Defining Social Technologies: evaluation of social

collaboration tools and technologies

Aelita Skaržauskienė, Rūta Tamošiūnaitė and Inga Žalėnienė
Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

Abstract: The popularity of social technologies continues to grow in the society. The term ‘social technology’ is often
referred to digital social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. In order to this a redefinition of this concept
based on the original definition is needed. Nowadays the concept of social technologies has several aspects which
destabilize the dominant status of technology. It emphasizes social sciences and the humanities as society shapers,
reconsiders the strength of social dimension in technological sciences. The aim of this paper is to provide insight into the
concept of social technologies, to develop its meaning in information and knowledge society by evaluating social
collaboration tools and technologies. Design/methodology/approach – The research results have contributed to the
knowledge of the concept of social technologies. Based on the analysis of scientific literature and results of empirical
research in the Focus group as well as Content analysis, theoretical framework for defining the concept of social
technologies was developed. The paper presents effects’ relation analysis with particular social collaboration tools and
technologies. Each tool and technology was evaluated by all positive/negative effects simultaneously by setting hierarchical
impact of the effect on a tool or technology. Research limitations/implications – The research is limited in a few aspects.
To understand the concept of social technologies more deeply and to develop technological perspectives in social sciences
a broader theoretical and empirical research is necessary. In order to generalise the research findings, it is recommended
that further research includes different dimensions from the perspective of other fields of science.

Keywords: social technologies, social engineering, social collaboration, social media, millennial generation

1. Introduction
In today's world, when the time cost is substantial and competition is fierce, the importance of new
technologies is increasing. Surveys conducted by analysts such as Forrester Research demonstrate that
popularity of social technologies continues to grow in the society from politics to personal communication,
from production of building materials to state management. The term ‘technology’ could no longer be
understood in its narrow sense as manufacturing processes and equipment necessary for production.
Technical definition of social space is a broader concept and can be modified to the next level of technology
that can be defined as a social problem in search for and implementation of the decision theory approach
(Derksen et al, 2012). The concept of social technologies became established in different fields of science in
recent decades. It includes a new research area for interdisciplinary research practitioners as well as major
practical application and the potential to make a real impact on social reality.

Social technologies – “the computer code and the services that enable online social interaction – are,
essentially, the product of 40 years of technology evolution and the fulfilment of a long-held vision of what
computers and digital technology could do” (Chui et all, 2012). In their research authors also state “that the
Web’s growth in reach and capability, and as a medium for interaction, set the stage for the explosive growth
of social technologies”. Social technologies unleash creative forces among users and enable new relationships
and group dynamics. In the hyperactive world people can feel immediate benefits in connecting with the right
peers, getting answers to questions and finding information. The Millennials, also known as the Millennial
Generation (Generation Y), are people born between 1980 and 2000 (Alberghini, et al., 2010). They are now
entering the workplace and have different habits and communication forms than the older generation.
According McKinsy Global Survey “Americans spend approximately 11 hours a day communicating or
consuming messages in various ways, including in-person, watching TV, reading, and using e-mail” (Chui et all,
2012). Just as email and instant messaging replaced the phone call, social technologies could have a similar
effect in changing communication dynamics (De Gennaro, 2010). “Freed from the limitations of the physical
world, people are able to use social technologies to connect across geographies and time zones and multiply
their influence beyond the number of people they could otherwise reach” (Bughin et al, 2011).

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Reference this paper as: Aelita Skaržauskienė, Rūta Tamošiūnaitė and Inga Žalėnienė, “Defining Social Technologies:
evaluation of social collaboration tools and technologies” The Electronic Journal Information Systems Evaluation Volume 16
Issue 3 2013, (232-241) , available online at www.ejise.com
 Aelita Skaržauskienė, Rūta Tamošiūnaitė and Inga Žalėnienė

Koo et al (2011) emphasized, that “even though the term ‘social communication technologies’ is most
commonly used to refer to new social media such as Twitter and Facebook, a redefinition of this concept
based on the original definition is needed”. Nowadays the concept of social technology has several aspects
which destabilize the dominant image of technology. It emphasizes social sciences and the humanities as
society shapers, reconsiders the strength of ‘soft technologies’, and restores focus to human actors. It means
that social technology is increasingly salient as an object of study for social sciences: sociality is more and more
something that people create technically (Derksen et al, 2012). “The instrumental, techno-scientific approach
to social life is not the exclusive province of social scientists any more, it demands all the more attention as an
object of study” (Mayer, 2009).

