My supervisor Jesper Schneider asked me “What does social mean?” the other day. Thats actually a very good question. So here I list some definitions, while I ponder my definition of social.

Wikipedia has many more or less helpfull definitions. In the introduction there’s a rather good sentence

“…its meaning is at times vague, suggesting that it is a fuzzy concept.”

Another is that social means Interactions between people (social interaction)

The German Wikipedia has a better definition

“In der Umgangssprache bedeutet „sozial“ den Bezug einer Person auf eine oder mehrere andere Personen”

[In colloquial language social means the reference of a person to one or more other persons] Translated by me

Oxford English Dictionary says social is the

“Capable of being associated or united to others”
“United by some common tie”

Oxford Dictionary of Sports Science & Medicine in Medicine [requires login]:

“Pertaining to the interaction humans have with one another, either as individuals or in groups.”

Good old Merriam Webster dictionary:

“…of or relating to human society, the interaction of the individual and the group…”

It seems like the term social only mostly is defined by the a jointing term. Social interaction is clearly described in many dictionaries while social tends to lack proper definition.

So what is social in the context of my research?
Social tagging: is a term often used for user generated metadata, the action where a user index an information object. What so social about the actual indexing (tagging)? I truly believe the result of the tagging, the folksonomy is some sort of manifestation of a social nature, but the process of tagging is an individual action. Maybe the folksonomy can be regarded as a social organization (thank you Jesper for the definition).

I don’t think I come any closer to a definition right now - But the quest continues.