Social Network Blog - g3

The group of readings for this week recapped most of the concepts we have been covering in class thus far and tied them into the development of online communities. With so many common threads of physical communities and networks, have online media created new communities?

The first reading by Kleinber and Lawrence described the online world of websites. The grouping of websites in a way reflect community structures. They broke down the communities as “core” websites- those that are the most prominent, “remaining pages”- those that are characterized in relation to the core, which are further subdivided as being either upstream (can connect to the core, but cannot be connected from the core – linkage-wise) and downstream (the core connects to this page, but this page does not connect to the core) and finally the “tendrils”- those sites that neither reach the core nor can be reached from it. The grouping of sites in this manner reflects network structures. The core websites of a topic are analogous to tight-knit strong ties. From these ties branch out to the weak ties, “the remaining pages” related to the core. The direction of flow can be considered similar to the out-degree found in Pearson’s article. How a website refers another is similar to how a person will refer to another as a friend, and whether this will be reciprocate (i.e. smokers will generate names of individuals they are tied to, but often these nonsmokers will not list those smokers). This article also connects websites to McPherson’s studies of homophily: “Pages and links are created by users with particular interests…[they] cluster into natural “community” structures”.

I found the second article to be particularly unsettling. Leaping into the path towards the real world, I have received various forms of advice about interviewing styles, tips on resumes and networking, and the likes. But a new piece of advice that has been circulating is about employers will google potential employees to learn about their background or even check through the Facebook, http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/audio/facebook.mp3. (Even Glamour magazine had a mention about googling potential dates in their “It’s OK…” section). Granted newspaper write-ups are a bit out of people’s hands, but voluntary information posted online through sites like the Facebook are self-edited and potential employees should be wary about what they post. But the article by Marks explored research through online social networks farther. It stated that the Pentagon, through the National Security Agency (NSA) compiles a database of what people have posted about themselves on social networks to create “extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.” Through this research of online profiles, see how many links or “degrees” separate a given person from someone who is a “member of a blacklisted organisation”, almost creating a six degrees of separation, McCarthy style. However, with additional factors like “flying lessons” and possible terrorist related activities, tapping into these online social networks could create excellent evidence to pinpoint possible criminals. This article tied into the past topics in class by showing how actual social networks and identities can be traced through the online social networks.

