http://hypography.com/forums/ The study and classification of human societies and their constitution, phenomena, and development. en Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:36:19 GMT vBulletin 60 http://hypography.com/forums/images/styles/new_facebook/images/misc/rss.jpg http://hypography.com/forums/ http://hypography.com/forums/sociology/21426-sociology-study-social-network-demographics-preference-patterns.html Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:38:14 GMT This is a more detailed description of the sociology study that I mentioned in my introductory... This is a more detailed description of the sociology study that I mentioned in my introductory forum thread.

Basically I am enrolled in an undergraduate sociology course that I am taking as part of a two year degree in web development. I'm fortunate to have an amazing sociology professor and part of the course involves giving each student the chance to complete a small scale independent sociology study.

For my study I have chosen to investigate social networks and their demographics and preference patterns. The study was originally motivated by Danah Boyd's controversial talk about how she feels that MySpace and Facebook are becoming separated along socioeconomic lines such that MySpace is becoming a digital ghetto whereas Facebook is becoming a "digital country club" of sorts:

"The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online"

The focus of my study has two basic goals:

1) See if I can find solid data on the demographics of each network.
2) Use surveys to find out why most people prefer one network over the other.
3) Use surveys to find out whether most people think that such a Facebook/MySpace division is a perception, a real issue, or something that isn't even the case.

So far my data and techniques for each goal are:

1) Use site measurement websites such as Quantcast, Compete.com, etc to find demographics for MySpace and Facebook. I will average the measurements together to find an "average guess" about the demographics of each network.

2 & 3). I have created an online survey ( Social Network Survey - MySpace vs Facebook ). The survey uses a series of "agreement" questions to find out to what extent participants agree with such statements as: "I prefer X social network over Y social network because X has better features" or "I prefer X social network over Y social network because X is cool" and "I prefer X social network over Y social network because members of Y aren't like me".

By comparing the degree of agreement with these statements I can hopefully tell if people like a particular social network just because it is trendy, or because of its features, or because of its members.

The survey also includes the opinion question to find out if they think such online stratification of social networks is just a perception.

If you have any advice, suggestions, or feedback on my study please let me know. I'm always interested in extra input. ]]> Sociology Experiment Garden http://hypography.com/forums/sociology/21426-sociology-study-social-network-demographics-preference-patterns.html http://hypography.com/forums/sociology/21308-can-information-alive.html Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:23:08 GMT Can information be alive? Isn't life at it's most basic, information? A virus is on the edge of being alive and it is just basically chemical information. A living cell is alive due to chemical information being passed both from generation to generation inside the cell as things happen that need to take place to unsure the cell remains alive.

Chemicals pass back and forth, many if not all of those chemicals serve double duty as both chemical energy and as chemical information to make sure that chemical energy is used in the proper manner to do what the cell needs to be done.

Can information be alive? Complex streams of information certainly imitate life inside a computer, virus', Trojan horses, and other programs both reproduce themselves and spread. They also retrieve information and exchange information between computers to make themselves spread and grow in numbers.

Can information be alive? In our society various ideas often seem to have a life of their own but most are limited to certain groups or individuals and seldom reproduce or do anything really complex. But religion is different, it not only grows it spreads from individual to individual and not just via language but with actual physical vectors.

The books that contain the various religious ideas can be used to spread religion. Someone who never heard of a certain religion can pick up a book and be exposed and begin to spread that religion. Religion can evolve, often changing it's dogma to allow it to spread into certain populations where it is at first rejected.

Religion can also develop from one religion into another. The Jewish faith gave rise to both Christianity and Islam. The Jewish faith developed from other religions who merged and split from other religions. Religions often fight to convert or change and even infiltrate other religions.

Like the first life forms religions have merged, split, and evolved into the forms we see today. Some religions that could not compete have fallen by the way side while others have mutated to fill the empty niches left when a religion dies out. Or by crowding out an established religion when the conditions were right much like life mutating to fill ecological niches that were not occupied.

Many religions are like species, some more closely related to others but ultimately all related somewhere back before we can trace them when all religions shared their basic dogmas back and forth more freely than today, much like life.

So can religion be information that is alive?

Does any other information package even approach the sophistication of religion? Does any other information even come close to religion in it's methods of insuring it's own existence? In think religion satisfies all the prerequisites of life. At the very least religion is equal to a virus that lives on human society much like a virus lives on a cell. ]]> Sociology Moontanman http://hypography.com/forums/sociology/21308-can-information-alive.html