Social Network Blog - r14

Though this survey was time consuming, it did show some important differences between gender and age and their corresponding social networks. Though a lot of the results were in line with some of our theories discussed in class, there were some violations that I feel are important. Using the position generator I was able to analyze approximate social capitals. According to Lin, Fu and Husng, the position generator is a method that measures the access, the overall advantage and the collective social capital based on who you know and what they do for a living. Only six out of ten males knew at least 1 person in the top 4 positions on our chart, whereas 8 out of 10 females knew at least one person in these professions. These findings contradict Lin, Fu and Husng’s theory that men tend to have a greater social capital. There are many reasons these results may have occurred, and though we were not supposed to “test” for these specifically, from my personal knowledge of the subjects I drew some conclusions. The majority of the elder women I interviewed were from higher social classes then the men I interviewed. Also, since this survey was a form of sociometric questioning, we can assume that there may be some validity issues. According to Zwijze-Koning and De Jong, subjects may have exaggerated some of their ties and the strengths of these ties. Whether subjects were searching for social validity, or women tend to know a more diverse group of people on a first name basis, there is a substantial difference between men and women.

Gender also played a role in the amount of ties subjects were likely to have. Women tended to average around 5 (4.9) while men were closer to 4 (4.1). In the McPherson et al article, McPherson claims that people have fewer confidants now then they did a decade ago. While all the women had more than 3 close ties, and 4 of them had 6, the men ranged from 1 to 6 close ties, with only one person at each extreme end of the spectrum. The single male who did have 6 confidants listed 5 people in his immediate family (wife and children) and only 1 outsider, a co-worker. Listing his spouse as a close confidant was not unusual, as all of the married elders did list their spouse as one of their top confidants. McPherson’s article showed that while the number of close ties may be decreasing, the amount of spouses chosen as such a tie was significantly higher than just a friend or something else.

Another common trend was that regardless of sex, women were listed more often than men as being close ties. This is to be expected as Wellman and Wortley would have hypothesized, because research has shown that “women are more likely than men to provide emotional support,” both for men, and for women. Though we did not keep tabs on the types of interactions encountered, we can assume that men use women for emotional stability, and possibly just for companionship. Though there was some homophily, especially for girls, among gender, this concept was very strong when it came to age.

Another McPherson article, with Smith-Lovin and Cook stated that age was the strongest of the dimensions. If the relationship was something other than a parent and offspring or spouse, the chances of the confidant being more than 4 years in age from the subject were highly unlikely. Subjects tended to pick confidants from their immediate family (especially the boys) and for the younger crowd, anyone other than said immediate family was always within 2 years of age of the subject. Though the networks may have shown consistency in age, they did not do the same in location. With globalization making communication across the country so much more accessible, people are able to stay in touch with strong ties over great distances, and allowing them to remain strong ties. In “Network Community” Wellman talks about the change with technology and how networks are becoming more dispersed in location. While this was true for the younger group, the elder group tended to interact more with people who resided in their same city. An obvious reason for this is that the older generation is settling down and not looking toward buying or investing much time in learning new media. Older generations almost never IM'ed and only on a few occasions did they email. However in all of the cases of email, this was not the only, nor the primary media source of communication. Email instead is seen as a complementary tool used by older generations to communicate with the younger crowd. Another important finding in the media usage was the absence of land line phones among the younger crowd. Especially in a college setting, it is unusual anymore for young people in this society to have a land line; we tend to rely on our cellular phones for all of our telephones needs. Adults rarely interact with other adults online, and in the 2 instances I found this, they were both co-workers and very well could be doing it during the work day.
Overall college students were more diverse in their methods of communicating. However while Baym, Zhang and Lin found this in their study, they also noticed that face-to-face communication was the dominant means of communication, but this was not the case in our study. Because of the prestige of our school and the distance some students travel to be here, it is not always possible or plausible that students are able to see their families on a regular basis. Since, out of the 10 younger subjects, every person had at least 1 family member, often not in the same state, face-to-face was not as prominent as it was in the elder crowd. However younger subjects were much more likely to use instant messenger, but rarely was it used as a primary source. Overall cell phones were the most often used medium for all subjects, with face-to-face coming in second.

One interesting observation I found was the density of most networks. According to Monge’s theories on transitivity, networks should never have what he refers to as the “forbidden triangle”. In my findings, there were very few instances in which different strong ties were complete strangers, and a great majority of strong ties within the 5 or so confidants chosen. In all of the cases involving strangers, the separate individuals lived in different areas, and one of the confidants was known a significantly shorter time than the other.

Lastly, as a personal side note, I noticed something unique in my dataset. I come from a small town in the Pacific Northwest, with no big city closer than 2 hours (we measure distance in time there). Of the people I interviewed from my small town, it was apparent that networks were increasingly well rounded when compared to other subjects. I know when I took the survey the only profession I did not know someone in was that of a dry cleaner. I find this very interesting because it shows how in smaller communities, people, regardless of their social status, are much more likely to interact, because people will often rely on one another more. In bigger cities, people tend to have a more homophilous network because it is harder to meet individuals who do not share something with you, whether it is an interest, hobby or profession. I think this could be an interesting study for future social network researchers, because I feel this is an important phenomenon that I have realized throughout all the readings over the course of this semester.

The Small University experiment was very unique, and really incorporated what we have learned in class. I will start with the findings from Antonio Polley since he was not my target in this experiment. Mr. Polley is in a field on campus that is fairly rare and both location and field of study. As we read in the first week, Wellman explains that proximity has become less of an issue, thanks to the mobile nature of society. However in this experiment, people will more than likely be less willing to go out of their way on campus if they think someone else will eventually be within a closer proximity to the Wistar building. Another reason to believe this claim is that most of the folders that were never turned in were stuck circulating around certain departments within the university.