The study by Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe focused on a particular social networking online site, the Facebook. Although most of last weeks readings focused on relationships created online, how strong these ties actually are (Mesch and Talmud), whether these online relationships are isolated to cyberspace or if they cross media or into face to face encounters (Baym). The internet was seen as revolutionary in networking because it allowed ties to form that transcended geography and connect people based on interests (Wellman). However, the interesting aspect of the online Facebook communities is that these are based primarily on offline relationships (from strong ties to friends of friends to chance encounters). Thus, Facebook has sparked the offline to online trend. The Facebook allows for established networks to strengthen and be publicized online, and aid in the maintenance of weak ties. Primarily, what this article was interested in people’s utilization of Facebook to maintain weak ties, especially those with high school friends as a means to secure social capital (Putnum).
Three findings within this study were that 96% of Facebook users put their high school name in their profiles, which the authors suggested that these users wanted to maintain a connection to their former high school classmates. However, I feel that the authors are labeling a reason to Facebook that is not necessarily correct. Like most of the class, I was a freshman when the Facebook first started, back then it was thefacebook.com. The high school option was not available at that point. Most people used the Facebook to connect with their fellow peers and those at other ivy schools. At its inception, most people created their profiles to reflect who they were that was not really blatant from their everyday encounters. It was not until a good 2 months or so that there was a high school option. I simply believe it is another option that people can put in their profiles that is personal as mobile numbers or AIM sn, but is a basic fact about people much like the college they go to (which is a ‘former’ requirement).
However, I do agree with the other findings that those who use the Facebook more intensely report higher bridging capital, because people see the Facebook as an excellent networking tool, especially with the formation of legitimate groups. Also those with low satisfaction with their university and low self esteem appeared to gain in bridging social capital if they used the Facebook more intensely. Truthfully, the Facebook is a means of visualizing networks. By being connected to your community of strong and weak ties, best friends and acquaintances, you have an open means of communication. If there is a question you need to ask of an IT former classmate, the Facebook opens you to that social capital. Also, with the constant developments of the Facebook, you can keep up on your friends without even talking with them. Changing something in your facebook profile is basically an update to your online network. During my abroad experience, I could simply post pictures of my travels and my friends would know where I was. I could send out group messages. I could post on people’s walls. Overall, the Facebook is a running bulletin of your community’s lives. Due to the constant updates people make to their profiles and this interactive communication medium, many former non-Facebookers felt the absolute push to join this online community once realizing its amazing networking abilities. Based on these descriptions, could you describe the Facebook as a form of blogging but with more of reciprocal options (wall posts…), especially with the new Mini-Feed option?
The final article by Wellman described the evolution of networking and communities. He began his article discussing the small enclosed communities of Agrarian villages that were door-to-door. People communicated primarily with those within their village/town/neighborhood by walking between houses and shops. However, a change in transportation and communication altered communities to become more place-to-place. Rather than connecting within neighborhoods, communities met within private spheres – within home, and cut off most of the physical community ties. Although, the community ties expanded past the neighborhoods may have appeared as a negative aspect because of disconnect, this network expansion allowed for weak ties to develop across communities, interests, and occupations and create diversity of resources (which may aid in political situations – like the Gans ‘urban villagers’ situation).
However, with further advances in technologies, people became just as portable as their communication devices. Now people can be reached anywhere and basically everywhere they have signals and their devices. Wellman described the evolution thus far as: “the switch from door-to-door to place-to-place has enable communities of choice that were less constrained by distance, place-to-place community …preserved some sense of social context” because people were generally known to be in their given neighborhood or work place when calling/emailing. But the “shift from place-to-place to person-to-person contact has uncertain knowledge about the whereabouts of that person” due to their mobility and switching of networks (workplace, home, leisure-area). Ties further specialize into role-to-role networking, based on types of services the ties provide (Wellman and Wortley’s emotional support, financial aid,…) and the communities those people belong to (internet groups…). By specializing ties on the role-to-role basis, networks allow for more structural holes. I believe that the internet simply allows us to fulfill all networking necessities. Structural holes allow for compartmentalizing various groups into their distinctive categories through online communities. Online relationships fill the void of less activity community group members that Putnum had stressed. Plus, the internet fills the excess time people have that television was taking, and allows for more networking. Online networking allows for strengthening of weak ties and the juggling of various individuals communications (with simultaneous iming, emailing, and calling). Overall, the advancements of technology allow for us to interact with out communities in a more stream-line and mobile manner.

Both this week’s and last week’s readings discussed the element of homophily. The internet allows for online relationships to be based primarily on interests and not demographics. However, do you think that there is a potential danger that people may pigeon-hole themselves into a small set of interests and never open to new ideas and potential interests? For instance Prof. Hampton stated that people of a particular political party will read articles and belong to groups that are of that particular political party, and bottle-cap collectors will do the same. But if these people do not expand outside of their homogeneous interest groups, they may never find more interests. Would the concentration on common interests on the internet eliminate the possibility of “opposites attract”?

