tavie.com

Yesterday for the last half hour of Research Design, we had to break into groups and discuss potential sampling issues for our various research proposals with others. So I listened politely and offered suggestions to the girl sitting next to me, whose proposal-- seemed straight out of a textbook-- had to do with funeral practices of some or another American Indian tribe. Then she asked what my research project was on. So I told her I was studying internet communities and the effect participation in them has on the offline life of their more active participants. She said she thought it was interesting, then started telling me all of the sampling problems I'll have if I don't focus on a particular type of group. I tried explaining to her that with ethnography of computer-mediated-communication, we have to approach these things a little differently. She was one of those people who don't really hear what you're saying, and give you token time to respond but cut you off before you can finish a sentence.

Soon she was saying how she thought it was a "really interesting topic to do, like, a paper on" but that it would be "really sad and pathetic to have this as your expertise. I mean, do people actually get degrees in this stuff? That's so sad."

Meanwhile, I had been thinking, "How cool would it be to go on and really get into this field, study systems theories and social psychology and help lay the foundations for future studies of this kind, blah blah blah?" And this girl was saying she thought it was pathetic.

So, we see the popular conception of internet-users rages on.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:09 AM | shower me with attention