Social collaboration tools and technologies which fall in to category of cloud technology were evaluated in this
paper.. This category was emphasized as one of twelve disruptive technologies that will change life, business
and the global economy (Manyika et al, 2013).

The purpose of this research paper is to provide insight to the concept of ‘social technologies’, and to develop
the role of social technologies in information and knowledge society by analyzing new needs and application
forms of social technologies. The theoretical framework for defining the concept of ‘social technologies’ was
developed based on the analysis of the scientific literature and the results of empirical study in the Focus
group and content analysis.
2. Theoretical insights to the concept of social technologies: evaluation of
this concept and its possible definition
Technologies recently have become an inseparable part of human life in all dimensions. According D.
MacKenzie and J. Wajcman (1999) “technologies feed, clothe, and provide shelter for us; they transport,
entertain, and heal us; they provide the bases of wealth and of leisure; they also pollute and kill”. Despite of all
physical demands, technologies also actively mediate in the communication of people, making it easier, more
affordable and accessible. The concept of social technology was born in the light of development of
communication and collaboration processes in society in dimensions of business, government and community,
as well as in the process of interaction between them. In this chapter the brief overview of the evolution of the
concept of social technology will be presented, having in mind its connection with communication and
collaboration processes.

Nowadays society in everyday life deals with big number of different collaboration tools and technologies. In
general meaning collaboration can be defined as the communication of two or more people, who are
interacting in order to reach the common goal. Thus such definition does not reveal the essence of this social
phenomenon. In scientific literature can be found the idea, that communication is not a trait possessed by an
individual, but rather the consequence of a certain type of interaction; specifically, one that has
interdependent functionality (Scott-Phillips et al, 2012). This means, that communication is a process, a certain
activity, which is done every second in business, government and society. Also the collaboration must be
understood as special process, interaction of interdependent subjects. Modern information technologies have
brought into reality the necessity of adaptation to the fast speed of information sharing, creating and
distributing among actors, located in different states or even continents. For fulfilment of such high
requirements a large scale of various social tools and technologies are proposed to the market.

Collaboration tools and technologies comprise an increasingly important part of the information and
communications technology infrastructure in organizations, related to key areas such as knowledge
management, process improvement, teamwork, and supply chain management (Weiseth et al, 2006). Thus, in
modern word collaboration tools and technologies are disengaged from the frames of organizational
infrastructure and became easily accessible and affordable not only for business units, but also for
governments and society. Such processes made the usage of the concepts of tool and technology very wide,
but in some aspects not clear. According to Wikipedia, tool is any physical item that can be used to achieve a
goal, especially if the item is not consumed in the process. The synonyms of the “tool”, may be such word as
“instrument". The set of tools needed to achieve a goal is "equipment". Thus the technology can be defined as
the knowledge of constructing, obtaining and using tools. (Wikipedia, 2013a). Technology in its technical
meaning is a whole of production processes, tools, which are necessary to produce certain production, and
involves general (the cultivation and adaptation of stocks) and additional (transportation, storage, control and