.... Ok how many entries this week will have the word "facebook" in it

The overarching theme for this week’s readings is concerning the basis of being an opinion leader. The first assigned reading, by Tepperman, displayed the role of opinion leaders in an alternative, rather, deviant sense. The second reading, by Rogers, served as more of a review of all information concerning opinion leaders and communication overall. The final reading, by Burt, defined a more appropriate title for opinion leaders based on their description and examined the immense social capital of opinion leaders.
The second reading served as the informational basis for opinion leaders. The information from this reading was basically what was covered in Comm125. It began with the studies about media influence on the general public through the hypodermic needle model, but stated that in fact a two step flow model is more appropriate for describing the flow of data. In which, particular individual take information and relay it to another population, an opinion leader. This reading also described how the makeup of groups and ties will affect the flow of information – heterogeneous groups will allow for bridging and expanding the route of communication, while homogeneous groups will accelerate the spread of information/innovations. The readings also described the characteristics of opinion leaders (external communications, accessibility…). The reading also described the various innovation expansions of history and their adoption by populations. This information seemed like a review of all that has been covered in this class and past classes.
However, there was one portion of the readings I found interesting. Opinion leaders can be considered either Monomorphic or Polymorphic. Monomorphic opinion leaders spread the information on a single topic, as if they are highly specialized in a certain region, thus can be trusted for that topic, which polymorphic opinion leaders spread the information of several topics, these people are more “well-rounded”. Although opinion leaders are individuals involved in real life networks, I found the best comparison would be societal informers. I saw a newscaster on the 10pm news to be equivalent to a polymorphic opinion leader because there is a great range of topics covered. However, an expert on marine environment would be similar to a monomorphic opinion leader because he/she report on a single topic. Speaking in terms of analogies, would you consider Jon Stewart to be more of a monomorphic “opinion leader” because he reports politics, or would he be polymorphic because his topics within politics range extensively.
The final reading concerned how opinion leaders are the bridges of information exchange across weak ties that Granovetter stressed greatly. Burt explained the spread of information and innovation in terms of contagion between the ego (receiver) and the alter (the giver) of the information. The ties between these individuals could be based more on cohesion (tie strength) or equivalence (similarity/homophily). The relaying of information on the basis of cohesion occurs because of socializing communication, while contagion based on equivalence is more of a result of competition between similar parties. I found this to be quite a unique spin of what we covered in previous readings about how ties are formed. Here, the readings separated the types of ties by cohesion and equivalence as two separate entities that support each other in a bond, when is previous readings we simply saw that homophily was a common element among ties of various strengths.
An interesting statement that Burt made was offering a new label for opinion leaders. Since they are not really at the tops of groups but more on the cusp, they relay these topics across networks groups, serving as bridges or “brokers”. These opinion brokers thrive across groups with weakly equivalent people. I found this title of broker it be much better fitting for this role after studying social networks more. Prior to readings Granovetter’s weak tie bridge theories, I simply saw the opinion leader as one who rallies support behind an idea within a group. However, based on this reading, and several of my marketing courses, it is more fitting that the opinion leader is one who ties the spread of a concept or innovation across a population by tying the “eccentric” innovators who developed an idea/product/fashion with the early adopters of a population. The early adopter will subsequently spread the concept further through the population. However, it is necessary to bridge the gap between the small innovation group into the general population, by relaying across a structural hole. By being a leader across a broader range of individuals, an opinion leader also has suffiently more opportunities, or social capital, at his or her advantage.
Finally, after reading all of the articles, I found that the article my Tepperman on deviance as a search process to contain more references to an opinion leader than I previously observed through my reading. Basically, this article described that to understand the networking behind deviant groups, the search process behind the deviant act is necessary. Upon first reading it, I though that this was another way to determine network size, by counting the alternative groups. But now understanding that this week is based more on opinion leaders, the need to go through “invisible” people to fulfill your search, is more in line with opinion leaders. The article describes how one may develop a desire for a deviant act, they desire this act because they are assimilating to others in the groups, they “develop out of causally formed network connections”. Deviance is a result of the diffusion model, that we chnge out receptivity of the deviant act from our initial view over time. Or, you may develop this deviant desire on your own and need to latch on to a known deviant group to support you cause.
The article also describes how this individual desiring the deviant act will go about the search for the “hardware” or services necessary to perform the act. Burt states that the deviant searcher will look toward areas that would be more likely to have people who also perform the deviant act than to do a blind search of the general population. Although it is less risky to do a blind search in a large community because there will be random individuals who are not tied to you that you can ask to aid you in the search process. If the intermediaries know you, they may turn against you and use the information of you need for the deviant. Thus, it may be better to go with individuals you do not know, in this sense, but it is much more time costly.
Deviant searchers follow more of a “closing in” method, in which they determine who would be likely to connect them to the deviant sought after object, and whittle away better paths within a large search area, by “systematically eliminating unlikely locations”- or disregarding certain network paths, through “staging”. I saw this to be more appealing for deviant searchers than the broad blind search using depth-first search. The breadth- first method appeared to be a more logical choice of action, because it found the shortest path to the deviant end, while depth-first search allowed for more secrecy. By using the breadth-first search, the searching is being based on heuristics. Choosing the proper individuals to ask eliminated unnecessary outside routes. But understanding who the people are that will connect you to the deviant act, you are relying on opinion leaders/brokers to tie you from you closed group of non-deviants to an opposing group to reach your end.
I thought extensively about the closed networks of isolated or rural communities or strongly distinct ethnic enclaves. Since there is a great amount of overlap/multiplexity, it is difficult to stretch past you group to reach a deviant end. The searched must “move outside that network in his search”. After reading the rest of the article, I saw that the move outside of the group more in terms of opinion leaders. But upon first glance, I thought that the search for the deviant act would require a physical move outside of the community. The first example that I thought of was the very close and closed community of the Amish, where the main time these individual stretch outside of their network is when the adolescents take “time out”, their year of leave from the community to determine whether they would prefer the outside world and sever themselves from their community to live in the outside world, or they could remain with they family and network. I remember when I was still in grade school that a scandal occurred in which two Amish men were caught trying to sell cocaine at an Amish hoedown during this “time out”. When I read that to get the deviant end one must move outside of the small closed community, I instantly thought of this physical move out of the community. http://www.cnn.com/US/9810/06/briefs.am/crime.amish/. However, although the actual situation is more in regards to opinion leaders, what route to you suppose these two Amish men took to reach the deviant end of buying cocaine? A blind search of searching randomly through the population? Or did they understand heuristics of the outside world enough to use more a diffusion model?

