The Atlantic, an increasingly-less-paper-based publication, felt it worthwhile to pay Stephen Marche to ask the question “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”. A nuggest from within Marche’s article:
Moira Burke, until recently a graduate student at the Human-Computer Institute at Carnegie Mellon, used to run a longitudinal study of 1,200 Facebook users. That study, which is ongoing, is one of the first to step outside the realm of self-selected college students and examine the effects of Facebook on a broader population, over time. She concludes that the effect of Facebook depends on what you bring to it. Just as your mother said: you get out only what you put in. If you use Facebook to communicate directly with other individuals—by using the “like” button, commenting on friends’ posts, and so on—it can increase your social capital. Personalized messages, or what Burke calls “composed communication,” are more satisfying than “one-click communication”—the lazy click of a like. “People who received composed communication became less lonely, while people who received one-click communication experienced no change in loneliness,” Burke tells me… Even better than sending a private Facebook message is the semi-public conversation, the kind of back-and-forth in which you half ignore the other people who may be listening in. “People whose friends write to them semi-publicly on Facebook experience decreases in loneliness,” Burke says…
Or, since you’re not on Facebook at this very instant, you could have a “semi-public conversation” right here, by commenting. Because John Cole and the rest of us are toiling away to give you all a chance to reduce your general blogospheric loneliness, at no charge to you. (You’re welcome.) Cole might even be reducing his own chances of becoming the next Zuckerberg, if Joel Johnson is correct that “Comments are Bad Business for Online Media“:
There was a time a few years ago on the early-blog-era internet [when] “community” basically meant cultivating a healthy cadre of regular commenters, the better to have a sort of virtual street team to share your stories with friends via email or IM or–in decreasingly rare cases for a couple of years–their own blogs. Social media in all its incarnations, from Facebook to Tumblr, has largely obviated that part of comments: most people on the internet are sharing content just fine…
But in conversations I’ve had with peers in the internet publishing world lately, as well as a resurgence of chatter about comments both online and in schmoozy-cocktail-space, I’m starting to come to a conclusion: comments are more trouble than they are literally, financially worth…
… I’ve had two separate discussions with friends who run mid-sized internet properties–we’re talking high hundreds of thousands to millions of unique users a month–and they’ve both recently completed heavy analysis on their traffic and come to the somewhat shocking conclusion that the people who actually read comments are a small fraction of one percent of their entire readership.
I’m not talking about people who comment, which is an even smaller percentage. I’m talking about people who read comments, the supposed traffic-and-revenue generating nebulous “community” that supports nascent internet media publications and make all that engineering and moderator staffing worthwhile. Less than a percent. And if you measure the number of people who actually scroll to the end of a post and read all the comments, it’s even less.
Of course, Joel Johnson does this for a living, and his Gizmodo experience may have soured him on the whole concept of ‘commentors’. I can look at the sitemeter here and see that Balloon Juice is drawing about 2 million “visits” per month, and I can estimate that I recognize somewhere around 200 names for people who comment on a more-or-less regular basis. So if Johnson’s metrics are correct then presumably almost everybody who reads the comments here also joins the conversation, eventually. Which I’m gonna assume says something positive about the level of involvement here. But is it cause or effect that most of us front-pagers are people Cole “recruited” (or “promoted”) from the comments?
AA+ Bonds
There is a magic little marketing hole in between the people who comment and the slightly greater number of people who read the comments
Because all of those people are far more likely to be content generators themselves
AA+ Bonds
Can we do any less than shoot this motherfucker, seriously
Wutz
Ummm – wait… so if I’ve been reading like forever but not commenting, I don’t exist?
Ash Can
Is this our cue to all start yelling “Fuck you!” at each other?
Violet
I’m so glad Balloon Juice doesn’t have a Facebook login-required comments section like some other sites. I don’t get that kind of thing. It just smacks of the website trying to promote itself via the Facebook mechanism, rather than trying to focus on generating quality content.
Left Coast Tom
@AA+ Bonds:
Wouldn’t it be irresponsible not to?
AA+ Bonds
I talked to Joel Johnson’s wife and his mother and I have good word that his dick is like, three point five erect. But in conversations I’ve had with peers in the internet publishing world lately, as well as a resurgence of chatter about comments both online and in schmoozy-cocktail-space,
jl
I thought this blog paid for itself.
It must be a gold mine. I mean, how else could Cole feed something the size of Tunch? Out of some dinky salary from a stinking job. Yeah, right.
joeyess
Sounds like gastritis broke Joel’s calculator.