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documentation) manufacture processes (Vaitkevičiūtė, 2000). If we transpose this technological definition in

the context of social sciences, we would find out that collaboration technology is a whole of collaboration
process, including all collaboration tools and in addition all knowledge of their interaction. This means that the
concept of tool is narrower and should be understood as a part of technology, which can consist of number of
different tools, which usage is concerted and meaningfully placed into consistent process or the
interconnected set of it. Furthermore, the concept of collaboration tools and technologies must be
supplemented with support of information technologies in order to reveal the importance and modern value
of innovative collaboration. Here, the definition of e-collaboration should be shortly described. The term e-
collaboration is increasingly being used in industry to denote collaboration activities supported by some form
of information and communication technologies (Weiset et al, 2006). Electronic collaboration (e-collaboration)
is collaboration using electronic technologies among different individuals to accomplish a common task. This is
a broad definition that encompasses not only computer-mediated collaborative work, but also collaborative
work supported by other types of technologies (Kock, 2005). In systematic approach it should be easily
noticed, that the integrated concepts of e-collaboration tools and technologies can be changed into one of the
most modern definition of social technology, which was first mentioned at the University of Chicago by A. W.
Small and Ch. R. Henderson around the end of the 19th century (Wikipedia, 2013b). Henderson (1895) had
used the term ‘social art’ for methods by which improvements to society are and may be introduced; “social
scientists are the ones who make predictions and social art is what gives directions”. The term ’social
technology’ has dual meaning (Li and Bernoff, 2011): as a term from its introduction was related to ‘social
engineering’ (Schotter, 1981; Sugden, 1989; North and Wallis, 1994; Nelson and Sampat, 2001; Nelson, 2002;
Pelikan, 2003, Leichteris, 2011), and since 21st century it gained another meaning as a ‘social software’
(Johannessen et al., 2001; Andersen, 2011; Duarte, 2011; Leibetseder, 2011; Bugin et al, 2011; Derksen et al,
2012).

In modern understanding of social technology, it could be applied for various purposes, such as decision
making, knowledge sharing, etc. Social technologies can be defined as any technologies used for goals of
socium or with any social basis, including social hardware (traditional communication media), social software
(computer mediated media), and social media (social networking tools) (Alberghini, et al., 2010). Chui et al
(2012) defines social technologies “as digital technologies used by people to interact socially and together to
create, enhance, and exchange content”. Social technologies distinguish themselves through the following
three characteristics (Bugin et al, 2011):
 they “are enabled by information technology”;
 they “provide distributed rights to create, add, and/or modify content and communications”;
 they “enable distributed access to consume content and communications”.
Social technologies include a wide range of various technological instruments that can be used by people,
private or public sector organizations, or as an interaction tool between them. They include many of the
technologies that are classified as ‘’social media’’, ‘’Web 3.0’’, and ‘’collaboration tools’’ (see Figure 1).

All these types of social technologies can be described in terms of three dimensions (Johannessen et al., 2001):
 Richness: “the ability to convey verbal and nonverbal cues, and facilitate shared meaning in a timely
manner”;
 Interactivity: “the extent to which rapid feedback is allowed”;
 Social presence: “the degree to which virtual team members feel close to one another”.
Different technologies may be better applicable for conveying data-information-knowledge, while others are
better suited for convergence-related tasks such as making decisions. For example, “e-mail facilitates well the
fine-tuning and re-examination of messages, but richer synchronous technologies (such as videoconferencing)
are needed to resolve differing viewpoints among team members and to develop a consensus for decision
making” (Montoya-Weiss et al, 2001).

The definition of social technology is characterized by multiplicity and the concept is not defined
unambiguously. The term ‘social technology’ is defined as a set of potentially arbitrary effective social
challenges refillable solution, ways to achieve the intended results, doing social impact of human, social

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 Aelita Skaržauskienė, Rūta Tamošiūnaitė and Inga Žalėnienė

groups, different social structures' behaviour (Alberghini, et al., 2010; Bugin et al, 2011; Chui et al , 2012).
Social technologies are much more than a consumer phenomenon: they connect many organizations internally
and increasingly reach outside their borders (Bughin et al, 2013).