1. The five people I communicated with the most were as follows:
1. Caroline N. 28 contacts: 12 cell, 11 SMS, 4 Facebook message, 1 email
2. Eugenia Z. 18 contacts: 13 cell, 4 email, 1 SMS
3. Krista J. 17 contacts: 7 cell, 5 email, 4 SMS, 1 AIM
4. Anita Z. 16 contacts: 8 SMS, 6 cell, 2 email
5. Perrin B. 12 contacts: 5 SMS, 5 email, 3 cell
5. Anne K. 12 contacts: 6 email, 5 cell, 2 SMS

Caroline, age 23, friend and classmate, is a transfer student from Europe. She lives about 3 miles from campus and is a major source of conversations involving companionship. She and I become close friends through our Negotiations class at the start of this semester. We only know each other for a couple months. Being a new student here, she has been in search of groups of friends. By being her primary friend, she has contacted me extensively and serves as a novel data point in the study of my daily interactions. She also shares a common mobile provider.

Eugenia Z., 59, is my mother who has obviously known me for 21 years and is my closest tie. She lives 8.5 miles from my apartment and works about 5 miles from my apartment. She also shares the same mobile provider.

Krista J., 22, is a very close tie to me, friend and housemate. She and I live in the same home and were teammates our first two years at Penn. She and I met four years ago. Our face-to-face encounters far outweigh our communication between us via new media. In these respects, she similar to all my best friends in my house.

Anita Z., 32, is my older sister. She lives in Rittenhouse Square (about three miles from my apartment) and works five miles away from me. She is also a very close tie and has known me for 21 years. We also share a common mobile provider.

Perrin B., 21, friend and housemate, has been my friend for almost four years. We began our relationship as freshman neighbors and teammates. We are very close ties.

