Rhythms and Ties: Toward a Pragmatics of Technologically Mediated Sociability

This chapter goes further in breaking the concept of social ties into more revealing formulations. It shows that people use technologies in different ways to support different types of relationships. Each has its different mode. For instance, a 'connected presence' is maintained not through the communication of information in detail and depth but through little gestures that are easier with some technologies than with others. Technology is used to enable people to find an effective 'rhythm' to their social lives. People try to maintain their strong ties, but they also use different techniques depending on the behavioural costs of communication. If communication is cheap, they can maintain their ties with large quantities of relatively meaningless chitchat. When it is expensive, each communication episode is made to count more.