The success rate of folders to Mr. Polley was 25%, which was very similar to the 27.5% seen in Milgram’s original experiment. The 2 successful folders were both passed to Polley by a male, but only 1 was passed to him by someone within his department. As McPherson, Smith-Lovin and Mcook said in their article “Birds of a Feather” the gender connection makes sense, as Polley probably has more male counterparts than females. This is also an alternative explanation for the circular passing of the folder within certain departments. Many people do not consistently interact with those outside their circle of friends and colleagues and would more likely pass it off to a person within their circle; it doesn’t matter if they are a strong or weak tie. One interesting thing I found in Polley’s results chart was that the only male who participated from our class passed his folder to a female (not meant to harm/insult, just an observation). I would be interested in finding out the thought process behind this. In their final results however, there was no significant difference in transfers to same gender and its correlation with complete or incomplete folders. Also, this group had the same chance passing down a grade as they did passing up, while passing within the grade had the highest percentage. This again, would go along the same lines of homophily, and our tendencies to interact with people like us.

Susan Yoon seemed to be easier to find than Mr. Polley. She had a very high, 80% chance of receiving the folder. This could be due to the location of her building in a more central part of campus, and also the Graduate School of Education has a higher population than that of Antonio’s Wistar Institute. The more people attending, the higher the chances are of finding a connection into the GSE. There were some interesting findings, including the fact that both incomplete chains were passed to a student a grade below the original student. As discussed in class, younger students have less experience on campus and so smaller social networks. However since none of them seemed to go further than 1 transfer, it could just be that anyone younger than a senior or junior is lazy (just kidding), or they just did not find value in our experiment.

The average number of transfers for completed folders to Susan was 3.25 which is less than Milgram’s 6 (slightly more than 5). But according to Lundberg in the Stevenson et al. article “The Small World of the University” societies were also likely to have slightly more than five while organizations on campus had closer to 3 transfers. Stevenson found it should only take a mere 1.25 links. Though these numbers are skewed on all sides of Susan’s 3.25 and Antonio’s 4.5 it is within the realm, unlike one of Milgram’s subjects who hypothesized 100 or more.

Much like the findings for Antonio Polley, department did not play as big of a role as gender in our experiment. While many of the final transfers were between females in similar schools, 84.6% of the overall transfers (of completed folders) were among women. This is very statistically significant, and demonstrates how though 2 women may not know each other directly; there is a good chance they are within only a few degrees of separation, whereas a male and female might have a different set of circumstances.

Of the two data sets combined there were some similarities that also correlated with Stevenson et al’s findings such as “crossing a boundary between classes or job categories would be more difficult and this difficulty may lead to more homophily in boundary crossing. Overall women were more likely to pass folders within their gender, and that both sexes were more likely to pass folders across boundaries while keeping the folder within their gender.” In our experiments, there were less than 6 total transfers that crossed both gender and school boundaries. Also, only one person passed off the folder to a very strong tie out of the two groups. As Wellman and Wortley discussed in their article, certain people have roles in our lives, and it is more common to use a weak tie for a small favor such as the passing on of a project folder for a class.

http://www.mysocialnetwork.net/blog/481/r14/2006/09/small_upenn.html
(link to assignment 1)

On a personal level, I hypothesized that my folder would arrive to Susan Yoon in 2.5 weeks after going through 5 transferals. In reality my folder arrived in just under 2 weeks and went through 4 transfers. Though I am missing some data because of missing post cards, I can assume (from talking to my initial target) that my folder went along the line in a similar manner as to what I conjectured. It passed through 4 females before finally reaching Susan. Though I am not sure with which school the targets were affiliated, I do know that it reached another member of the faculty before it arrived on Susan’s desk. I also made the assumption that my folder’s arrival would rely on the race of the targets; however this was not something we kept track of or decided to analyze. Though it may be profiling, I assumed that my final link, a women named June, was also of Asian descent, and so this hypothesis would hold true if only for that link.

In discussing our findings with my group mates, I made an important discovery. One of my group members made the jump to Susan in only 2 links by using a male faculty master. When she told me who it was, I realized I was also very close with this man. Kilworth’s article, “The Accuracy of Small World Chains in Social Networks” discusses this exact issue, of items traveling along a chain that is not necessarily the most efficient. Kilworth found that we do not know the connections of our connections (2nd degree networks) so it is not likely that the people we are passing it to are our closest links to the final destination. This was definitely true in my case.

Lastly, there was only one common pathway out of the two groups. Though I would have expected to see more with such a high return rate for Susan, the sociometric star, as Milgram and Stevenson would have called her, was of the same gender and in the same school as the target.

Overall many of our findings coincided with the readings over the past semester, and of those findings that did stray from our preconceived ideas, they did so on a small scale. Our study is not as large as some of the others, and our measurements are not as precise. Personally I was missing all but 1 of my postcards making my data a little more difficult to process, and other people had similar misfortunes. As Zwijze-Koning and De Jonge discussed in their article on measurement, “Auditing Information Structures in Organizations” there is still a lot of work to be done before any research is considered credible. But since we are trying to map communication patterns and analyze the structure of our world based on a small class project, I would venture as far as to say that this has been a very successful experiment.

In Cohen et al. the researchers studied how social network structure seems to influence the effect of the common cold. Some of the important findings I thought were that stress is a big factor in whether or not you catch a cold, and also that colds decrease with the increase in social network diversity. The researchers believed that the reason behind introverts increased chance of contagion was their lack of social integration. As they said “integrated individuals are subject to social controls that may promote the adoption of healthful behaviors and prevent behaviors with defined health risks colds decrease with increase of social network diversity.” They also stated that cultural isolation has been found to be connected to mental illness, and “social interaction was essential to the development of normal personality and the enactment of appropriate social conduct.” This article caught me off guard because while I would assume that the more people you come into contact with the higher your chances are of catching a cold, it makes perfect sense that more people would actually increase your immunity. However I did have problems with how the experiment was carried out in that it was not entirely relatable to everyday interactions. Do you think this experiment holds true for our everyday lives and interactions? What would you have done differently? Would a survey study or diary hold up better for this type of research?