Anne K., 21, friend and neighbor, is my close tie from the freshman year team (known each other for four years). She would have shared the house with us, but now she is my backdoor neighbor. We also share a common mobile provider.

Most frequent interactions by cell
Eugenia - 13
Caroline - 12
Krista - 7
Anita - 6
Anne – 5

Most frequent interactions by SMS
Caroline - 11
Anita – 8
Perrin– 5
Krista – 4
Kai – 3 (Kai, 20, friend, acted with my in a theater performance over a year ago. We have a moderate tie between us. He lives a quarter of a mile away.)

Most frequent interactions by email
Katrina B. -7 (Katrina, 21, my friend and housemate, and I met four years ago as we walked onto the team. She has been my roommate ever since then. We are extremely close ties and most of our interactions are within the house or out in class or at night)
Anne – 6
Krista – 5
Perrin – 5
Mom – 4

Most frequent interactions by AOL Instant Messenger
Rob E. – 3 (Rob, 21, is a fellow classmate of mine who I met two months ago. We have a moderate tie. Most of our conversations on AIM are about class assignments. He lives somewhere on campus, but not positive where)
Macy L – 2 (Macy, 21, friend, studied with my in Australia and was my roommate for 6 weeks. We met nine months ago and share a moderate tie.)
Krista -1
J. Ferry – 1 (Ferry, 20, acquaintance, studied with my in grade school. We have known each other for ten years. We do not have a close tie and I do not know where he lives.)

Most frequent interactions by Facebook message
Caroline – 4
Cat N. – 1 (Cat, 21, classmate, is an exchange student from Australia who is in my Negotiations class with me. She lives a quarter of a mile away)

Most frequent interactions by Facebook wall posting
Meg D. -1 (Meg, 21, friend from high school. Known her for 8 years. She is currently abroad, around 5,000 miles away in Italy. We have a moderate tie)
Meg W. – 1 (Meg, 21, friend for eight years from high school. She goes to school at Villanova 18 miles from here. We share a moderate tie.)
Kristen S. – 1 (Kristen , 21, friend for eight years from high school. She goes to Penn State Abington campus and lives 20 miles from my apartment. We share a moderate tie.)
Roxanne B. – 1 (Roxanne, 20, best friend from Australia. She now lives 10,000 miles away. We share a moderate tie.)
Cat N. - 1

Most frequent interactions by Skype
Steve D. – 2 (Steve, --, former-boyfriend from Australia. Known him for 8 months. He lives 10,000 miles away. We share a moderate tie)
Roxanne

2. The week’s recordings show my most frequent communications are with my strongest ties via new media. My preferred new media is mobile. The vast majority of my new media conversations were mobile-based, both calls and SMS. My results reflected Chen et. al’s (2002) finding that the phone was the most frequently used communication media. However, if face-to-face interactions were included, these encounters would outweigh any new media communication, a finding consistent with Baym et. al’s (2004). But my mobile communications are greater than all of my internet interactions, again consistent with Baym et. al’s. My strongest ties are communicated with by mobile calls. I believe that communication through phone is more intimate and easier, thus I call my closest ties the most. The main support that telephone calls provided was for emotional situations, companionship or small services, which supported Wellman and Wortley, who found that strong ties provided the most support in terms of emotional support, companionship, and small services.

In terms of SMS, I primarily contact my closest ties. Occasionally, I SMS classmates and moderate ties for meeting plans. Of my top five SMS contacts, four were my strong ties who I talk to the most frequently. I initially assumed that I would SMS my moderate or weak ties more, because SMSs are an informal means of communication that allows you to express your thought or question without having to engage in a lengthy conversation. However, I recognized that I prefer sending these questions/thoughts about small services by email. Gaining access to email addressing is far easier than obtaining personal phone numbers. Just on terms of accessibility, I prefer to email my weak and moderate ties for small services. Most of the SMSs that I sent to strong ties were comprised of tidbits of stories/what was on my mind (companionship/emotional support). The rest of my SMSs were sent to arrange a meeting, etc (small services).