According to the Figure 1, all listed social collaboration tools and technologies from the discussion forums to
the crowd – sourcing, may be conditionally separated into three big groups: e-business tools, e-government
tools and e-community tools. Such separation is only conditional, because every tool, used in certain sphere,
has a potentiality to be used in other one. For example: social networks, as a tool for communication, which
may be defined as a set of socially relevant network members, connected with one or more relations
(Carrington & Scott, 2011), nowadays is widely used in marketing and in involvement of society into decision
making processes. Or the crowd-sources, well known also as a collective intelligence, in the course of
evolution, from the tool of business units, used for marketing issues, is already transferred to the e-
government platform as an instrument for more effective work and decisions. As it visually showed in the
Figure 1 different listed tolls are interacting between each other and cooperating depending on the goals,
which are set by their users. All mentioned social technologies have some common characteristic: the better
accessibility and affordability, granted by the usage of collaboration tools.

*Public administration

Source: Ammended schema first published at Skaržauskiene et al (2013)

Figure 1: Social collaboration tools and technologies
The concept of social technology generally is inseparable from the concept of information and communication
technology. Thus this definition, despite of its popularity and wide application may be named as narrow
approach of the general category of social technology. Some scientist suggest to disassociate from the
informational technologies and reveal the meaning of social technology in wider scope, as all possible
problems solving methods, when some negative social phenomena with a help of certain combination of tools
and methods, is changed into more desirable in society (Urmonas, 2007; Buračas, 2007). Thus, even this wider
attitude (in distance with the compulsory connection with technological progress as a main characteristic of
social technology), gives us the same keywords, for defining social technologies: innovative, more effective and
changing the common processes.

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3. Empirical interdisciplinary approach to analysis of the perception of tools

of social technologies
A Focus group method and content analysis were chosen for an empirical research. The research group
established the workshop “Defining Social Technologies” during the International conference on Social
Technologies at Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania, in October, 2012 and later on discussions. During the
workshop the selection procedure for Focus group representatives was made. The results received in the
Focus group were supported with the results of virtual brainstorming using social technologies developed by
MRU Faculty of Social Informatics. In the context of interdisciplinary understanding of Social technologies
concept mix of Field (natural) and Nominal (also known as Delphi technique) types of Focus groups were used
(expert choosing is reasoned in table 1 below). In total, 13 experts from 9 research fields and 10 countries
participated in discussions via three sessions. All sessions were organized in the period of 8 month during the
year of 2012. Focus group method was chosen for its following features according Kimel (2003): “(a) it provides
rich depth of understanding of the phenomenon of interest; (b) it is valid used in isolation from other research
methods (might be used to support quantitative research as well); (c) it is as useful and as strong as its link to
the underlying research question and the rigor with which it is applied; (d) it provides concentrated amounts
of rich data, in participants’ own words, on precisely the topic of interest; (e) it provides critical information in
development of hypotheses or interpretation of quantitative data”. As Social technologies is a phenomenon
missing clear definition the Focus group method was chosen as appropriate according to the goals and the
object of the research.

According to Grudens-Schuck et al. (2004) composing Focus group with highly different characteristics (such as
status, income, education, personal features, etc.) will decrease the quality of the data. Interdisciplinary
research requires different characteristics. In order the data not to decrease in quality Focus group members
were unfamiliar with each other and kept away from direct contact in sessions 1 and 3. Session 2 was
conducted in natural environment with careful monitoring of the process. Anonymity among experts does not
lower validity of collected data and is appropriate characteristic for this type of empirical research (Tidikis,
2003). Focus group method has some limitations (challenges) as according to Kimel (2003) they are as follows:
(a) small number of participants; (b) limited generalizability, (c) group dynamics can be a challenge, (d) time
consuming interpretation, (e) requires experienced analysts. Challenges of the method were overcome with
experience of and thorough analysis executed by researchers.

Part of results gathered during this focus group were previously published in 4th international conference on
Information systems management and evaluation, RMIT University Vietnam, Ho Chi Ming Sity, Vietnam 13-14
May 2013 (see reference Skaržauskienė et al 2013).

