Social Systems and Digital/online Worlds
Social systems sciences is a loose term for engineered environments which, if successful, attract users to participate. The advent of computers and the internet has enabled new types of social systems to take form.
There are multiple methods of measuring participation within a social system. Reach, engagement, frequency of participation – all tell something about the success of a social system.
All social systems have commonalities. One is that they become more fun and interesting as more people play and participate. Another is that with each iteration, or version, very quickly the population or interest reaches a plateau.
Indeed, the world is one large social system, split into many smaller social systems.
- Digital social systems
- Virtual worlds
- Role-playing games as social systems
When the Internet first reached the hands of the populace, people took the existing model of dungeons and dragons and created their own digital versions of the worlds once played by people in their living rooms and basements. These first text-based online role-playing games attracted people who enjoyed the social aspect of battling for gold and riches. Hundreds of new worlds sprouted up. Some of these worlds were designed more successfully than others. In terms of reach, some of these worlds supported thousands of users, while some only tens to hundreds.
Read more about this topic: Social System
Famous quotes containing the words social, systems and/or worlds:
“In social halls a favored guest
In years that follow victory won,
How sweet to feel your festal fame
In woman’s glance instinctive thrown:
Repose is yours—your deed is known,”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Not out of those, on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture, comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselled savage nature, out of terrible Druids and Berserkirs, come at last Alfred and Shakespeare.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The saints with their beau-peers whole worlds outwear,
And things unseen do see, and things unheard do hear.”
—Giles Fletcher, The Younger (1585–1623)