Based on my entire emailing pattern, I send the most emails to my closest ties (excluding my siblings). These most emailed ties are those in my house and my mother. My full diary of emailing ranges from friendly chats to updating my far away friends on life to administrative duties (purchasing tickets, organizing a meeting.) For the most part, emailing is a medium of small services and updates about life to far away ties and the occasional job information emails. This broad range of services people seek through emailing is consistent with the broad range of ties reached through emailing.

The only time in which my most connected ties were not comprised of my closest ties was when I utilized the newest of media (AIM, Facebook messages and wall postings, and Skype.) I do communicate through several online communication forms(when including email), but I rarely talk on AIM. The online media subjects in Baym et. al’s (2004) article, also rated instant messaging as the least used media. I only used AIM to reconnect with a former high school classmate and work with a current classmate. An exquisite example of the “glocalization” mentioned in Wellman and Gulia’s article, was performed by my housemate Krista. She used AIM as a new “global technology” for a very very local use. Instead of walking several feet to ask me a question about the downstairs fridge, or checking herself, she instant messaged me. I use the Facebook for my weaker and more distant (in mileage) ties. I use messages to contact people I know consistently check their accounts. Depending on the individual, this function is used for small services and companionship. Skype and Facebook wall are where I communicate the most with my distant and weak ties. Just as Ellison et al. (2006) hypothesized, my results showed that people whose walls I posted on mostly are from high school or study abroad. I am interacting to confirm our ties. Basically, Skype and Facebook messaging and posting are for companionship.

Based on the media used and how far my contacts live, my findings are consistent with those of Baym et. al (2004) which show that local relationships mostly use the telephone. Long-distance relationships mostly use the internet. All of my legitimately long distant friendships communicate using the internet.

Relationship Duration
Although Meseh and Talmad state that the longer the relationship duration the stronger the sense of belonging and shared identity because of more shared experiences, I have found that my strongest non-kin relationships are those I made while in college. Although I may have shared more experiences with my grade/high school friends, my college friends have been present for my major college-life experiences that have shaped my life recently. These close college friends also exhibit multiplexity, being both housemates and former teammates. So while I am extremely close with my siblings and mother, I feel my current friends understand me the best currently. I can turn to them to discuss important matters, because of our recent history of shared experiences.

Age and Gender
My findings about the age and gender of my new media contacts show that I primarily communicate with females and people within 2 years of my age, except for my siblings, mother, ex-boyfriend, and professor. The rest of my contacts are ambiguously aged individuals. None of my non-kin closest ties are males. Based on McPherson’s (2001) article, all of my networks are highly homophilous. Around 70% of those who I communicated with that week were just females. However, I owe this to my all-girls school upbringing, where the majority of my friends were females.

It did not necessarily make a difference what medium I used to communicate between the genders. The grouping in which medium does matter is age. I basically can use every type of medium for students who are my age. However, I could not use Facebook media for my siblings and Steve. Although each is computer-saavy, they graduated well before the Facebook premiered. My mother would be the individual who I have to be somewhat careful with choosing media. She learned how to properly use the internet and email several years back, and has finally understood how to check SMS. She is attempting her best to assimilate to the communication of the times (Pearson 2006). Nowadays though, I try to limit her new media exposure to nothing more than cell phone calls, emails, and the occasional SMS.

New Media in Social Networks
Overall, I believe that the recent technological advances and creative innovations have created opportunities for the change in social networks. Several authors at the start of the internet’s spread viewed opportunities for the new networks to develop. Wellman and Gulia wrote about the societies of the online communities and how they compare to the real world. Although this article was written in the early 90’s when internet had reached a significant portion of the population, the internet was still in the early adopters phase of the spread of this innovation. Those first individuals were connecting through online communities to create relationships that might potentially stay online. But now that the internet has spread to the majority of the US, through a major push by opinion leaders (Rogers), relationships are made online for the purpose of coming offline (match.com). Or, people utilize websites like Facebook to bring their offline relationships online to strengthen them, which is how I connect with my high school friends.

