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.