This week’s first article, “The Structure of the Web” by Jon Kleinberg and Steve Lawrence, discussed the way that the internet itself functioned as a web. Though more specifically discussing the paths between web pages and online “neighborhoods”, there were also many connections to human social networks. For example, the authors discussed how the web includes hubs, just as we have discussed in social networks. It was interesting to think of the web as made up of communities of web pages. As the authors described it, “a community can also be defined as a collection of pages in which each member page has more links to pages within the community than to pages outside the community,” (1850). I thought that this was really interesting because I had never really thought of the web in these terms. I had more thought of the communities on the internet being solely based on the interactions that people have on it, rather than existing between the pages themselves.
The “Pentagon Sets its Sights on Social Networking Websites” article was a really interesting look at online social networks and how they are being used today. The article points out the exorbitant amount of information that people voluntarily put on the internet about themselves. While I had heard all sorts of warnings about being cautious about what you post on Facebook because many companies now will look at your profile while considering you for a job, for example, I found the use of the information as discussed here to be quite surprising. While it may be quite effective to use online social networks to track terrorist networks, it is kind of frightening to know that the NSA could have the power to track all of our online interactions. While I understand its potential usefulness, I also think that this sort of surveillance might be bordering a little bit too much on reaching Big Brother status.
Question: Do you think that the level of potential information gain from tapping the web would be worth the lack of privacy that it would entail?
So finally, the moment we have all been waiting for: the connection of all of our social network talk to Facebook. The Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe article was very interesting and enjoyable to read. However, I also must admit that few of their findings came as a shock to me, as an “intense” Facebook user myself. One point that I initially found very interesting was in the authors’ review of literature about online social networks. The authors stated that “when online and offline social networks overlapped, the direction was typically online to offline,” (4). I found this very surprising. While on internet communities such as online dating sites this would seem to make sense, in most other situations I found it hard to believe that most people were forming relationships online first and then meeting these people in person. I found this especially surprising because I feel like we have all been so heavily trained to be cautious when meeting new people on the internet because they may not be who they say they are, etc. However, I was relieved to see that, later in the article, the authors discussed how their results showed the opposite relationship (relationships typically moved from offline to online. These authors attributed these results to the nature of the Facebook site, which seems to make sense to me. After reviewing previous literature on the subject, the authors discussed their own Facebook research. While I found their results to be pretty similar to what I would have expected, I think that the fact that all of their respondents were from one school could have influenced the results. I think that it would be really interesting to do this same study at different schools and see how the results might differ. The article also discusses how Facebook may not increase the number of strong ties that one has, but could greatly increase the number of weak ties that one has. I think that, if this holds true, this could be very significant in providing more job opportunities and gaining new information to people who have a lot of Facebook friends (assuming that they create their profiles keeping this possibility in mind).
Question: Do you think that it holds true that Facebook increases the number of weak ties that one has? Would you consider everyone who you are friends with on Facebook to be at least a weak tie? Or could Facebook potentially create a new category of social ties?
I really enjoyed Barry Wellman’s article, especially because at the end he answered pretty much every question that I had about his article beforehand. I found his response to his own third question to be very interesting. He asked if good online relationships could be considered equivalent to good face-to-face relationships. In his response, he made the very intelligent comment that this comparison works under the assumption that if we were not online at any given time, we would have having face-to-face interactions instead. I think that the truth is, in many cases, being online does not replace real life interaction. I feel like most people I know go online while doing their work, or watching TV or participating in other activities that are displacing face-to-face interaction, but I don’t think that being online itself attempts to replace our face-to-face contact. Therefore, I think that the internet can often help to strengthen our ties, rather than weaken them.