Existent ties are able to be strengthened with the new media. People have various means of communicating with ties that may best suit their lives. For me, I am able to keep in touch with my friends overseas that I doubt I would have kept in contact with, if I used snail-mail and telephones. Now I can Facebook, Skype, email, and IM/MSN. I also use my mobile to call people when I have free minutes to just catch up. Because of my “mobile-ization,” I, too, am available to take calls, which frees the boundaries of time and place (Wellman 2001). With extra options to choose, conversations may increase and perhaps there is an increase in overall companionship conversations. Basically, having more media options, one may increase their “leisure” talking.

3. There was a slight difference in who I communicated with when I was at home or in public places. Most of my interactions occurred at home. The interesting points to investigate are who and how I contacted people in public spaces. Most often, I place calls for small services to my moderate or weak ties when I am at home. I prefer to give my full attention to those individuals. The only instance when I placed calls to my moderate ties for the purpose of small services was when I was en route to meeting them. Otherwise, I prefer calling moderate ties at home. However, if I am in a public place waiting, I like to pass the time by keeping in touch. For instance, while waiting on 11/5. I called a moderate friend, Brittany M. for companionship. Otherwise, I call my strong ties for companionship in public places and at home. In terms of SMS, if need be, I will SMS an individual, weak/moderate/strong anywhere if I have the opportunity (although my study shows that I SMS mainly to my strong ties), because I do not feel that my social context will be received incorrectly on the other end when it is in text format.

I do believe the new media being more portable has made connecting with people easier, giving us, theoretically, more “leisure” conversations. Also, with the use of Blackberrys people are able to do work online on-the-go. With new media, people are able to be both more productive and possible a bit more social with their ties through companionship.

However, it is questionable as to how “mobile-ization” might affect the McPherson’s (2005) criteria for strong ties – how many people did you discuss important matters with? I feel that if we are uncertain about the other party’s whereabouts (Wellman 2001), we may be less inclined to open up about our important matters, in the case that they are in public. Perhaps being more accessible, we may have more time to have companionship conversation. Yet, we might lose a level of trust by not being able to speak about matters beyond friendly talk. New media may allow us to stabilize our relationships, but we may not be able to fully open up to another party if we are constantly uncertain about their whereabouts.

The first article reflected on what most of the theories we have focused on throughout this semester, that networking and having vast ties has many positive effects on the lives of individuals. Granovetter stated that having plentiful weak ties of various groups exposes us to employment opportunities. Van der Gaag et al studied the different resources we can glean from our ties. Wellman and Wortley discussed how ties with different roles provide different modes of support. This article by Cohen et al studied whether serving multiple roles in a network or social diversity will affect the strength of your immunity to the common cold. Previous studies looked at whether having integration within networks and communities will affect mortality (people live longer if more integrated) or surviving heart attacks or cancer. Perhaps having these various roles will provide meaning to life to people.
This particular study looked at whether having several roles will strength resistance to viruses (common cold). Although by having more exposure to different people one is also increasing their exposure to possible viruses, but this study wanted to look at the actual resistance people have in a control environment. Individuals were surveyed on their social interactions using the Social Network Index and the roles they hold then were exposed to viruses and were quarantined (before exposure to the virus to limit external forces). The subjects were then studied to see if they showed symptoms of the common cold or if their immune systems blocked the virus.
Overall the results showed that those with the most Social Network Diversity were less likely to contract the virus due to a probable strengthened immune system. Around 60% of Low diversity (1-3 social roles) showed symptoms of the virus, around 43% of the Moderate diversity (4-5) were infected, and of the High diversity (6+) group around 35% of the individuals contracted the virus, almost half of the low diversity group. It was also found that the relatively socially isolated individuals were 4.2 more likely to develop the illness than the very diverse (this point differs a bit from the graph shown, but I will stand by this striking fact). This study found that having more social roles actually is better for your health because it strengthens the immune system (contrary to the “role strain” theory of Goode consisting of role conflict and overload. Having more roles does not actually stress the physical strength of individuals. Although there was mention of chronic stressor, I was interested in particular role stressors. How might having more roles that are based in strenuous positions - i.e. an individual’s roles are primarily based in the work environment, affect the results of this study? I think it would be interesting to compare those with socially diverse networks spread across many life factors (neighborhood, family, group leader…) as opposed to an individual who may have a significant number of work roles (boss, employee…) in addition to their personal life and how there might be a different effect on immunity.

