Digitized social information creates a relational data layer that magnifies gossip and suspicion

Evidence

Before the internet, people would learn about parties or romantic relationships by gossiping or asking friends. This type of knowledge wasn’t secret, but it wasn’t available to everyone and was rarely written down. Today, any member of the networked audience can peruse a Facebook invite to see who was or wasn’t invited, or look at Foursquare check-ins to see who is spending time together. Social information is digitized and aggregated through the lifestream to create a layer of relational data that lays over the ordinary social graph. While this information facilitated bonding and personal connection, it also magnified gossip, suspicion, and uncertainty. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 570

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to social capital literature on information flows and closure — the relational data layer over the social graph evokes Coleman’s closure concept from the reader’s prior reading. — connects to: Heavy Twitter monitoring made relationships feel like strategic performance while fueling anxiety. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 601; People combine others’ dated and located posts to infer relationships with suspicion — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 570; Electronic communication enduringly exposes once-ephemeral social exchange to scrutiny — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 842
• SEED: Article angle: how the same relational data layer that strengthens bonding simultaneously weaponizes social information for surveillance and suspicion.

Broader Connections

• People combine others’ dated and located posts to infer relationships with suspicion #exemplifies (0.92) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 570
• Electronic communication enduringly exposes once-ephemeral social exchange to scrutiny #corroborates (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 842