Like a Puppet on a String...

Since Facebook, is one of the most sophisticated automated influencers I am going to examine in more detail the design of the site and the cultural impact of this design.

Looking at a typical screen capture of my own “home” screen several key features can be noted (click for a larger image):

Notes

1. There is no “update” (or similar) button here. This intervention requests that you update your friends, that you understand that to do so one presses the return key, and discourages you from retracting or opting not to post an update. Similarly there is no cancel/retract/delete button next to any of the Facebook status updating boxes.

2. Commenting both alerts the poster that you have interacted with their update and adds the comment to your own news feed effectively twice multiplying the activity associated with a single update

3. Perhaps the least functional of Facebook activity buttons but also one of the most clicked. Clicking indicates that you “like” an item (there is no “dislike” option) but also triggers the site to send you all further activity around the update you have liked.

4. Time is peculiarly elided here. Posts from 9 hours ago are prioritised above those posted 21 minutes ago. Such eccentric ordering indicates the level of automated filtering, prioritisation and algorithmic intervention in the site.

5. This suggestions panel is where Facebook begins to look particularly invasive. By looking for individuals with mutual connections the site attempts to encourage you to add new people as friends. In reality this is unlikely to be effective if the only shared connection are mutual friends though sometimes this feature can highlight newly joined contacts who are of interest.

6. One of the most controversial elements of the current Facebook design is the reconnection suggestions. In this case the user has been asked to suggest new friends for a contact with the intent of increasing that contact's activity on Facebook through making it a more relevant/busy/useful tool. Other applications of this suggestions box have including suggesting individuals connect to deceased relatives or friends, suggesting married couples reconnect with each other, suggesting messages are sent to reconnect with a user's ex-partner, etc.

7. Facebook is one of very few sites to offer users the ability to rank, rate and comment on ads. Though initially this included a dislike option it has now been refined to either “like” or “X” to close the ad (whereupon the user is asked to classify the reason for disliking the ad). Although this, in theory, helps police the quality and relevance of ads it is also an incredibly useful tool for the site owners to more effectively raise income through user-selected targeted ads.

8. The playful “poke” is a Facebook specific whimsical action. As well as increasing site activity (with little commitment or effort on the part of the user) this is also, potentially, a rich source of information on the relevance of certain contacts. Those you would “poke” are likely to also be those you would want to receive updates from...

9. Persistent calls to add new friends encourage a culture of enthusiastic friending and curation of public performed profiles in which popularity can be seen as a key component.

10. The live feed is an alternative view of updates based on time rather than Facebook's more eccentric default method of presenting updates.

11. Since any type of request always triggers an email to the user this is a key home page area. Any response to a request will also trigger a series of site activities and updates. By not including some categories - notably events - in the main Facebook navigation menu at the top of the page the site encourages you to return over and over to the homepage, the site of most triggers to actively participate in the site.

All of these prompts are designed to increase activity on the site by intervening in your viewing of the page, interrupting whatever your initial task on Facebook may be, disrupting the reading process through encouraged clicks and comments. Arguably such interventions and activities in physical space would jar with normative social codes of conduct and cultures of friendship, as highlighted by Idiots of Ants (2008):