Table 1: Analysis of experts’ relevant characteristics

1
Research work in ST field Research work
Main research Country of affiliated
experience experience
field research institution
(in years) (total in years)
Expert 1 Communication 6 17 The Netherlands
Expert 2 Economics 3 14 Denmark
Expert 3 Economics 5 5 Spain
Expert 4 Education 2 9 Norway
2
Expert 5 IT 7 21 Portugal
Expert 6 IT 6 11 Finland
Expert 7 IT 6 8 Germany
Expert 8 Law 2 5 Lithuania
Expert 9 Management 3 13 Poland
Expert 10 Management 6 8 United Kingdom
Expert 11 Mathematics 5 19 Lithuania
Expert 12 Politics 2 17 Finland
Expert 13 Sociology 2 8 Lithuania

1
Social Technologies
2
Information technologies

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According to Skaržauskienė et al (2013) outcomes of the content analysis revealed that essence of Social
technology is seen in 7 different sub-fields (grouped in to major fields) and is close in characterization to the
content of concept descriptions found in scientific literature. Focus group data analyses showed that both
conceptions of social technologies are still vivid though gradually compiling to one. As social technology with
the aspect of social engineering is to be understood as (a) public policy creation means; (b) group behaviour
pattern creation methods/means; (c) individual behaviour shaping means; in the social software field of social
technology the subfield of social networking tools those two seemingly different aspects are starting to
combine. Other sub-fields (collaboration tools, information aggregation tools, knowledge aggregation tools) in
social software field are more of a separate sphere more oriented not to changing current structures or
forming new ones, but more related to the collective of the community/society.

Social technologies is a possible solutions to a problem when any event a combination of tools and techniques
(technology) support is replaced by the more socially desirable. It is practically any activity which is replaced by
the object. As a counterbalance to this general concept of social technologies, in research lays another
concept, simplifying previously defined from the theoretical approach on the study of innovative technical
device. At its most narrow sense social technologies can be understood as information and communication
tools that have a range of economic, social, cultural or other public life processes available to each person:
computers, smart phones, social networks, etc. Thus, the analysed object is called an instrument through
which members of the public relevant information just become available. Both general and as most narrow
concept of social technologies gives out the same keywords - social technology is what is innovative, efficient,
and changes us past the usual social processes.

Additional notices, relevant to a deeper understanding of the concept of social technologies, were abstracted
from the ideas presented in Focus group discussion.
Experts in line with the discussion of the content of social technology concept suggested possible negative or
positive effects of this phenomenon. Positive effects were mostly related to social technology as a
collaboration or information/knowledge aggregation tool, as in this case it was taken as tool helping to assure
efficiency of the processes in collaboration, while negatives rose from social technology as social networking
tool with the agenda of personal data privacy or face-to-face communication skills. No strong opinions were
given on positive or negative effects of social technology as social engineering. Previous paper (Skaržauskienė
et al 2013) presented extraction of positive and negative effects made by social technologies in general. In this
paper effects’ relation analysis with particular social collaboration tools and technologies were analysed
(accordingly in Figure 2 and Figure 3). Each tool and technology was evaluated by all positive effects
simultaneously by setting hierarchical impact of the effect on a tool or technology. For example: Shared
workspaces were discussed to be as much encouraging innovations as helping to generate collective
intelligence and having twice or more times bigger impact on time management; so in the Figure 3 in the
Shared work space column 20 percent is given to effects Innovation encouragement and Collective intelligence
and 60 percent to Time management effect. The same evaluation was executed with negative effects.
Results of analysis of positive effects of social collaboration tools and technologies are diverse, though some
tendencies emerged. Most innovations encouraging and collective intelligence aggregating tools and
technologies analyzed belong to e-community group. Time management is mostly emerging in e-business and
e-government groups. Most of tools and technologies are evaluated to encompass only two of three effects. E-
democracy, business information systems, media and file sharing, social software seem to be weak in
innovation encouragement; which may be explained by the essence of tools and technologies mentioned, as
they are more related to management of exiting information rather than creation of new. Blogs/microblogs,
social networks, gamefication, social gaming seem to be weak in time management, and all of them are high in
innovation encouragement. This suggests that time management and innovation encouragement even both
are positive effects, but they might be difficult to optimize together. Online public administration services
seem to be week in collective intelligence. Again, it might be explained by the essence of this unit, as online
services in public administration are being encouraged with the goal to save time for administrative actions,
not managerial. Encouragement of innovations may occur by emerging necessity to save more time in routine
tasks. If the dichotomy of policy making and implementation is denied, much wider area for innovations might
be encouraged via online services in public administration which could include not only issuing of documents,
but two way dialog between person and institution..

