About THe project
This website constitutes the fruition of a research project, carried out in partial fulfilment of my MSc in Digital Anthropology at UCL.
"In the same manner as in in-person
encounters with the Other, where I am aware of myself on display as an object, in
virtual encounters, I am also aware of myself on display as an object; however, in
virtual encounters, this object does not constitute my holistic self. Online, I can choose
to share certain elements of my life but not others, I can block the sharing of certain
information about myself by certain Others in a manner in which I could not in real life,
and I can remove instances of my facticity from public display in a manner which is not
possible when I actually come to know the Other"
Michael Stephen Lopato, 2016, p. 196.
A debate has been ongoing both in academia and popular culture around whether the burgeoning of social media and online interaction has restricted or given us more freedom to be social, and as an extension of this whether online interaction is less real – i.e. virtual – in relation to real, offline interaction. This discourse is particularly prominent in the recent work of Miller et al, who write “We reject a notion of the virtual that separates online spaces as a different world” (Miller et al, 2016, p. x) and “There was always an inherent contradiction to the common claim that our increased devotion to screens has made us anti- social. It made more sense in the days when, for example, computer gaming was largely practiced by autonomous individuals. However, when people now mainly use devices with screens precisely in order to socialise with other people through social media (or indeed through group gaming), the criticism looks far more suspect” (p. 190). Conversely, Sherry Turkle argues that through our constant online social connections we have gained in quantity of social interaction, but lost quality and substance, leading to a new sense of loneliness (Turkle, 2014, p. 23). Tasked with devising an investigation into the topic “Digital London”, I immediately sought to investigate a field site falling somewhere within this debate around online mediated social interaction.
I found a website called TeaWithStrangers.com which allows people to sign up to meetings – usually lasting for an hour and a half – at cafes around London, bringing together groups of strangers for a conversation. The site functions through a community of hosts, who chair and organise the meetings. The site claims that as part of the digital permeating our lives, we are “more ‘connected’ than ever before, but we’re also more alone” and that “we're creating something that would've been incredibly unnecessary 20 years ago. But while we get busier, it's easy to forget the value of a conversation for no reason. A conversation that's intentionally unintentional”. It is a statement and goal which implies that through technology we have become less of a city community and less connected in the “real world”, suggesting, as opposed to Miller et al, that there is a divide between the virtual and the real. The aims of this project were to ascertain what attracts people to go to these meet-ups and why: whether they are lonely, utilise social networks or see a value in offline connections, which cannot be found online. I wanted to explore the way the website mediates social interaction online – something which it claims to be opposed to – contributing to the vast online social networks which transcend the city. Established and laid out as a space of complete inclusion, I sought to probe the subtle ways in which this community of strangers is policed; while of course everyone is welcomed, it seemed likely a very specific community of people would attend based on the outlay and language used on the website, the profiles of the hosts, as well as the location of the cafes used for meet-ups. The location of the cafes provided an interesting focal point, considering the website’s stated aim to make “cities feel more like neighbourhoods” – the location of the cafés would surely factor into who had access to these meetings and highlight whether certain London neighbourhoods were more valued or popular than others. Additionally, I was intrigued by the site’s promise to put its users in contact with people they would not usually meet, people outside of their social circles – whether those be work, school, sporting teams and so forth – promising to “manufacture serendipity”.
I found a website called TeaWithStrangers.com which allows people to sign up to meetings – usually lasting for an hour and a half – at cafes around London, bringing together groups of strangers for a conversation. The site functions through a community of hosts, who chair and organise the meetings. The site claims that as part of the digital permeating our lives, we are “more ‘connected’ than ever before, but we’re also more alone” and that “we're creating something that would've been incredibly unnecessary 20 years ago. But while we get busier, it's easy to forget the value of a conversation for no reason. A conversation that's intentionally unintentional”. It is a statement and goal which implies that through technology we have become less of a city community and less connected in the “real world”, suggesting, as opposed to Miller et al, that there is a divide between the virtual and the real. The aims of this project were to ascertain what attracts people to go to these meet-ups and why: whether they are lonely, utilise social networks or see a value in offline connections, which cannot be found online. I wanted to explore the way the website mediates social interaction online – something which it claims to be opposed to – contributing to the vast online social networks which transcend the city. Established and laid out as a space of complete inclusion, I sought to probe the subtle ways in which this community of strangers is policed; while of course everyone is welcomed, it seemed likely a very specific community of people would attend based on the outlay and language used on the website, the profiles of the hosts, as well as the location of the cafes used for meet-ups. The location of the cafes provided an interesting focal point, considering the website’s stated aim to make “cities feel more like neighbourhoods” – the location of the cafés would surely factor into who had access to these meetings and highlight whether certain London neighbourhoods were more valued or popular than others. Additionally, I was intrigued by the site’s promise to put its users in contact with people they would not usually meet, people outside of their social circles – whether those be work, school, sporting teams and so forth – promising to “manufacture serendipity”.
