We need to define what we mean by ‘relationship.’ Even if we do this indirectly, it will help us to articulate what it is we are seeking to achieve in our design. If we don’t pay adequate attention, then our language may continue to be diluted due to the popular adoption of terms used rather loosely. This has already had an impact on the word ‘friend.’

We start with the observation that relationships have passive and active dimensions: at any time there exist certain relationships in a system – take any number of people and there exist certain belongings or associations. This passive view is what has preoccupied most analysis and system designs. However, system states are dependent upon behaviour in relationships, specifically actions. We pay attention to two kinds: observable actions, sequences of which make up activities, and subjective intentional actions1– in which we consider motives, wishes, desires and drivers –patterns of which make up behaviour and reinforcement of which leads to habits and tendencies.

Actions may also be partitioned into three: body, speech and mind, all of which are increasingly part of the virtual frame. Central to online activity is communication, which we may characterise not just as an action directed between people, but also as a form of giving, involving time, consideration, and content (data). When a communication is reciprocated we have an example of inter-action. Further, once there is interaction, we can then introduce trans-actions, actions in which something material is given or conveyed along with the communication2. This can form the basis of economic systems, which we discuss in a later section and on which we can build to a new system design. It’s only then that we anticipate the work to have a major impact as once alternative systems are proposed, ideas may be readily substantiated and put to the test.

We now explore this somewhat formally, mainly to reduce ambiguity in meaning. There is first the fundamental question of whether a relationship exists and how a relationship comes to be. What constitutes a valid relationship? In real life some relationships exist formally but are very difficult in practice, perhaps not operative. For example, one person P may wish and try to relate to person Q, but Q may not relate to person P at all. Q’s nonresponse may or may not be intentional.

So any SNS should account for and model basic distinctions, including the following:

  • Some relationships are given: for instance the family into which we are born and the close relations; similarly, for work colleagues. On the other hand, friendships are chosen.
  • Where both P and Q indicate some relation with the other, i.e. where we have a two-sided relationship, we refer to it as mutual.
  • Relationships may or may not be on the same level, so we need to distinguish between symmetric relations and asymmetric relations. In terms of given relationships, siblings are symmetric relations; but a parent-child is an asymmetric relation.

The requirement for mutuality should be emphasized. It’s not enough just to create lists or groupings, even if there are tools to automate the process3. Furthermore, merely monitoring activity is not necessarily very representative of a relationship’s meaning. There is another important element:

  • How we regard each other will vary from person to person, whether the relationship is given or chosen. Although there may be mutual regard, in practice this will seldom be equal and thus will be asymmetric. In fact, such regard will likely contain many aspects – as discussed below.

To what extent can this be modelled? This question can be regarded with some ambivalence:since formalisation renders itself to automated processing, there is a positivist temptation to consider what cannot be modelled as having no meaning, when in reality it may be the meaning that has greatest human value and therefore merits most consideration. To indicate the importance of this caveat, we relegate trivial examples to footnotes4!

Continue to … personal conduct in relationships.

Notes

1 This echoes an approach in the formal methods discipline of process algebra, which distinguishes between observable actions that allow interactions with (and hence some control by) the external environment and internal actions that don’t.

2 Again, communications and transactions may be modelled formally by process algebra: in atomic actions and message passing actions respectively.

3 We can certainly model the existence of a relationship. Mathematically, the one-sided case might be expressed as the relation ~ where for persons P and Q we have P ~ Q, but Q ~ P is not defined.

We can also model observable behaviour, such as the directed communications between people in the system, but the quality of regard points us to further analysis, in the context of SNS, particularly to the question of friendship.

4 See e.g. Katango http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/10/google-acquires-katango-the-automatic-friend-sorter/