Page 507 - Cultures and Organizations

472 IMPLICATIONS

LinkedIn, Plaxo, Twitter, Xing, and others have spread with speeds that

exceed flu epidemics, and we are just getting started.
In 2009 a Dutch vaccination program targeting a uterine cancer–
producing virus directed to teenage girls had to be repeated because rumors
had spread on social network software that the vaccination was hazardous.
Authoritative information was disregarded, and the rumors induced some
15 percent of the target group to stay at home. Refusing vaccination has

a long history in the Netherlands, but it used to be confined to stable reli-
gious communities and not a function of ephemeral Internetworks.
The newness of the accounts just described is on the surface only. They
involve ancient human dynamics—groups of males staging a fi ght, groups
of girls gossiping—yet the use of new technologies of communication is a
change that constitutes an evolution. What is the replicator in these two
examples, as well as in the millions of other instances of rapid adoption of
social software? Group agency. Intergroup competition is facilitated in the
hooligan case, and group cohesion is enhanced in the vaccination-refusal
case. Any new tool that allows for improvement of these two forces will be
rapidly adopted, because it gives a selective advantage to the groups that
use it. Major catastrophes aside, there is no turning back from these bits of
evolution.
Which of the levels of selection (genetic, epigenetic, sexual, behavioral,
symbolic) are affected by these examples? Well, all of them. People who
are genetically or epigenetically less fit to use the new communication

tools will suffer a social cost and be less likely to find partners. People who
cannot learn to master them or whose language capacities are insuffi cient
will also be at a disadvantage. The larger selective effect will, however,
be at the level of the group: groups that use the new technologies to good
purposes will perform better. That is, they will do better in terms of cohe-
sion. Whether they intrinsically perform better depends. So, social soft-

ware is another tool to facilitate group-level selection. We can expect fast
advances in social software, software that supports relationship building
and reputation maintenance, and in other appliances that help maintain the
moral circle. In cultures in which education is important, new technologies
are used for education, and in groups in which socializing is important,
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they will be used for that. To summarize, these advances in commu-
nication technologies will not eliminate group boundaries, but they will
enable existing groups to organize more effectively, building on existing
culture.