Dickens’s et al article “Lack of Close Confidant” claims that the lack of close confidants leads to an increased risk of cardiac events after myocardinal infraction (MI). The study tested 583 patients post MI and measured the degree of intimacy in these patients’ relationships rather than amount social contacts. Researchers found that close relationships not only help in reducing the risk of cardiac events but may also promote recovery from depression post MI. I think it is a very relevant study, and more should be done on how friends/social networks affect us psychologically and the consequences of this on our immune system. What other types of studies would benefit humans? I think a study similar to this with depression has probably been done, but also for cancer recovery maybe?

The Bearman et al. article “Chains of Affection” was funny to me because it described my high school to a T. (Not necessarily the STD part but all the demographics.) The spanning tree was produced after surveying students from a Midwestern school over a 2 year span and tracking their sexual encounters. The spanning tree occurred because of the norm found in adult relationships that they titled the norm against second partnerships. Or in girls’ law, you can't date a friend's ex boyfriend. Though I can see why this would lead to a circular shape, it seemed strange to me that there was no criss-crossing across the center of the circle. I guess in high school it could mean that people are only sleeping with those in their social circles, but I would have thought there would be some sort of overlap. The authors talk about homophily, but not in this sense. Rather they discuss the homophily of experience as drawing people together. The outliers from the main tree are said to be less likely to encountering STDs, no matter the number of partners. But people within the tree, who may have only had one partner, have a higher exposure to STDs due to their partners’ history. In order to put this information to use, how would we go about warning high schoolers of their risks? Are adolescents that different from adults in their lifestyles, and if so, how could this information help them?

1. People I interact with most often:
Annie: 12 interactions; 20 years old; female; teammate and friend; known her for 2 years; lives down the street (1 block away).
Mimi: 10 interactions; 21 years old; female; teammate, roommate and friend; known for 3 years; lives with me.
Kim: 9 interactions; 21 years old, female; teammate, group member and friend; known for 3 years; lives down the street (1 block away).
Mom: 10 interactions; older than 40; female; mom, advisor and friend; known all my life; 3000+ miles away.
Jax: 6 interactions; 24 years old; female; sister, known all my life; 3000+ miles away.
Dad: 6 interactions; older than 40; male; dad and advisor; known all my life; 3000+ miles away.
Interactions per media:
Cell Phone:
Mom: 10 interactions
Dad: 6 interactions
Jax: 6 interactions
Annie: 6 interactions
Mimi: 6 interactions

Aim:
Mimi: 3 interactions
Annie: 6 interactions
Kim: 5 interactions
Meg: 4 interactions; 21 years old; female; classmate, study buddy and friend; known 3 years; lives 3 blocks away.
I had contact with 9 other people once or twice

E-mail:
SAAC: 2 interactions; a group consisting of 19-22 year old athletes; I have been a member of the board for 2 years; all member reside on Penn campus
Gerry: 1 interaction; over 30; male; job information; known 2 months; lives in Ireland.
Bruce: 1 interaction; over 50; male; boss; known 2 years; 3000+ miles.
Colm: 1 interaction; over 30; male; job information; known 2 months; lives in Ireland.
Kim: 1 interaction
Shani: 1 interaction; 21; female; group member; known 2 months; lives on Penn campus.

SMS: Side note: I hate texting
Allie: 2 interactions; 21; female; roommate and friend; known 3 years; lives with me.
Casey: 2 interactions; 21; female; teammate and friend; known 3 years; lives 1 block away.
Linds: 2 interactions; 21; female; friend; known 3 years; lives 3 blocks away.
At least 4 other people I have had 1 interaction with via text messaging.

THE MEDIUM AND…
2a Strength of Tie
First off let me point out that I am a lot closer to a lot of people than I would have originally thought. There was a definite link to my weak ties and e-mail which I found interesting. Baym et al. described email as the main interaction on the internet, but I also believe e-mail is the main interaction used because it is seen as a more professional means of interacting. All of my e-mail interactions were based on group information (meeting times, projects) or job information (sending resumes, letters of rec, etc.). These are my weaker ties and therefore where I am looking to gain access to jobs and opportunities. As Burt and Granovetter taught us in week 4, these weak ties will be a driving force in gaining social capital and hopefully a job. AIM and SMS were mainly used for strong ties, but it was often the case that if I interacted with people on either of these, I would also have a phone conversation with them or meet up with them very soon after. I am not big on either of these methods of communicating as I feel they are a bit impersonal. Also I am a very sarcastic person and sarcasm is hard to read, so I am often misunderstood, another reason why I probably only use e-mail for professional use. The fact that I use more than 1 medium with my strong ties relates to Mesch and Talmud’s idea that multiplexity increases tie strength.

2b Type of support exchanged
Baym et al stated that “people will incorporate the internet into their social lives in ways that fulfill their particular social needs.” In my internet usage I noticed a specific pattern in the types of support and the different mediums. As I previously stated, e-mail was my way of communicating with potential employers or groups. This was a great way, as Hampton says, to “engage others not only one-on-one, but as a broadcast of one-to-many”. I was able to send my resume to many people in a form e-mail that could be personalized, and also send mass emails about group meetings and agendas for groups. In short, I use e-mail for informational support. There was also a very clear usage of Aim. Though in certain cases it was used to find the location of a friend (in order to meet up) it was mainly used for companionship, and often I would carry on several conversations at one time. SMSing was rarely used, but of the 11 times I used it, 7 of those turned into a phone call within the hour, or meeting up with the person. I guess I use it as a planning tool for lunches etc. Phone calls were used for all different sorts of support, mostly companionship.

2c Type of relationship
There is a pretty obvious relationship between my communicating with my family (mom, dad, sisters, and brother-in-law) and the phone. Because I live 3000 miles from home, we enrolled in a “family calling plan” when I left for college. This allows free calls at any time to anyone in my family. Since I have this open door, it is the only way in which I communicate with my family. This last week my middle sister actually started a myspace page so I may communicate with her more through that, but with the easy accessibility and my families general incompetence (not an insult, just a truth they are aware of) of the internet and texting it is an obvious choice. Side note: I once left my dad a voicemail in September and later retrieved it for him when I went home thanksgiving…
I also only use Aim and sms with close or moderately close ties (although it seems that I really do not communicate much with non-close ties). Aim is fairly informal and a more relaxed way of talking with friends. Conversations can last for hours and nothing can be said. I do not think I would ever be successful at actually accomplishing anything across Aim (and don’t think I’ll attempt it) as it is too easy to get distracted and multitask. I also do not see it as a professional tool because of its informality.