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100%

90%

80%
Time
70% management

60%
Collective
50%
intelligence
40%

30% Intovation
encouragement
20%

10%

0%

* Business IS – Business Information Systems

* Online PA services – Online public administration services
Figure 2: Positive effects of social collaboration tools and technologies
To sum up: Time management effect is mostly seen in Media and file sharing and Social software; Collective
intelligence effect is equally often seen in Crowdsourcing, Blogs/microblogs, Wikis, Rating and reviews, E-
democracy; Innovation encouragement effect is mostly seen in Gamefication and Social gaming.
Further in Figure 4 analysis of negative effects of social collaboration tools and technologies is presented.
100%
90%
80% Satisfaction in
70% interpersonal
communication
60%
50% Safety

40%
30%
User generated
20% content quality
10%
0%

* Business IS – Business Information Systems

* Online PA services – Online public administration services
Figure 3: Negative effects of social collaboration tools and technologies

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 Aelita Skaržauskienė, Rūta Tamošiūnaitė and Inga Žalėnienė

Results of analysis of negative effects of social collaboration tools and technologies are les diverse as in
positive effects analysis. Most negative effect on user generated content emerges in e-community group. Most
negative effect on safety emerges in e-government and e-business groups. Most negative effect on satisfaction
in interpersonal communication emerges in e-government group. Similar leverage by all three effects is found
on Crowdsourcing, Wikis, and Social gaming; (with exclusion of Safety affect) on Online learning systems,
Rating and reviews, and Discussion and forums. Online public administration services and Gamefication seems
to be weakly affected by poor user generated content; it might be explained by the essence of those units as
accordingly either there is not much user generated content, or that content is not of great official importance.
Social software, Social networks, Crowdsourcing, and Wikis are considered to be least effected by safety
issues. Dissatisfaction in interpersonal communication is the least with Blogs/microblogs. Social art tools and
technologies did not get to this diagram, as they are not seen as negative effect producers (except matters
related to intellectual property protection in unusual environments).
To sum up: Negative effect on User generated content quality is mostly seen in Wikis and Online learning
systems; Negative effect on Safety effect is mostly seen in Gamefication, Business information systems and
Rating and reviews; Negative effect on Satisfaction in interpersonal communication is mostly seen in Online PA
services and Shared workspaces.
4. Conclusions and discussion: The potential and risks of social technologies
Summarizing theoretical insights, results from the Focus group research and content analysis the following
conclusion and questions for further research on the potential and risks of social technologies can be
formulated:
Despite rapid application of social technologies, much more lies ahead. Today, more than 80 percent of the
world`s online population is interacting via social networks on a regular basis, but 65 percent of the world
population-4,6 billion people-still lacks internet access (McKinsey research, 2012). The real power of social
technologies is only started to be understood. Social interaction via technologies is a powerful way to
efficiently organizing knowledge. The same effect is valid to culture, economics, and political power. As has
been seen in early use of social technologies, when these ways of interacting are applied to commercial and
professional activities (e.g. developing and selling products, working together to solve a business problem), the
resulting value creation is impressive (Chui at al, 2012).

