Suburban Bear on the way to Work

For those of you reading my Twitter and Facebook feeds, you may have noticed that today was filled with a series of  bizarre updates revolving around the day in the life of a suburban bear.

It was actually a full day Twitter experiment.

I had looked at Twitter in the past but didn’t see any added benefit beyond what other Social Networking sites such as Facebook or LiveJournal offered.  In fact, it appeared to offer less in the way of interaction and activities than what other social networking sites provided.  I have a few friends that use Twitter as their primary application but they couldn’t really explain what it was exactly that they liked about Twitter.  In fact, this inability to explain the attraction of Twitter seems to be a recurring theme with the service.

However, after a stimulating lunch with the Oakland University faculty (most of whom were from Writing and Rhetoric) at the E-Learning brown bag, I decided to give Twitter a try.  I could see almost immediately how it was an effective application for businesses and entrepreneurs who needed to frequently update their followers about current offerings, meetings and whatnot.

I also appreciated the links posted by some of the Rhetoric faculty who attended that eLearning brown bag. And there was also the pleasure of getting to know new people through their updates. However, using Twitter to update others of your day to day activities and interesting articles you have encountered is something that I do already in Facebook. And, frankly, I enjoy reading people’s comments to each other’s updates and links in Facebook.  In Twitter, I frequently feel as if I am only hearing one side of the story.  I still couldn’t figure out why some many people consider Twitter to be a big deal or how I could use it to communicate better with others.  However, I put in an effort to use it to post my own tweets and to follow the tweets of some of my friends and some businesses (if you consider “The Onion” or “Somecards” to be tweeting about business).

So what does this all have to do with suburban bears?

Well, for some reason this morning as I was getting ready for work, I was thinking about Twitter and wondering how else I could use the application.  It was then that I came up with the idea to post Twitter updates during the day in the form of a story (I think this was partially inspired by blogs posted by a friend of mine for “Blog Like its the End of the World” Day). For some reason, I decided to post them in the form of a nature documentary focusing on “Ursus Unfamiliaris” – the suburban bear. This “twitter-mentary” focused on the day in the life of a specific bear whom I called “Cee.”

I then posted about the events during my day as if they were happening to Cee the Suburban Bear and being commented upon by the narrator of the documentary.

It was actually a fun experiment. It was very challenging to explain what was happening with a 140 character twitter update, to restrict the updates to just the major events in the day, to maintain the story line throughout the day while trying to also be entertaining.

Judging from the comments to my posts on Facebook, I think some people were entertained, others were probably confused and a couple joined in the fun with one friend in particular expanding on the Twitter update with storyline.

This experiment allowed me to think more flexibly about Twitter and how it can be used.

I know it was fun enough that I want to spend another day making narritive Twitters throughout the day.

For those of you who missed the Day in the Life of the Suburban Bear Twitter-mentary, here are the posts:

11:15 PM: We conclude this day with Cee and her family secure in their den, contemplating the universe through the windows of their laptop screens.

8:06 PM: The mothering instinct is strong in suburban bears. “Cee” feeds and nurtures both mature family members and canine companions. AMAZING!

6:35 PM: Suburban bears form lasting pair bonds and greet each other enthusiastically after even relatively brief separations.

2:44 PM: Unlike most animals (who search their environment for fruit and berries), “Cee” the suburban bear, is searching her campus for monitors

12:50 PM: Cee wages battle with the computers in the computer lab! The howls and roars are terrifying!

9:25 AM: Cee searches the parking lot for signs of friends or foes before entering Pryale Hall.

9:06 AM: Familiar with her surroundings, Cee successfully forages for eggs, grains, roots and coffee on the way to work.

8:46 AM: “Cee” grooms herself carefully knowing that her status will be judged by the appearance of her glossy fur.

8:38 AM: Today we have the rare opportunity to observe a mature female of the species Ursus Unfamiliaris (more commonly known as the “Suburban Bear”)

• Would the site allow people to insult each other?
• Would it allow them to brag about their latest misdeeds?
• Would a person sign up to it only to be able to reject every request to “friend” them?
• Would a person start out as a friend of everybody who has an account on the page and the point of the site would be to “unfriend” everyone? To make it extra special, one would have to approve whether or not they were unfriended. The truly antisocial would then be able to mess it up for lots of people.

• There is the site isolatr which appears to have been in beta since 2006.
• There is also snubster which, ironically, has a Facebook app.
• Enemybook is also tied to Facebook as a Facebook app and allows you to add people as Facebook enemies (in Facebook, they will be listed right bellow your Facebook friends list). Interestingly, it also allows you to friend the enemies of your enemies.

In my Google search for antisocial networking sites I found several articles explaining the genesis of these sites.

All of the ones listed above were generated as a backlash to the social networking phenomenon and poke fun at how such networking sites stretch the definition of “friend” to the breaking point.

This is a common response to social and cultural trends and one that frequently inspires creative counterparts to dominant social trends.

The articles also point out that the antisocial networking sites are a social commentary on some of the absurdity inherent in social networking sites that stretch the definition of “friend” to its breaking point.

This has also led to some interesting phenomena  as people try to figure out how to navigate the new social interactions enabled by these platforms.

It leads to phrases such as “Person X is a Facebook friend but not a real friend.” It also leads to some debates concerning the appropriate response when ex friends and lovers put in a friendship request. Similarly, there is also concern and debate what the appropriate protocol is for “un-friendling” someone.

Like many disruptive technologies, these sites cause us to think about and question how computer/technology mediated interactions and behavior are similar to or different from our “real life” interactions and behavior.