2d Duration of relationship
I feel as if my findings will be different from many people, oh well. I am from an area that is not highly populated or well educated. On that note, growing up, we were a little behind in technology. For this reason, none of my friends back home had Aim, rather we used a similar service called ICQ (I seek you). Since this is no longer a popular service, and none of my friends have AIM, I have lost touch with some friends, and now only talk to my close friends by cell phone. My data shows that the people I have known the longest I communicate with by phone, and they are also the people that live furthest away from me. I have facebook, and use it sometimes, but since my area is fairly uneducated, not many of my friends went to college. People I have known for 2-3 years I generally talk to on Aim, because that is how long I have had the service, and those are the people that introduced it to me. E-mail is also people I have known less than 2 years, as these are my new business contacts and people from school.

2e Distance to the person
Wellman made the observation that people obtain many types of support from those who do not live near them, but as I’ve stated in previous blogs, the college experience is very different from “real life”. While it is true that I receive financial support and small services from people usually 3000+ miles away (mainly my family) I received most of my companionship with people very close to me. The closer someone is to me the more likely I am to communicate with them through Aim, for reasons stated above. Hampton hit the nail on the head (at least for me) when he observed that while computers allow us to cross large distances between our ties “it can also afford local interactions”. If you analyze my diary closely, there is more than one online interaction with people in my house at the time. I think this is a new phenomenon, whereas I am very able to walk down the block and mingle with my friends, I choose to stay in my room, watch TV, do homework, and talk to them online.

2f The age, gender and similarity of these to my own
When communicating with the older generation, meaning 25+ (heavy generalization but true in my case), I prefer either the phone or e-mail. While I have had a handful of conversations with my eldest (27) sister, it is rare. Aim and texting are most commonly used among younger generations, although I used all forms of media to talk to the younger ties. Those people similar to my age are more likely to share my knowledge of newer media and also to have similar schedules between school and work. For these reasons we are often online at similar times of the day making Aim easier to access and a more convenient method. These observations tie into McPherson’s article on homophily, where we tend to be drawn to people of similar ages and gender. As seen from my diary, most of my ties are female, only 1 male non family member is communicated with by phone and seen as a close tie.

2g Role of new media in our social networks
In my personal network, there is an obvious preference in using my cell phone compared to all other forms of media. It is important to note that I lack a landline telephone. This is fairly typical of me, as I am usually slow to adopt new media so I feel my findings are different from others. In Wellman’s non-zero sum game, he states that new media are replacing face to face contacts, and as my Aim use shows, this is often very true. Though I am missing time spent with roommates and friends, it is also taking away from my time to have chance interactions. My use of media occurs in all sorts of places, many packed with people I do not know, and because I am preoccupied with my phone call or texting, chances are I will not give strangers more than a passing glance. New media is allowing strong ties to stay intact across distance, but it is less conducive for face-to-face interactions. And though I do not often send messages, etc through Facebook, the paper was correct in stating that its main use is to connect with old friends.

3 Communications in public versus communication in private seemed to have nothing to do with the type of support I was getting or the strength of tie. If anything it was more of a convenience factor, or as Wellman describes the “always available feature.” The only type of communication I would ever have in class would be texting (although not often and only if it was informational). Aim and email were always done at home, simply because that is where my computer is set up. My cell phone and texting were done everywhere else. Privacy was not an issue for me, as everyone else seems preoccupied with there own interactions, it is hard to believe someone would be eavesdropping as I walk down the street. One last point however is something we did not track, which I think was very important in my interactions. The length of my conversations was definitely proportional to the distance between us. My longest phone conversations (10+ minutes) were only with people 3000+ miles away, my family, cousins, friends from home, etc. The closer I was to someone the shorter the conversations because it was usually a conversation based around our meeting up at a later point. In this way, new media is allowing for more face-to-face contact with closer ties and again is making strong ties stronger, and distancing us from potential weak ties.

1. People I interact with most often:
Annie: 12 interactions; 20 years old; female; teammate and friend; known her for 2 years; lives down the street (1 block away).
Mimi: 10 interactions; 21 years old; female; teammate, roommate and friend; known for 3 years; lives with me.
Kim: 9 interactions; 21 years old, female; teammate, group member and friend; known for 3 years; lives down the street (1 block away).
Mom: 10 interactions; older than 40; female; mom, advisor and friend; known all my life; 3000+ miles away.
Jax: 6 interactions; 24 years old; female; sister, known all my life; 3000+ miles away.
Dad: 6 interactions; older than 40; male; dad and advisor; known all my life; 3000+ miles away.
Interactions per media:
Cell Phone:
Mom: 10 interactions
Dad: 6 interactions
Jax: 6 interactions
Annie: 6 interactions
Mimi: 6 interactions

Aim:
Mimi: 3 interactions
Annie: 6 interactions
Kim: 5 interactions
Meg: 4 interactions; 21 years old; female; classmate, study buddy and friend; known 3 years; lives 3 blocks away.
I had contact with 9 other people once or twice

E-mail:
SAAC: 2 interactions; a group consisting of 19-22 year old athletes; I have been a member of the board for 2 years; all member reside on Penn campus
Gerry: 1 interaction; over 30; male; job information; known 2 months; lives in Ireland.
Bruce: 1 interaction; over 50; male; boss; known 2 years; 3000+ miles.
Colm: 1 interaction; over 30; male; job information; known 2 months; lives in Ireland.
Kim: 1 interaction
Shani: 1 interaction; 21; female; group member; known 2 months; lives on Penn campus.

