analysis of social relations emphasizing communications and evolutionary psychology
Just as trade is more likely to occur between parties less geographically distant, the same appears to be true for communication. In the U.S. telephone network about 1983, the share of calls within the local switching office averaged 66% for rural switching offices, compared to 31% for urban switching offices. The greater share of intra-office … Continue reading geographic communities of communication
The Internet’s communication protocols separate diverse physical communication channels from a wide variety of communications applications. That separation encapsulates complexity and fosters incremental innovation. It has been a hugely productive communicative structure. A variety of communication content, however, remains closely bound to particular communication protocols. Consider, for example, physical-layer protocols for the transmission of the … Continue reading application-specific communication protocols
Groups with greater social investment tend to favor more restrictive access to knowledge. Greater social investment means more connections with socially credible and authoritative persons and groups, and greater material interests in maintaining those connections. Social investment supports credibility and authority. So too does knowledge (“knowledge is power”). However, persons who are neither credible nor … Continue reading varieties of knowledge-access regimes
Things are crucial to human social networks. Some things never lose their appeal.
Variations in average telephone use have been relatively small across more than a century of telephone use. From 1893 to 1913, the number of telephones in many countries around the world increased by more than a factor of ten. The average number of intra-urban telephone conversations per subscriber telephone changed little. For example, the number … Continue reading social constraints on communication technology use