* Sharing without knowing
* Saving for personal use
* Share with friends
* Share with interest communities
* Showing off/self-expression
* Altruism

I think the first two exactly match off with your “selfish”/personal gratification comment. Likewise the “look at me” in the penultimate bullet is also on the money.

It’s undoubtedly true that people crave attention and long for praise. The web provides a mechanism for reaching a greater number of people to seek it from, but in a manner that people feel (bizarrely) less self-conscious about, probably because they don’t see/meet the other people.

(Link to rest of Tom’s comments http://greatapps.blogspot.com/2007/02/analysis-of-social-communities-by-tom.html)

I think there’s a broader point that communal activity is in fact the result of a high volume of purely selfish activity (I’m convinced there’s a proper theory about this somewhere in sociology/ psychology etc) - and in this environment the one thing we can and do selfishly crave is attention.

And, as I mentioned - ‘attention’ can be much simpler than actual comments - simply monitoring traffic can be more than good enough (hell, it does it for me, every time!)

Couple of miscellaneous thoughts:

Re: Jimmy Wales. Surely the socialization of technology has always been key, e.g. the invention of gunpowder. Imperial fireworks over the Forbidden City become wall-busting cannon fire in Medieval Europe.

Re: Sue. Nice theory but what does it mean for all the overly-well-attended kids from China’s one child policy - the ‘little emperors’?

Another great post. I remember some of the Sociology lessons from university and I think those studies may give clues to what you’re seeking.

“Individual vs. group behavior.”
How people will do things in a mob situation (Or other anonymous setting) that they wouldn’t dream of when acting in an individual setting.

That explains some online community behavior, for sure. And from Psychology departments comes : “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.” That thinking must be considered too when looking at online behaviour, in my opinion.

The tech is critical to the degree that it has lowered the barriers to create ad hoc, egalitarian communities on the fly at very low cost. Tech serves as an accelerator, a catalyst or an enabler.

I’ve read this today and wondered how the blogger would have dealt with her experiences in the past?

http://www.dollymix.tv/2007/04/women_who_blog_emily_turner_fr_1.html

The chance to communicate her feelings and draw strength from others, may go on to help someone out there that the blogger will never know about.

Maybe some people are hoping to derive a positive from their selfish acts?

(Wow, the internet is so much more interesting now then it was a few years ago