SMS: Side note: I hate texting
Allie: 2 interactions; 21; female; roommate and friend; known 3 years; lives with me.
Casey: 2 interactions; 21; female; teammate and friend; known 3 years; lives 1 block away.
Linds: 2 interactions; 21; female; friend; known 3 years; lives 3 blocks away.
At least 4 other people I have had 1 interaction with via text messaging.

THE MEDIUM AND…
2a Strength of Tie
First off let me point out that I am a lot closer to a lot of people than I would have originally thought. There was a definite link to my weak ties and e-mail which I found interesting. Baym et al. described email as the main interaction on the internet, but I also believe e-mail is the main interaction used because it is seen as a more professional means of interacting. All of my e-mail interactions were based on group information (meeting times, projects) or job information (sending resumes, letters of rec, etc.). These are my weaker ties and therefore where I am looking to gain access to jobs and opportunities. As Burt and Granovetter taught us in week 4, these weak ties will be a driving force in gaining social capital and hopefully a job. AIM and SMS were mainly used for strong ties, but it was often the case that if I interacted with people on either of these, I would also have a phone conversation with them or meet up with them very soon after. I am not big on either of these methods of communicating as I feel they are a bit impersonal. Also I am a very sarcastic person and sarcasm is hard to read, so I am often misunderstood, another reason why I probably only use e-mail for professional use. The fact that I use more than 1 medium with my strong ties relates to Mesch and Talmud’s idea that multiplexity increases tie strength.

2b Type of support exchanged
Baym et al stated that “people will incorporate the internet into their social lives in ways that fulfill their particular social needs.” In my internet usage I noticed a specific pattern in the types of support and the different mediums. As I previously stated, e-mail was my way of communicating with potential employers or groups. This was a great way, as Hampton says, to “engage others not only one-on-one, but as a broadcast of one-to-many”. I was able to send my resume to many people in a form e-mail that could be personalized, and also send mass emails about group meetings and agendas for groups. In short, I use e-mail for informational support. There was also a very clear usage of Aim. Though in certain cases it was used to find the location of a friend (in order to meet up) it was mainly used for companionship, and often I would carry on several conversations at one time. SMSing was rarely used, but of the 11 times I used it, 7 of those turned into a phone call within the hour, or meeting up with the person. I guess I use it as a planning tool for lunches etc. Phone calls were used for all different sorts of support, mostly companionship.

2c Type of relationship
There is a pretty obvious relationship between my communicating with my family (mom, dad, sisters, and brother-in-law) and the phone. Because I live 3000 miles from home, we enrolled in a “family calling plan” when I left for college. This allows free calls at any time to anyone in my family. Since I have this open door, it is the only way in which I communicate with my family. This last week my middle sister actually started a myspace page so I may communicate with her more through that, but with the easy accessibility and my families general incompetence (not an insult, just a truth they are aware of) of the internet and texting it is an obvious choice. Side note: I once left my dad a voicemail in September and later retrieved it for him when I went home thanksgiving…
I also only use Aim and sms with close or moderately close ties (although it seems that I really do not communicate much with non-close ties). Aim is fairly informal and a more relaxed way of talking with friends. Conversations can last for hours and nothing can be said. I do not think I would ever be successful at actually accomplishing anything across Aim (and don’t think I’ll attempt it) as it is too easy to get distracted and multitask. I also do not see it as a professional tool because of its informality.

2d Duration of relationship
I feel as if my findings will be different from many people, oh well. I am from an area that is not highly populated or well educated. On that note, growing up, we were a little behind in technology. For this reason, none of my friends back home had Aim, rather we used a similar service called ICQ (I seek you). Since this is no longer a popular service, and none of my friends have AIM, I have lost touch with some friends, and now only talk to my close friends by cell phone. My data shows that the people I have known the longest I communicate with by phone, and they are also the people that live furthest away from me. I have facebook, and use it sometimes, but since my area is fairly uneducated, not many of my friends went to college. People I have known for 2-3 years I generally talk to on Aim, because that is how long I have had the service, and those are the people that introduced it to me. E-mail is also people I have known less than 2 years, as these are my new business contacts and people from school.

2e Distance to the person
Wellman made the observation that people obtain many types of support from those who do not live near them, but as I’ve stated in previous blogs, the college experience is very different from “real life”. While it is true that I receive financial support and small services from people usually 3000+ miles away (mainly my family) I received most of my companionship with people very close to me. The closer someone is to me the more likely I am to communicate with them through Aim, for reasons stated above. Hampton hit the nail on the head (at least for me) when he observed that while computers allow us to cross large distances between our ties “it can also afford local interactions”. If you analyze my diary closely, there is more than one online interaction with people in my house at the time. I think this is a new phenomenon, whereas I am very able to walk down the block and mingle with my friends, I choose to stay in my room, watch TV, do homework, and talk to them online.

2f The age, gender and similarity of these to my own
When communicating with the older generation, meaning 25+ (heavy generalization but true in my case), I prefer either the phone or e-mail. While I have had a handful of conversations with my eldest (27) sister, it is rare. Aim and texting are most commonly used among younger generations, although I used all forms of media to talk to the younger ties. Those people similar to my age are more likely to share my knowledge of newer media and also to have similar schedules between school and work. For these reasons we are often online at similar times of the day making Aim easier to access and a more convenient method. These observations tie into McPherson’s article on homophily, where we tend to be drawn to people of similar ages and gender. As seen from my diary, most of my ties are female, only 1 male non family member is communicated with by phone and seen as a close tie.

2g Role of new media in our social networks
In my personal network, there is an obvious preference in using my cell phone compared to all other forms of media. It is important to note that I lack a landline telephone. This is fairly typical of me, as I am usually slow to adopt new media so I feel my findings are different from others. In Wellman’s non-zero sum game, he states that new media are replacing face to face contacts, and as my Aim use shows, this is often very true. Though I am missing time spent with roommates and friends, it is also taking away from my time to have chance interactions. My use of media occurs in all sorts of places, many packed with people I do not know, and because I am preoccupied with my phone call or texting, chances are I will not give strangers more than a passing glance. New media is allowing strong ties to stay intact across distance, but it is less conducive for face-to-face interactions. And though I do not often send messages, etc through Facebook, the paper was correct in stating that its main use is to connect with old friends.

