Something I'm reading at the moment has me reflecting on the nature of Internet participation in a professional capacity, and as long as I have Twitter open: There exist a few balancing acts that you do when you're in a professional space.
-
-
I often wonder, from a product perspective, whether we're creating products which empower people to have successful interactions with them. Consider the words "My mentions", which expose a mental model which underpins a lot of specifically toxic behavior on specifically twitter.
Show this thread -
Twitter actively cultivates asymmetric conversations: every user is encouraged to believe that *they* are free to express themselves and that, simultaneously, they have their own little walled garden called My Mentions and that acting upon this space is a transgression.
Show this thread -
And does Twitter optimize for a product which would protect these intuitions of how it works? No, Twitter almost appears to optimize for breaking this, e.g. by limiting user visibility into how you're wading into Other People's Mentions.
Show this thread -
An aside about assymetric social network use: the most important insight I've ever heard about a software product was, I think, Yishan Wong on Facebook. Paraphrase: Everyone believes in a superposition of how privacy should work on Facebook.
Show this thread -
They simultaneously believe that *their* information should never be exposed in a surprising manner *and also* that they should be able to access all information about anyone they are interested in with no more than ~2 clicks.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
"I write to help others and also to learn. As it turns out both are aided by getting folks to actually read the stuff." Namely -- you Must Be Entertaining
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.