Regulatory Slippage

Thanks to danah boyd for challenging my claim that social norms are "behind" technology.

Social norms aren't behind; they're baffled at the direction in which things are going. They're pushing for a different direction and they aren't being heard.

I think we agree there's been a slippage between norms and technology. Maybe it betrays a technology-centric view that I'm waiting for norms to catch up with changed technology. Perhaps the LiveJournalers consider that they've evolved a set of social norms to which they're waiting for technology to adapt.

danah's right to warn us away from the technological imperative -- thinking that just because tech can do something, it should or must. The Napster example shows that law can stop even good tech; but the continued spread of peer-to-peer music sharing suggests that law doesn't always shape norms. Better technologies will support social norms, not fight or frustrate them, or they'll likely die lacking a market. From whatever particular angle we begin looking at a problem, we shouldn't forget to look at the other constraints, and we shouldn't presume that our "native" viewpoints offer the best perspective.

Posted by Wendy at December 28, 2003 02:41 PM | TrackBack