3 Communications in public versus communication in private seemed to have nothing to do with the type of support I was getting or the strength of tie. If anything it was more of a convenience factor, or as Wellman describes the “always available feature.” The only type of communication I would ever have in class would be texting (although not often and only if it was informational). Aim and email were always done at home, simply because that is where my computer is set up. My cell phone and texting were done everywhere else. Privacy was not an issue for me, as everyone else seems preoccupied with there own interactions, it is hard to believe someone would be eavesdropping as I walk down the street. One last point however is something we did not track, which I think was very important in my interactions. The length of my conversations was definitely proportional to the distance between us. My longest phone conversations (10+ minutes) were only with people 3000+ miles away, my family, cousins, friends from home, etc. The closer I was to someone the shorter the conversations because it was usually a conversation based around our meeting up at a later point. In this way, new media is allowing for more face-to-face contact with closer ties and again is making strong ties stronger, and distancing us from potential weak ties.

you'll eventually end up over the waterfall" -- Adam R. Gwizdala

In Tepperman’s article “Deviance as a Search Process” the author analyzes how networks utilize the search process when committing acts of deviance. Tepperman comes up with 3 characteristics vital in the deviant search process including the secrecy of the search, importance of intermediaries and the role of the sought after. In order for networks to benefit these behaviors, groups must be used as instruments and facilitators of social deviance. There are two types of ways the author believes this to happen. The first includes effort on behalf of the group to consciously seek social support for deviant activity, the second is contagious, and support is not purposely sought after. This article really made me think back to our article a few weeks ago on terrorist networks. Tepperman says that deviant behaviors are not limited to space, and in order for the terrorists to communicate they had to go through a string of people outside their clique and most likely not within a close proximity. First of all, was this network used as an instrument or a facilitator in carrying out this plan?
Also this idea brings up Killworth’s argument that people will most likely choose the wrong link in the 6 degrees study, making the chain longer than it needs to be. I would assume that social support was sought originally from certain members of the terrorist network, and from there it was contagious. Is it possible for deviant acts to spread without acceptance? This leads into the next article…
Roger’s “Diffusion Networks” evaluates models of communication and their flow charts, according to past research. Rogers believes that talk amongst tight networks drives diffusion of ideas, because once they are accepted by a member of the group the others are more likely to accept. From here, once a group accepts, the idea is more likely to spread to other networks. Of the hypodermic needle model and the two-step flow model, which of these would best facilitate Tepperman’s search process?
Rogers breaks diffusion networks into two main categories, polymorphism and monomorphism. In polymorphism, opinion leaders cover a variety of topics, whereas monomorphic opinion leaders focus on a single topic. One thing I was wondering when reading this article was how homophilous the monomorphic groups would become if they were getting one side to an issue constantly. In modern culture we look to polymorphic leaders who can lead us in many ways, but in which aspect of our lives are monomorphic leaders more desirable? Possibly religion?
Lastly was Burt’s article on “The Social Capital of Opinion Leaders”. Burt says that opinion leaders are merely brokers that facilitate the cohesion of the network and the contagion of the message. For cohesion we have to consider the strength of relationships and the structural equivalence in network position of two people. How they are able to employ these findings is a person’s contagion. Burt says that opinion leaders bring in information by means of their cohesion outside of the group and spread it amongst people equivalent to them, infecting their own networks, and networks close to theirs.
What would Rogers say that Burt’s idea of cohesion and contagion does for innovation in our modern culture?

“In Networked Sociability On Line, Off Line” Hampton cites many of our prior readings in order to defend online networking against those who say the internet puts a screen of isolation around humans. Instead Hampton argues that “communities consist of far-flung kinship, workplace, interest group, and neighborhood ties that form a network of aid, support, and social control.” The Internets role? It has shown to be helpful in maintaining pre-existing low levels of social support while providing an environment conducive to forming new ties. Hampton goes back to our original reading by Wellman that discusses communities to make the point that new online social structures are not taking away from localized communities, because they may not have existed. Networks have never been confined by geographical boundaries, so the internet is allowing for easier access to networks which already existed. So while internet communities may establish new connections and restore old ones, it will not take the place of public meeting grounds and face to face interaction. As humans, social interaction is a vital part of our survival. Like all media, the internet takes time from other activities, but this happens every time there is a new media. Nothing could ever take the place of human interaction.

In “Social Interactions Across Media” Baym, Zhang and Lin conducted studies of college students in the Midwest tracking their interactions using the diary method and a survey. They then compared findings from the two and found that face to face interaction is still the most prominent form of communication among college students but that the internet was basically equivalent to the telephone in terms of usage. These findings also show that the majority of new media interaction takes place at home while face to face very rarely happens in the home. This study was very relevant to us because it is basically what we are doing right now, minus a few questions. Though we know from last week that measurements of social networking experiments have been hard to define, this study makes some points that I believe from my own experience to ring very true in a college setting. E-mail or more popular today, facebook messages, may possibly take place of the telephone, except in kinships. And most, if not all, of my online interactions are with people whom I already know and am trying to maintain a tie with rather than look for new ones. The setting of the interactions was a simple reflection of the “ease of access to technologies and environmental norms about their use(s).” Which leads to my first question, as internet through phone and other mixing of media become more prominent, will internet usage eventually take the place of phones? I do not believe this will happen in my life, but I am also not a huge fan of technology (I HATE TEXT MESSAGING), but I can definitely see this as being the case with a number of my friends.

Another point that I did not see in either the article or our assignment was the time expended or length of conversations/emails. As I am noticing a pattern in my usage, this would have been a great addition to the diary/survey. I really liked one of the last revelations made by the authors where they note that in order to understand that internet we must demystify it and “rather than studying ‘The Internet’, we need to differentiate between multiple aspects of this complex and pervasive technology and to distinguish the internet clearly from other strategies for accomplishing the same cultural goals.”

