From Darwin to Facebook

Prof. Judith Donat from MIT University, who lectured at the Chase Conference for Learning Technology Research at the Open University, uses theory from the field of evolutionary biology, signal theory to analyze modern Internet media

Social networks are perhaps the modern way for the human desire to keep in touch with the people he loves the most. Is adding your name to a social networking site the 21st century edition of the clubs where British gentlemen met, and how will this change the face of society?

On Wednesday, for the fourth year, the annual Chase conference for learning technology research was held at the Open University, which this time dealt with the issue of "the learning person in the technological age. The main guest at the conference was Professor Judith Donath, from MIT University, one of the senior researchers in the field of social networks and the design of communication environments.

Donat is a pioneer in the use of signal theory. This theory belongs to the field of evolutionary biology and was originally developed by an Israeli zoologist - Amots Zahavi. It is widely used today among anthropologists who examine areas such as the organization of societies and communication for religious needs, but in a conversation with people and computers Prof. Donat says that she is the first to apply this Torah to understand online interactions. "My job is to understand the ways in which this theory can be applied in the field of human communication, especially online communication."

"The theory is a framework to examine the benefit and harm of fair and unfair communication. We can use the theory to examine, for example, society's ability to sanction, audit, social control and understand how a different design of interfaces can make it easier or more difficult."

Many of the things we want to do with each other are not perceived. These qualities include emotional states (are you happy), innate abilities (are you smart?), and whether we can cooperate in the future (will you be a loyal friend?). Instead we rely on signals, which allow us to know these things that are not directly observable. Signal theory is concerned with understanding why some signals are reliable and others are not. It examines how the signals referring to qualities are established and what are the components of the signal or of the community surrounding it, which maintains its credibility. Signal theory also examines what happens when signals are not completely reliable - and asks how much unreliability can be tolerated before the signal simply becomes meaningless.

And what is the implication of signal theory on the online world?

Donat: "In my lecture I used examples from three fields. One area is fashion, which in a general sense signals a desire to take a risk in adopting the new, and to show if who you communicate with, with whom you connect. In an information-based world, fashion changes quickly, and becomes a central part of society, and specifically I brought the example of Second Life and the decision of important bodies to promote Second Life as a platform for providing services and communication.

The decision whether to enter it or not is a fashion decision. It was unclear to the early adopters whether they would end up being seen as brilliant and seen as the people at the forefront of starting the new world or if they would be seen as foolish and participating in something that had disappeared. This is part of the issue of risk assessment in fashion. Second Life is a great example of people taking risks and saying important things about the importance of the site and in the end it turned out that the risk was too great.

"The second area I talked about was the use of avatars and faces. I talked about whether the world is safe for face-to-face online communication and how we evaluate the online use of line avatars using signaling theory."

"The third area was the examination of social networking sites and the use of theory, such as Facebook and MySpace, which today enable not necessarily reliable communications between people. We are examining how to use theory to understand how to design sites that will allow meaningful connections."
However, in response to a question about people and computers, Donat added that Facebook is a little more reliable than others because there communication is done more between people, "compared to other sites where more people make connections but in practice there is much less communication."

And what is your conclusion?

"The conclusion is that we live in a world where we are bombarded with huge amounts of information, world news, local news, news status updates and other people, this is a theory that will help us design the interfaces that will allow us to sort this huge amount of information.