Threadkiller
At least 200 regular commenters – and FSM knows how many regular lurkers like myself, who live for the threads.
arguingwithsignposts
The fact is, none of these “internet publishers” want to deal with comments, or community, because they really don’t care what you “readers” think, unless you’re totes agreeing with their viewpoint. And it costs them money to weed out all the racist, sexist, homophobic, religion-pimping crap that happens in comments, because somebody has to patrol the comments.
And this conversation about comments comes up about every two Friedman units in the “Internet pubiishing industry.”
Tehanu
Oh yeah, I read blogs and comment threads strictly to provide yet more money to people who think the best use of the Internet is to provide them with … uh … more money. Yep. Great sense of community there, fella.
Or shorter me: Schmucks.
AA+ Bonds
I don’t get the impression that they have a clue what they’re doing with Facebook comments either, ‘aggregation’ or no
Omnes Omnibus
@Ash Can: Of course it is. I mean, fuck you!
Walker
@Violet:
Actually, they are using Facebook for the authentication – to limit spoofing and sock puppets.
Nellcote
I’ve always been a fan of moderated comments. I’ve seen too many bbs, usenet, blogs turn to crapfests when assholes just determine to take over. BJ does a pretty good job with the (lightly applied) banhammer but it makes me sad when some threads just go south halfway through because of the resident trolls.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus:
Be careful what you say.
I think this is gentle work up to charging commenters to use bad words.
Usually when BJ needs money they just yell that us effing moochers to go hit the Paypal for a brother instead of blowing it on smokes, cheap booze and Pr0N0.
Something deeper is afoot here.
Suffern ACE
Like most people, I read the comments. More often that the full posts. It’s a good distraction and kills time I might otherwise waste in places that normally require pants.
jeffreyw
A fellow works up an appetite commenting on these threads. We need moar gyros, I think.
The Dangerman
I’m not sure “involvement” is the correct word for the sentence. “Sobriety” might not work, either.
Is “curmudgeoness” a word?
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: My Paypal account is locked, so I am pretty safe. Why is it locked? Fuck if I know. It has about $3.29 in it, so w’evs.
AA+ Bonds
@Walker:
I ask rhetorically: does that work
AA+ Bonds
@Omnes Omnibus:
LOL
jl
@jeffreyw:
The widget we click to get free samples of the food is broken again. Could some one get on that asap, Mkay?
Omnes Omnibus
@The Dangerman: Curmudgeonliness? Cole-ishness?
Scott Alloway
@AA+ Bonds: Like. Ultra like. Google-plex like. So on target.
Scott Alloway
@Ash Can: On three. 1 … 2.. 3
Omnes Omnibus
@jeffreyw: My dog, that looks good.
clayton
Shouldn’t you h/t corner stone for that and what are you doing blogging here still since a computer could do what you do just as well and why or why do you hammer us with BHF?
Don’t worry AL, I’m just the corner stone/Keith G. of the opposite comment section.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus:
The last couple of times I have tried to describe the BJ commenters, I have been chewed out for being unfair to rabid dogs, deranged hyenas, Satan, disgusting internal parasites that eat your guts out and turn you into a bag of fetid goop.
So, I gave up.
jeffreyw
@jl: I coulda swore I loaded the machine before I left… the Tunchster knows the combination though. He sat on Cole and squeezed it out of him one night when the tuna resupply convoy was late.
Feebog
I normally read the comments because I usually find a laugh or two. Sometimes even a nugget of insight. Anyone who is just reading the posts on this site is eating the rind while missing the fruit.
Villago Delenda Est
So…comments are bad because they make villager wannabees uncomfortable.
Is that a pretty fair assessment of what this idiot is talking about?
“ZOMG, we’re no longer opinion leaders! The peasants are revolting by questioning our brilliant commentary!”
Seriously, fuck these people sideways with a rusty Stihl with no lube.
MikeJ
I just can’t convince myself
I couldn’t live with no one else
And I can only play that part
And sit and nurse my broken heart
RossInDetroit
I confess I don’t really get why blogs want comments. Does it really increase the eyeballs or the ad revenue? Not if Joel is to be believed.
I’ve been reading Boing Boing for years, and at one time was approached about the possibility of being an associate moderator. I was flattered, but I’d rather take a night shift job clearing land mines, and they really really misjudged my level of patience. And my capacity for being a sarcastic asshole.
But I think Boing Boing does a good job with comments now. ’twas not always that way.
I used to read Tomasky at the Grauniad, and his comments were about 80% abusive trollage. Seriously, he’d say ‘good morning’ and the shit would fly instantaneously.
mclaren
The logical conclusion is none of you front-pagers exist. After all, nobody reads the comments, so nobody reads you, ergo you don’t exist.