The second article was an interesting look into the chains of both romantic and sexual links of adolescents within an “isolated” Midwestern town. This study also looked at how this structure might affect the spread of STDs among these sexual relationships. Throughout this study, the authors mentioned several types of networking – random mixing (where the interactions and dating mate are independent of any variables – just random), core (with high activity centered on certain actors and linking outward) inverse core (those in the core not transferring directly among one another – like sex workers), bridging processes (bridging of networks), and spanning tree. The results of the study mainly showed that there was a spanning tree pattern throughout this feisty, almost incestuous community, (well with the number one diversion from boredom being “[driving] to the outskirts of town and [getting] drunk these teens had limited sexual partnership choices.” However, I felt that since there was element against cycles of length 4, there was breaking of any small cyclic networking and almost creating an inverse core in the sense that there is no inter-dating of exes while retaining the spanning tree. There was a surprising variety of relationships (exclusive, multiple partners, romantic with outside relationships, dyads, triads…quad?) and interesting patterns (especially the highly dense sexual network in the upper, middle region of the ring). The networking was found to be far more incestuous than random mixing (65). This was probably due to the homophily found overall so that people can support their image and status (find more compatible people (75)). It was interesting to look at how intermixed the relationships were, especially with the mixing of romantic relationships with external nonromantic- sexual relationships or other romantic relationships as this might increase the exchange of relation and possible diseases. To help aid in the reducing of disease spread it is important to create structural breaks (like those found when “cuts” were made in the spanning tree links). This study reminded me of this year’s recipient of the Gold Cannes Lion (the international advertising festival) for Awareness messages and Public Health and Safety – Japan Advertising Council for the interactive advertisement “Her Past”. This link appeared on a site like this: http://www.interactive-salaryman.com/pieces/past_e/win.html, however it was not working on my HP. The banner works better on http://www.interactive-salaryman.com/pieces/past_e/mac.html. I found it very effective and the ad agency I worked for really pushed this as a powerful ad. Although this study looked at all of the networks within a high school, this is a model of an egocentric network that is worth checking out.
The final study by Dickens et al made another positive look at networking on individuals well being. This particular study measured people’s social interactions with close confidants prior to myocardial infarction and whether this or depression effects the possibility of future cardiac issues. Depression was measured using hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) and social support was measured by whether patients had a close confidant – someone who he/she has regular contact with. The results of the study showed that 8.2% of those without a close confidant died of cardiac complications as opposed to the 4.5% of those with close confidants (almost double!) Also, “patients with a close confidant had only half the risk of a further cardiac event of those without a confidant. Depression did not significantly improve the model.” Therefore, this study was in line with previous studies showing that having close confidants decreases potential future cardiac situations. This study suggested that perhaps those without close confidants may delay seeking treatment for myocardial infraction or adhere to their treatment. I personally think it might be beneficial to create networks for those who do not have close confidants, with survivors or other individuals without close confidants to perhaps push each other to seek treatment or simply increase their chance of survival by now having close confidants. Do you think that imposing a program of support for MI patients without close confidants may increase chances of survival? I also think that factors like SES and location were excluded which might have affected people’s survival rates. If this study were performed somewhere else like in the North/South America, another European country, or perhaps Asia or Africa, or Australia, how might the results differ. Especially in terms of SES, resources…