Methodology
With a community and field site such as this it was clear I would have to divide my research methods between the offline and the online. Participant Observation was a key aspect in understanding TWS (teawithstrangers), and hence I attended a TWS teatime as soon as I had devised my research questions on November 19th, 2016. I had already contacted the host of this particular teatime on facebook to let her know of my role as an anthropologist. The 3 people I met here became my core informants, Samar, Chi and the host, Jen. I kept in touch with all 3 of them throughout the next few months. I carried out a semi-structured, questionnaire style interview with Chi, via email and a vlog-style interview with Samar – we had discussed the most effective method of communication and settled on these. I spent a lot of hours with Jen in person as after our initial meeting, we had decided to make a film together, therefore I met her friends, her boyfriend, saw her house and managed to form a very detailed picture of her life. Jen was also the first London host of TWS – the website operates in various cities – and therefore had expansive knowledge of the TWS community.
I utilised mapping software to establish the physical locations of TWS’ favoured cafes and NVivo to analyse the language of the TWS website. Significantly, during my research, TWS London set up a facebook page for the first time and has now started to host larger events in collaboration with charities and companies, where various tables of strangers meet at once in a more organised event form, as opposed to 4-6 people sitting at a table in a public café. I had captured photos of my first TWS meet-up already and was invited to film one of these new events, as well as participate, which I gladly did. In addition to my study of TWS, I also wanted to investigate the notion of talking to strangers online, a space not dependent on the physical location of its community. I approached this by focusing on Habbo hotel, seeking to collate an online tearoom as a homage to teawithstrangers.
With a community and field site such as this it was clear I would have to divide my research methods between the offline and the online. Participant Observation was a key aspect in understanding TWS (teawithstrangers), and hence I attended a TWS teatime as soon as I had devised my research questions on November 19th, 2016. I had already contacted the host of this particular teatime on facebook to let her know of my role as an anthropologist. The 3 people I met here became my core informants, Samar, Chi and the host, Jen. I kept in touch with all 3 of them throughout the next few months. I carried out a semi-structured, questionnaire style interview with Chi, via email and a vlog-style interview with Samar – we had discussed the most effective method of communication and settled on these. I spent a lot of hours with Jen in person as after our initial meeting, we had decided to make a film together, therefore I met her friends, her boyfriend, saw her house and managed to form a very detailed picture of her life. Jen was also the first London host of TWS – the website operates in various cities – and therefore had expansive knowledge of the TWS community.
I utilised mapping software to establish the physical locations of TWS’ favoured cafes and NVivo to analyse the language of the TWS website. Significantly, during my research, TWS London set up a facebook page for the first time and has now started to host larger events in collaboration with charities and companies, where various tables of strangers meet at once in a more organised event form, as opposed to 4-6 people sitting at a table in a public café. I had captured photos of my first TWS meet-up already and was invited to film one of these new events, as well as participate, which I gladly did. In addition to my study of TWS, I also wanted to investigate the notion of talking to strangers online, a space not dependent on the physical location of its community. I approached this by focusing on Habbo hotel, seeking to collate an online tearoom as a homage to teawithstrangers.
The Website
I settled on Weebly as my project platform as I wanted to push the idea of an interactive, multi-media space within which you can explore my research, and more importantly gain a sense of what TWS meetings look and sound like, as well as having your own interaction with a stranger. Weebly offered me the possibility of embedding a forum within the site and while this is possible on various platforms, Weebly seemed the easiest to navigate for a first-time website designer such as myself. Also, to cement the idea of this site as an interactive portal and an exploration of mediated online communication, you, the user, can contact me directly via the live chat box in the bottom right hand corner of this page and all the following pages and pose any questions you may have - if all goes to plan I will be able to respond "live" via my iPhone.
I settled on Weebly as my project platform as I wanted to push the idea of an interactive, multi-media space within which you can explore my research, and more importantly gain a sense of what TWS meetings look and sound like, as well as having your own interaction with a stranger. Weebly offered me the possibility of embedding a forum within the site and while this is possible on various platforms, Weebly seemed the easiest to navigate for a first-time website designer such as myself. Also, to cement the idea of this site as an interactive portal and an exploration of mediated online communication, you, the user, can contact me directly via the live chat box in the bottom right hand corner of this page and all the following pages and pose any questions you may have - if all goes to plan I will be able to respond "live" via my iPhone.