Ya gotta love this kind of reductio ad absurdum logic. Most people don’t use bathrooms most of the time, so we can eliminate ’em from restaurants and public spaces. Sports stadiums are empty most of the time so we can tear ’em down. K-12 schools are used by only a tiny fraction of the American population, so let’s end schooling and repurpose the buildings as warehouses for amazon.com.
Maybe this kind of brain-damaged unlogic is part of the whole America’s-power-dive-into-dementia thing that seems to have accelerated at an ever increasing pace over the last 10 years.
Maybe in another year or two people will be arguing that everything is made of four elements (earth, air, fire and water) so we can quit importing oil and stop using electricity.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: You should have put the word drunken in front of the description and then said “but I mean it in a nice way.”
Warren Terra
It’s obviously meant to be a follow-up to their immensely stupid – but very successful – cover story “Is Google Making Us Stupid”.
I stopped subscribing to The Atlantic when their long-form articles had clearly become a vapid mess to match their insultingly clueless short-form articles. Fallows excepted, of course.
jl
@RossInDetroit:
” I confess I don’t really get why blogs want comments. Does it really increase the eyeballs or the ad revenue? Not if Joel is to be believed. ”
If it were not for blog ads, triggered by the insightful comments I have made and read at this very place, there would be no trucknutz on my Honda Civic.
RossInDetroit
Since I’m bored and it’s probably too late for people who would be likely to be offended by this to read it I’d like to share a rant-let from Chuck Klosterman that seems apropos.
Chris
@Nellcote:
Agree. I’d say Tokoloko on here was pretty much a picture-perfect argument for comment moderation. One or two trolls every now and then breaks the routine, but when so many threads end up getting hijacked so regularly, it’s time for a banhammer. (As eventually happened).
@RossInDetroit:
Some people just like the feedback and the discussion. I’m certainly not complaining, I’m another one of these people who reads BJ even more for the comments than for the actual front-pagers (no offense y’all).
gbear
@Wutz: @Wutz:
Don’t feel so bad. There’s an even worse state of non-existence that comes from providing comments and having absolutely no one respond to you.
Omnes Omnibus
@gbear: Vicious mockery is another unfun option.
Petorado
How Friedmanesque. I’m sure a cab driver driving you to the airport would concur. Human interaction is a bunch more complicated than a funny anecdote over cocktail weenies and chardonnay can summarize. This guy’s comment about blogs and their commenting communities is exactly why people strolled over to blogs in the first place: the MSM’s lazy analysis continually failed us.
Yes there are trolls that spoil many a comment thread, but in this broadened marketplace of ideas, readers have become far more astute consumers of information. That doesn’t mean reading comments is any less worthwhile. Readers are learning to figure out valuable commentary from the dreck. Maybe the analytical skills of comment readers are growing more acute, while the skills of reporters to comprehend blogs stats have become as dull as a butter knife. A little thinking goes a long way.
RossInDetroit
This blog is practically a troll-free zone compared to everywhere else. I’m still amazed. I mean, regular commenters still take the piss regularly but the gratuitous poo-flingers are remarkably absent. Banning a few people just doesn’t work when the trollage exceeds 30% of posts.
Even with moderation and community rules at the NYT the feathers and tar appear under a Krugman post before his finger even leaves the [enter] key.
Villago Delenda Est
@gbear:
Which is why we have trolls.
No, seriously!
Sometimes launching a bomb is the way to get a conversation going.
Or, more likely, a way to get attention. Which is the coin of the realm on the interwebs.
Feel free to ignore this post to hurt my fee fees now.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: The comments around here can be amazing. The 200 or so regulars those who pop up on various topics have a rather massive and wide-ranging pool of knowledge and can be stunningly incisive. OTOH much of the time, everyone is just jacking around talking about cats, compost, and posting YouTube videos.
gbear
I’d like to thank everyone for their thoughtful responses. I feel validated now.
BillinGlendaleCA
So there are 200 or so regular commenters here, I don’t comment often. Does this mean I need more fiber?
suzanne
@Tehanu:
Word. As if making money is the only reason to do something. And as if I give a fuck about helping other people make money. Even nice dudes with cute fat kitties and sweet puppies.
Omnes Omnibus
@BillinGlendaleCA: Prunes work.
Chris
@RossInDetroit:
I’ll take your word for it. The only blogs I read regularly are Sadly, No and this one, and in both cases,
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yep, like he said.
Ash Can
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Nah, it just means the regular commenters need less.
Hugely
@Violet: yup thats why I dont comment at FireBogg or elsewhere that requires a login esp Facebook
hitchhiker
@RossInDetroit:
Seriously, wow.
How can anybody read that and not want to comment?
srv
Well, some credit to Cleek. Who could not like a comment section filled with so much pie?