Mesch and Talmud discuss the role of multiplexity and homophily online, in their article “The Quality of Online and Offline Relationships”. They pull many examples from our previous readings in order to study how online relationships transform into face to face ones in Israel. I enjoyed this reading because it discussed how homophily often leads to multiplexity, both things we have read about, but never really talked about how well they intermixed with one another. This study found that social status was more important than the communication channel put into play. And that if the relationship develops outside of the internet, social status similarity will again determine the strength and type of relationship. As we are still looking for a good way to measure tie strength, I found this point interesting and wondered what was used to determine strength. This point leads directly into our homophily articles but I find it interesting in this context. Since the internet is supposed to open us up to a more diverse culture, etc. how is it that we find people from the same social class? Is there a snobby upper-class sight that only invited people can access? (Not likely, but worth a shot).

Wellman and Gulia (FYI…if we got married I’d be Julia Gulia) the authors compare “real-world” communities with those online. Their article can be summed up with their final analysis that “The Net’s architecture supports both weak and strong ties that cut across social milieus, be they interest groups, localities, organizations, or nations.” This allows for interaction to occur across cultures and across state, country and continental lines, which Wellman and Gulia argue, is just as good as face to face interaction. This, like many of our other readings this week, these new connections can later lead to offline networking.

Our final article this week “After the Science Fair” shows just how infiltrated the internet has become in not only our own culture, but worldwide. Though there is not much to analyze about this article, it gave me an idea. I believe a great study for our class would be to try the 6 degree study online and see just how much faster it worked. What do you think the time would be if we were to try out such a study?

525,600 minutes - how do you measure,
measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In
inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

This week we looked at different methods of measuring social networks. Zwijze-Koning and De Jonge look at the strengths and weaknesses of data-collecting methods in their article “Auditing Information Structures in Organizations”. The article takes accepted methods of observation such as sociometric questioning, diaries, archival and observational research and ECCO analysis and examines them for their accuracy, reliability, feasibility and validity to see if they are correctly representing a real world situation. One problem that is often seen in experiments or diaries is people are trying to figure out what the study is testing and answer or record their data accordingly. Also it covers a limited time, so the research may be skewed in that sense. The main problem I saw throughout all the methods was how different people interpret data differently. IT seems like this is a common theme in this class, because every week people have different opinions about what statistics really say about the kind of person you are and what role people play in your network. The authors conclude that in order to social research to continue successfully, 3 types of research are needed, “(a) empirical comparisons of data collection techniques, (b) analytical
research into the diagnosis of communication problems on the basis of network
data, and (c) empirical research exploring the relationship between network relationships
and other concepts of organizational communication.” They feel through their explanations that these would cover all the basis for clear, accurate depictions and analyses of social networks. What would the authors think of our current diaries for assignment 3? I know that we will all have different interpretations of similar encounters, is it possible to label something as extensive as social network relationships (See Above Lyric)? Or are social network researchers doomed to forever plot the same triangles over and over with not hope of moving forward…ok im a little dramatic, moving on.

In “Simplifying the Personal Network Name Generator: Alternatives to Traditional Multiple and Single Name Generators” by Marin and Hampton the authors introduce the MMG and the MGRI as alternative measures of social network structures. The single name generator is often utilized by experimenters who do not want to burden their respondents, but this method is destructive because while they may provide accurate measures on some grounds, they fail to consistently measure key variables in network composition. Though the idea behind the method is strong, and I do not feel this study is overbearing for the respondent, it is limiting in the number of ties for each category. While some of the questions may only have 1-3 answers, others could have 8 or more, at least for me. For this reason I might put someone under a category they don’t necessarily belong to, but I feel bad having left them out elsewhere (though it is not the case for everyone.) I would suggest not putting such a strict limit, maybe saying a suggested number instead so people stay within a reasonable range. The questions tied in well with Smith-Lovin’s article on social relationships and their different purposes and I think the author would agree that some relationships serve very different purposes and so are limited to many fewer of those types of ties. Do you think this would actually help the data, or was there a reason why the limit of 6 was put in place?

Lin, Fu and Hsung’s article “The Position Generator: Measurement techniques for Investigations of Social Capital” use the position generator model for measuring social capital in Taiwan. There was a serious gender difference in this culture which led to a difference in their social capital norms. Females tend to stay at home while the men go off to work, and their social networks reflect these differences. One finding was that females have less social capital because their ties are more clustered and do not branch out as far as males, but in their lifestyles this can be very beneficial. Just as men are able to discuss work with coworkers, women in Taiwan keep their networks with women who live similar lifestyles. This links back to several articles, most notably the ones discussing homophily. Because women tend to befriend others in their same position, does this mean they will have a harder time finding equality in the work place if they were to strive for a position? I am not sure how their culture would take to this, but could this be the reason why women are still struggling to be seen as equals in our culture?

In “The Resource Generator: Social Capital Quantification with Concrete Items” by van der Gaag et al., the authors try to find a means of conducting research that takes existing means and combines them for stronger results in their findings. Their solution is the Resource Generate which combines the benefits of previous methods. Rather than solely using the name generator or the position generator methods the Resource Generator covers a wider range of people and asks more specific questions. Though we have discussed many different methods and all have their benefits and deficits, this one touches on a very important idea that their must be more of an allowance in range of responses in order for a more beneficial data.

It's not about aptitude
It's the way you're viewed
So it's very shrewd to be
Very very popular
Like me!
(For those who've seen wicked)

Wasserman and Faust’s article deals with two main concepts, centrality of a network, and prestige within the network. The centrality is the amount of reciprocated ties a person has within the network, whereas prestige is measured by comparing incoming to outgoing information. The more incoming messages, the higher prestige a person is said to have. Are there any situations where this does not apply? I think of a secretary of a prominent person, who is receiving all the info, and simply relaying it with few outgoing messages. This is not the best example but I am sure there are more. The authors also show three graphs as to how they picture social networks: the Star, the circle and the line. Of all these I think the star makes the most sense as it shows how one person could be connected to many separate networks, much like the bridge theory we have discussed in class. However it only seems logical if these are weak ties, because of the forbidden triangle. The other two diagrams seem to have very little connection to day-to-day social situations. The circle seems very unlikely to me without there being some sort of crossing in the middle. The line could make sense in a business setting, from one boss on up the line to the next boss all the way up, so I think it may only be plausible in a situation where each dot is more prestigious than the next. Are there any other situations where these would work in our social networks?

