Social Network Blog - r10

Interesting Fact: Disney’s ride “It’s a Small World” and the song “It’s a Small World After All” premiered at the 1964/1965 New York World’s Fair.

Milgram’s report explains his small-world study, which attempts to test how many people a letter passes through on its journey from an individual (in the Midwest) to an unrelated, unassociated individual in Massachusetts. The answer to this question could lend favor to one of two theories: (a) sometimes, two individuals’ networks can be completely isolated from each other or (b) any two individuals can be connected somehow.

Milgram’s resultant theory of “six degrees of separation” seems to say that not only were the Starting and Target individuals related, but that, on average, a letter going from one to the other needed to pass through only five intermediaries. As a child, I often reflected, “If we are separated by 6 degrees, which of my friends’ (1) friend’s (2) friend’s (3) friend’s (4) friend’s (5) friends (6) knew someone in Africa?” Now I ask: Do you think that there would be the same result of 6 degrees of separation of the Starting and Target person were from different countries or continents? Also, would there be the same number of international degrees of separation a century ago as today?

Additionally, Milgram mentions how “[s]ome chains died only a few hundred feet from the target person’s house, after a successful journey of 1000 miles” (p.66). Thus, I return to Wellman’s question of proximity’s role in the foraging of social relations. I ask: In Milgram’s study, do you think proximity plays a strong role in one’s network? If not, what factor do you think is most important in determining social connections (as evidenced by a letter’s route)?

Korte’s study replicates Milgram’s study, except that there are now two groups, white people and black people. Korte learns that although the degrees of separation turned out to be 5-6, regardless of race, a higher percentage of target white people eventually received the letter than did target black people. Korte identifies the term ‘gatekeeper,’ the white person who gave the letter to a black person. One point I noticed was that in each chain, there was only one gatekeeper, regarded as a transition person from the white community to the black community. Such a sharp divide and a one-way direction show how communities in that time were distinctly separated by race. Korte never mentions a letter that went from a white person to a black person and back to another white person before going to a person in the black community. Thus, I ask: If this experiment were replicated today, do you think that there would be multiple passages across racial lines, thus eliminating the idea of a single gatekeeper?

Killworth’s study brings up the idea of errors in small-world chains. Using a sample size of 99, he calculates how messages in a smaller network often travel along paths that are not the quickest, most efficient path to take. For me, reading this paper after reading Milgram’s paper made me question the analyses in Milgram’s paper. At first, it was amazing how there were only 5-6 degrees of separation. However, perhaps the 3rd person (who got the letter from the 2nd person) was further away from the 6th (final person) than another friend of the 2nd person. In that case, the 2nd person could have given the letter to a different 3rd person and actually shortened the chain. Of course, the 2nd person could not have known that a more efficient alternative was possibly; but looking at this situation macroscopically, I begin to ponder if these types of small world chain errors occurred or if the actual shortest paths possible were taken. I ask: Do you think that the people in Milgram’s study always took the “most direct” route?

Gladwell provides anecdotal evidence (that he also describes in his book, The Tipping Point) to describe people like Lois Weisberg, who have a type of social power that allows them to introduce people from different social circles. The main takeaway from this elaborate story is a question of how these people regard and engage in the world around them that allows them to be such connected members of society. Gladwell explains that people like Lois (a) belong to lots of different worlds (ex. actors, writers, doctors, etc.), (b) are possible to befriend (as opposed to someone in typical positions of power such as a politician), and (c) naturally seek out varied social relationships rather than doing so as part of a networking strategy.

After reading this article, one can only wonder if he or she should consciously try to build up this type of network by deliberately considering the varied social circles to which he or she is a part and trying to connect them. Or, alternatively, are these characteristics completely innate – and therefore an individual is either naturally a connector (without purposely setting out to be one) or not. I ask: Do you imagine yourself to, one day, hold Lois Weisberg’s type of “social power”? If yes, why? If no, is there anything you could or should do in order to be that type of person?

Watts reviews the literature of what he calls the “new” science of social networks; he draws heavily from mathematics, economics, and sociology in describing how to model social networks, interpret empirical data, and apply social network theory to issues such as disease spreading and information sharing.

One part of his review identifies three classes of networks and ponders if social networks fit into these classes. The first type of networks is “networks that process information” (p.53) such as gene networks. In my opinion, as information flows between nodes in a social network, information is processes and transmitted. One only need to play the childhood game of telephone (albeit on a multi-linear scale) to see this aspect of networks in action. The second type is “networks that process energy” (p.53) such as food webs. I ask: Do social networks absorb, chemically redefine, and produce any type of energy? The third class of networks are those that “symbolize communities of knowledge” (p.53) such as the World Wide Web. I believe that the collection of information held by the nodes in a social network is this type of community of knowledge.