The application of social technologies in organisational management has become crucial for success in network
society. Nevertheless, over the next few years the emerging “social technologies” of Web 2.0 and Web 0.3 are
likely to transform the management. Social technologies enable organisational interactions to take place
online with the scale, speed, and economics of the Internet. Virtual networked teams have made management
more efficient, because they are reducing the costs of communication, collaboration and coordination.
McKinsey’s fifth annual survey on social tools and technologies shows that when integrated into the daily work
of employees and adopted on a large scale throughout a new kind of business—the networked enterprise—
they can improve operations, financial performance, and market share (Chui at al, 2012).

Social technologies are becoming the preferred method of communication of new generations and
communication styles are evolving into a more collaborative approach (Alberghini, et al., 2010). According with
Forrester analysts as De Gennaro and Fenwick (2010), there are key trends that will make the inclusion of
social technology in society life a necessity. These trends are the physical distance between teams and the
entrance of Millennials into the workforce (De Gennaro, 2010). These new employees bring very different
needs, experiences, and expectations to the job and often meet a seasoned workforce that has very different
work styles (Schooley, 2009). New technologies allow people to raise questions, share knowledge and ideas,
and discover people skills regardless of hierarchy

It can be concluded that the current function of social technology is for social purposes via digital means. At its
most narrow sense social technologies can be understood as information and communication tools that have a
range of economic, social, cultural or other public life processes available to each person: computers, smart
phones, social networks, etc. Respondents reported benefits from the use of social technologies for various
purposes: first of all reducing communication costs, increased speed to access knowledge, decreasing travel
costs, and increased creativity. According empirical research results positive effects were mostly related to
social technology as a collaboration or information/knowledge aggregation tool, as in this case it was taken as
tool helping to assure efficiency of the processes in collaboration, while negatives rose from social technology

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as social networking tool with the agenda of personal data privacy or face-to-face communication skills. Chui
et al (2012) and other also researchers from McKinsy Global Institute, working in the field of social
technologies identified several risk groups: “employee time spent ‘’chatting’’ about not work-related topics on
internal or external social networks or using social media to attack fellow employees or management”,
different risks related to consumer privacy, information security and data security. These risks could limit the
ways in which social technologies can be applied. Also “censorship and restrictions on Internet use stand in the
way of value creation by companies that hope to enable consumer to interact with them and that wish to
harvest deep insights from social data” (Chui et al, 2012).

Social networking capabilities are providing vital information in a way that is adaptive and user-driven.
However, all these technologies have limitations that can easily lead to misinterpretation, as with the lack of
non verbal communication, they are not capable of providing the same quality of communication as eye-to-
eye interaction. “Because of delays in transmission and the lack of social and nonverbal cues, communication
technologies can interfere with open communication, knowledge sharing, and the ability of teams to identify
and resolve misunderstandings” (Cohen, Gibson, 2012). Old generations tend to be sceptical about social
technologies. Therefore, it is important to implement something useful, to monitor the user engagement and
to educate the community for using social technologies (Allberghini et al, 2010). Online collaboration, in its
current state, is not a very good substitute for the sort of unscripted, face-to-face interactions that are critical
to producing genuine breakthroughs. And complex coordination tasks, like those involved in the design of a
new aircraft, still require a dense matrix of “strong ties” among critical contributors, rather than the “weak
ties” that are typical of web-based communities (McKinsy Global Survey, 2012).

Social technologies enable more and more users to become a part of global conversation, creating their own
content rather than just consuming it. However, the quality of user-generated content varies dramatically –
from excellent works of journalism to spam and even abuse. Bauerlein (2008) critics have argued that the very
disintermediating power of social technologies has reduced the overall quality of discourse. Carr (2010) have
argued that the short-form content made me available through social technologies is making people less able
to digest large and complex amounts of information. The opposing view is that even our existing means of
content selection didn’t ever assure quality, that the diversity of opinions is healthy, and that if people can
learn social media literacy, access to a broader set of opinions can actually promote critical thinking.

Discussion about social technologies potential ought to be a possibility to address the following question for
future research, through fundamental conceptual reflections and empirically-oriented contributions: which
social technologies are most important in current social environment? How can we study them? What is the
future of social technologies and network society?
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