Krebs article was very interesting in showing how social networking can be applied and utilized in very serious cases, validating my wanting to take this class. Krebs shows how a group of people can work together to accomplish a goal, in this case a horrendous act of terror. Some very interesting points were made but I thought one of the best observations about a terror network was that “concentrating both unique skills and connectivity in the same nodes makes the network easier to disrupt-once it is discovered”. The network has to be very isolated in order for information not to leak, and this can be connected to last weeks readings on homophily. This group has segregated themselves. I assume all were of the same religion, and come from similar backgrounds with similar life goals. In a perfect world of total diversity we said that there would be segregation, but in this same world (though completely impossible) would acts of terror be an issue? It seems as though these people felt like a minority and wanted to make themselves known…kind of out there, but just an idea.

In Valente et als article we return to So Cal because of the diversity of ethnicity. Like Pearsons article from last week, the authors wanted to see the role of smoking in social networks. Unlike Pearson, Valente et al found that popularity and where you stood within social networks determined more about smoking then peer pressure. They found that “popular students are more visible and, thus, contribute disproportionately to the establishment of social norms and, in this case, one that favors tobacco use.” If a popular student smoked, it was more likely that those within their social netowrk smoked. Also they made the point that isolate youths become isolated partly due to the fact that they reject the norms of the dominant group, so whether or not the popular group smokes, affects the other groups outside their network. Lastly I thought it interesting that they made the claim that bridges were more likely to smoke, not because I don’t believe it, but I think of bridges as central, sometimes popular people with a lot of connections who may be listed by many people as a friend. Or is it possible a bridge is linked to many people weakly and so lists few strong ties, hence the finding that those who named few friends had a high correlation with smoking?

The Freeman article seemed very repetive of the other Freeman articles. The only new vocab words were degree, betweenness and closeness. It is very technical, which I guess is necessary in any field, but not very eye opening for a student trying to get a grasp of networking. I guess I just don’t understand it or don’t care to, although I’m sure if I ever get into the field, it will be very helpful.

Lastly is the Mouttapa et al article, which I really enjoyed. The article made some very keen observations, especially between genders. The age they chose was great for a study of this sort, as social networks are really starting to grow at 11. Going along with our readings from last week, the authors found that “the presence of aggressive friends is associated with participation in aggression, whereas the presence of nonaggressive friends is associated with less participation in aggression.” Girls, being the naturally less aggressive gender, had fewer victim and bully friends whereas boys obviously had more. Female bullies were also found to have fewer friends, but a dense network of strong ties. This could be due to the fact that girls tend to be less aggressive and do not typically assoicaate with that type of behavior. It was funny to me athat the more aggressive friends one has, the less likely they are to be bullied. I would think this for obvious reasons, bullies hardly get picked on. But I was wondering how this associates with the finding that Asians have a high victimization rate. Do you think this is unique to this environment (So Cal)? Or is there something in their genetic makeup that makes them less confrontational? I would like to see more on this.

1) McPherson, Smith-Lovin and Brashears claim that in a time period of 2 decades, our social networks have seen a dramatic shift. One likely explanation is the increase of technology and how it has affected our society. With the arrival of the internet and cell phones, we are able to keep in better contact with people over a larger distance, as one caller described on the show, he spent more time with individuals while he was away from them. This restricts people from making new ties, if they feel they can remain adequately connected to the old ties. People may feel the need to hold on to the known connections because of a lack of trust in newcomers. As Putnam pointed out, trust is declining in not only our government, but also to people in general.

Another key aspect of society today is the way in which we spend our time. According to McPherson, et al. “shifts in work, geographic, and recreational patterns may have combined to create a larger demarcation between a smaller core of very close confidant ties and a much larger array of less interconnected, more geographically dispersed, more uni-dimensional relationships (p.372).” Our first article by Wellman explained that communities may have never been definable, and that we do not limit ourselves to a geographical location, rather we participate in activities all around a given area. From Bott’s study, mothers are now working mothers, and have less time to do activities that they may have once done. This also means fathers have less time as they are picking up some of the chores. Networks become dependent on the weaker ties because there is less free time to build the strong ties.

2) According to Wellman and Wortley, social ties provide emotional support, companionship, small services, large services and financial support. Strong ties are said to do all of these except for companionship, which we find from our weaker ties. But as we have learned, there is more strength in these weak ties, and since we seem to have diminishing strong ties, these weak ties are more important than ever. They can also provide the big services, such as the job connections, or even introducing us to people who will become influential in our lives. These weak ties, according to Granovetter, are our bridges to networks which we may otherwise not connect. But if McPherson et al was correct in “Birds of a Feather: homopholy in Social Networks” than even the weak ties are not reaching out as far as we’d like. Religion, occupation and social class structures are limiting our ability to reach outside and gather information different from what we know because we generally discuss religion with our religious ties and so on. Professor Burton made a good point during the interview that in order for us to reach outside these bubbles we’ve formed; we need to create ways to reconnect with one another. If people are not able to do this it will have a great impact on our society and we will grow more homophilous. People within these communities have already started to lose trust in one another and this pattern would most likely continue. This lack of trust is the main issue. As we’ve seen with Katrina, when people are facing serious emotional tragedy, and have no faith in their government, and people around them are trying to save themselves, they have no where to turn. There are no outside sources, or ties, to which these people are linked, and so no one came to the rescue. In a perfect world, there would be no segregation, and in order to take a step in the right direction, it is important to think, and connect outside the symbolic box.