Joel
I read this as “less popular” and thought, “Gee, I couldn’t imagine why”.
I’m a huge fan of Fallows and Coates, but pretty much everything else there… enh. Especially the articles that their advertisers are writing for them… ugh.
brashieel
I’m still trying to figure out the cost/benefit equation here. If most blog readers don’t read comments, how much of a server load can they represent?
Also, BJ comment threads rock. One of my favorite things on the interwebs.
Pseudonym
It’s moderator load, not server load, that’s the real cost. But the moral of the story is that comments have to be worth it for quality, not quantity.
Concerned Citizen
One of my favorite things about this site is the comments. I read them on just about every post.
I don’t comment much, because I don’t have much to add. (Not a creative type)
My favorite places to comment are the NY Post and Boston Herald. I think both of those places have only professional trolls commenting. It’s a cesspool. Have a look!
Ecks
@Pseudonym: To the extent that these site hosts are up front that they’re running commercial operations, then it’s fair dinkum that they look for ROI from their comments sections. To the extent they’re pretending to have higher ideals, then yeah, take one for the team and get on with improving the lives of your fellow basement-dwellers.
The Other Bob
I wonder if there are instances where the comments can drive people away from an otherwise good publication? Sure, people could ignore them, but I am thinking of my local paper, whose online edition has regular vial, racists comments. I always imagine these fools as teabaggersnliving living in their parents basement, but some people might not be able to look past their racist rantings and just decide to no longer visit the online edition of the paper.
I think some papers should eliminate the comments completely. Thoughts?
MariedeGournay
I spend way too much time reading the comments here. Most of the time I’m amused, enlightened, or tickled. Though I usually don’t comment unless I think I can amuse, enlighten, or tickle someone. Found it to be a good rule of thumb when dealing with the Internet.
RossInDetroit
One thing I particularly cherish about Balloon Juice is the rare occasions when our host goes all Angry Dad on us like “GODDAMMIT IF YOU CAN’T BEHAVE I’M TURNING THIS BLOG AROUND AND NOBODY WILL GO TO SEA WORLD THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS!”.
Those are just great.
Egg Berry
@The Other Bob:
Or the teabagger parents enjoying their medicare and social security.
grandpa john
@Chris:
Yes but unless people actually respond to the troll, the thread cannot be hijacked can it?
yes this describes me also This also explains why my blog list is void of any blogs that does not allow comments like sullivan. I don’t give a shit about reading some asshole full of his own opinion of his talents to the point that he won’t allow a differing viewoint.
grandpa john
@Petorado:
True but no one is required to read them or respond to them and there are here on BJ there are blocking programs that can be downloaded. This is much preferred than for example Washington Monthly with the GD stupid captcha program they use that has been bitched about by the posters there ever since its inception, but whose complaints have been totally ignored . with a decent readable captcha there comments section would have many more comments than it currently does. I don’t comment there because I won’t waste my time trying to find a captcha that I can read. this kind of bullshit and disdain for its readers is what will eventually kill a blog.
grandpa john
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes this, I certainly learn a hell of a lot more from reading here than I would from reading the lame-ass articles and opinions in the NYT or WP or listening to the GOP shills on the MSM TV news programs
Concerned Citizen
@The Other Bob: Our local paper makes you pay $1 via credit card, and uses the name on the card in the comments. Takes care of the vile stuff. Still get ignorance, but not the hate.
The Other Bob
@Concerned Citizen: @Concerned Citizen: That’s not a bad move. If it was run a s a regula rletter to the editor where they printed your full name, that would be OK too.
The Other Bob
@Concerned Citizen: @Concerned Citizen: That’s not a bad move. If it was run a s a regula rletter to the editor where they printed your full name, that would be OK too.
Eric the Infrequent
So this is the thread for all us non commenting comment readers?
Joey Giraud
@RossInDetroit:
Amused. Mission accomplished.
Michael57
I don’t much like the Atlantic except for Fallows, but I thought that the articles on Google making us dumber and Facebook contributing to loneliness & alienation were actually very thought-provoking. There’s a real disconnect between being friends in real life and being “friends” on Facebook. Have you never had the jarring and somehow embarrassing feeling that comes from meeting a frequent Facebook friend in real life, where you rarely see them? That feeling is called “getting caught being a phony.” We all sit at computers all day just typing away at these phantoms. Anyone who has more than 100 friends on Facebook has one foot in a kind of dream world. And I am one of them. I hate it.
And Google makes us dumber for the simple reason that we no longer have to work at being smart, so we don’t. We don’t know stuff ourselves anymore, we “store” our “knowledge” in the cloud. Which means we don’t know stuff.