Jane Jacobs wrote a wonderful book about urban planning titled The Death and Life of Great American Cities. In the book, she explains how cities were ruined by poor urban planning and offer suggestions on ways to improve the development.
One suggestion is to design streets and neighborhoods to allow for more eyes on the street. She says the more eyes watching a street at any giving time determines how safe, or unsafe, a street might be. Poor urban planning assumes that if a street is empty it is safe, whereas Jacobs argues that the more people occupying a street the less likely a crime will be committed. This is why banks are so often in very populated street corners instead of a side street with cheaper rent.
I was playing with this “eyes on the street” idea and the Facebook news feed. This feed continuously updates you on every activity of your friends on Facebook. I wonder if the same principles of “eyes on the street” apply to behavior on Facebook and the news feed.
If everyone can see a negative comment you post on someone else’s site, then would that person think twice about actually posting? If more eyes are watching our every move on Facebook, would we behave more inline with social norms?
Many people complained about the news feed in the beginning and jokingly called it the stalker feed. Now, however, many people actually find the feed very beneficial for staying in touch with friends, because, unlike Myspace, you can review from within your own account, what your friends are doing. I just wonder if it also works to curtail negative behavior over Myspace which doesn’t have such a feature.
Right now this is a working hypothesis as I don’t have any supporting evidence, but if you happen to come across something that would shed some light, please do share.
