internet has supported facets to some extent through anonymity. (My favorite people, the music industry layers, would like to put an end to that with a Digital ID for all people using the Internet. Managed, of course, by the government and fully accessible to corporate data warehouses.) Total anonymity makes it hard to invest in a relationship, so there needs to be some level of identity. An identity owned by you, verified by a third party, that can pass among the various social network applications and change based on whichever custom profile you find desirable at the time - would be nice.

This also got me to thinking about why we have to expend all this energy on juggling our connections. Why have multiple profiles on Friendster. Why not tell your mom what you saw at the Folsom Street Fair. Why not discuses with your classmates or coworkers your views on God. I blame "them" (them as the singular pronoun, not the music industry lawyers) and their categorization addiction. It is such a strong force in all the people we connect with, that to break or violate an established categorization someone has of you is a serious taboo. To manage the categories our friends and family and coworkers put us in, requires the creation of facets. This implies people that broaden their categorization of us, like close friends, are allowed to experience a consolidation of facets. I am also guessing that if you were to eliminate your use of facets, it would so break social expectations that you would be viewed as unstable, and ironically, possessing of multiple personalities (unless you were a really boring person, e.g. defragmented.)

Maybe Sybil was not sick, but just rotten at managing her social network. If only there had been groupware around to help her with it.