IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2013 - 41

arises from the introduction of
networked social relations that
weaken local social relations, while
the individual has the opportunity
to create alternative weak or strong
social relationships online as they
choose, and suggest that to a point,
people will choose weaker relationships rather than stronger to gain
more freedom. Our work suggests
that a connected individuation
arises from weaker relationships,
local or networked, that are a consequence of the formation through
mobile networks of numerous, partially overlapping, social interactions, regardless of the individuals'
desires.
we are interested in determining
the individual and collective outcomes of this shift to mobile communications. PolySocial reality
(PoSr) relates to the aggregate of all
the experienced locations and communications of all individual people
in multiple networks at the same or
different times. we can describe in
PoSr the complexity people face in
negotiating their connected world,
managing on average not only more
relationships, but more relationships
on a pervasive and ubiquitous basis.
They are managing more than one
relationship at a time, in an interspersed and interleaved manner, and
are dealing with people who may or
may not have knowledge of the other
relationships being shuffled at the
same time, and who are themselves
managing a similar portfolio of relationships which may or may not
intersect between correspondents.
PoSr provides conceptual tools
for unifying all of this interaction into a single space so that the
characteristics of different combinations of interaction can be
represented. PoSr represents interactions through message links,
with no regard to the content of
the messages. A flat projection of a
PoSr space at a given point in time
would look like a typical social network. Unflattened, the PoSr space
contains layers of networks, where
each layer consists of individuals,

each of whom communicate with
the others in that layer. Each individual in the network layer will
have members of their network
who only interact with some of
the other members of the common
layer. These network complements
are represented as multi-metagraphs [2], combining multigraphs
[26] that represent networks based
on different criteria (layers), and
metagraphs [27] that relate sets of
people. Through this representation we can describe the layering
and density of connections between
correspondents and thus how inclusive knowledge about each other's
activities is likely to be known or
understood.
The web of relationships that
PoSr describes is not new. People
have communicated using both synchronous and asynchronous formats
for millennia. what is different is
that multiple automation tools in
conjunction with mobile contextual
technology enable people to individually multiplex activities and roles
in a new, denser and accelerated
manner. As increasing numbers use
these capabilities we can observe
changes in behavior, experience,
and composition of communities.
Mobile telephones have enabled
people to further divide and fragment their roles, combining physical
and (so-called) virtual presence and
activity within multiple locations
across the network.
we argue that the users of these
technologies tend to improve relations with those people whom they
already have relationships, regardless of location. Conversely, mobile
technology undermines already
tenuous local ties to neighbors,
grocers, news agents, local shopkeepers, etc. when mobile users
visit a store, many continue to
interact on the phone and/or other
mobile devices with people not in
their physical proximity. These
mobile users eschew local ties to
an extent not previously possible.
People transitioning through these
spaces while connected to the

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network can experience more connectivity and closeness with remote
others, whilst relations with their
former local community anchors
are diminished. This could contest super modernity [28], in that
there appears to be nothing solitary
about moving through a space, if
one is attached to a mobile device
and communicating with others.
PolySocial reality (PoSr)
describes a highly heterogenous
active asynchronous messaging
component [29]. If messages are
not clear due to divided attention
or other conflicts their meaning
becomes obfuscated. If message
networks do not overlap enough
between parties to be interpretable
there is a bigger problem of coordination and cooperation within communities. If everyone using a cell
phone in the community becomes
more individuated as a result, this
impacts the extent to which they
are able to cooperate and collaborate as a community [18, p. 7], [30,
p. 1039]. Some homogeneity is necessary in community (language,
shared experience or culture, etc.)
for cooperation to be successful.
This scales up to a global stage.
Applin and Fischer [18, p. 7] in discussing globalization note:
The new model for communications is one of creating
experiences of physical and
derived multiplexed communications spaces in personal,
asynchronous time, using
new capabilities created ...
within many cultures. This
encourages a greater fragmentation of world culture.
Convergence implies similar organization and greater
synchronicity ... when constraints are reduced and
personal and asynchronous
preferences are supported,
divergence and desynchronization follow [18, p. 7].
PoSr is comprised of all the interactions within the communication
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