Social Network Blog - r5

In looking for the most concise way to complete my project, I asked for assistance from my family members after Thanksgiving dinner (quite the convenience sample as I was ale to chose from our forty-two guests.) Due to the close proximity at which my participants sat while participating, I would not be all that amazed had some of their answers of closest ties been influenced by the atmosphere. Almost everyone who filled out the survey indicated a list entirely of people within the room, with the main exception being the inclusion of my grandmother who was out of the country.
My findings were not all that surprising and had I taken a longer, more arduous approach, I think I would have unearthed more interesting findings. Being as though my mom is one of twelve children, all of whom are now married, their immediate kin network is already larger than most people’s kin and friend network combined. Due to a list serve established three years ago amongst the twelve, this rat pack communicates with one another daily via email and is extremely close knit. Because I am also from this big, close family and would consider five family members the people with whom I discuss important matters, I do not find my results that outrageous or boring (although to others, this probably won’t be the case.) My findings speak to Claude Fischer’s point that “the substitution of nonkin for kin may have deeper consequences” as well as by saying that “kinship has always been the interpersonal glue of society.”
None of my adult respondents listed anyone outside of their family, except my mom who listed a close life-long friend. I figured this may be the case due to the size of everyone’s kin network, but even with those who were considered “in-laws” that I interviewed, they also answered with only kin responses. Thus, everyone’s close ties knew everyone else’s close ties. My findings greatly support Granovetter’s idea of the forbidden triad within which A knows B and C and C and B know one another. I had completed two of my young adult surveys with Penn friends before heading home for the holiday and from those surveys I was able to see that both of my respondents listed their parents and three best friends from school, all of which were close with one another (another forbidden triangle example,) but only vaguely knew their parents. From this I can see that my respondents (who double as my family) do not have a vast range of closest support. I do not see this to be a negative due to the extreme size of this kin network, but this obviously goes to show that not all kin networks are shrinking like the article “Social Isolation in America” would suggest.
My young adult category was comprised mostly of my siblings and cousins with whom I am very close. Because I was administering the survey, as this made it easier for the respondents to comply and two hands were still free to eat, many/most of my younger adult participants (aka my siblings and cousins) included me as one of their closest ties. The relationships analyzed showed very few weak ties included in the relationships overall, as again, almost all of my sample was related and chose relatives as their closest ties.
The patterns I noticed emerging from most of my participants was the inclusion of all living parents, their closest in age siblings, and more people of their same sex than not. The women I interviewed all listed more females than males as their closest confidant. Similarly, all young adults listed more people of their same sex, often timed including no more than one non-relative of the opposite sex. McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook note in their article that gender-segregated networks are not uncanny and that it is very common for one’s relationship to be heavily skewed in favor of their own gender. All of the adults I interviewed listed all non-deceased parents, and all but one of my young adults listed all living parents (a twenty-two year old female listed only her mom.)
Additionally, all but one person who I interviewed for the survey listed six close confidants, the one who did not listed five. Another noteworthy discovery was the popularity of people “in the same country” as close ties for my young adult respondents. Because a good majority of my respondents are in college, and with the help of new media, it seems to be very easy for these relationships to stay constant. Wellman suggests there are three main types of social support; companionship, emotional, and small services. This type of long distance relationship speaks to the argument that it is likely these relationships thrive off of emotional support more than small favors as the likelihood of the first seems more probable than the latter and companionship would prove problematic given the hundreds of miles in between.
Granovetter would argue that my sample may not be the healthiest of networks as they are not necessarily reaping the benefits of weak ties. As Granovetter suggests, weak ties bridge different social groups, and it is obvious here that little bridging is being done and close relationships are staying within clearly defined walls (marriage or birth.) Although the adults I interviewed named almost entirely kin, a few of the young adults had more heterogeneous networks which included more of a mix between friends and family.
My family/group of respondents serves as a perfect example of McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook’s article “Birds of a Feather..” These respondents are almost as homogeneous as they come. Aside from being related, they are all also very similar in behavior, interpersonal characteristics, education, and race which the authors suggest are key ingredients to a truly homophilious network. Another key point that my respondents adhere to is the correlation of age. For the most part, those in my homophilious network are all very close in age- my respondents almost always chose the siblings with which they were closest in age with, which the authors would also agree that age plays a significant role in these homophilious networks. My young adult respondents varied from this claim a bit as many of them also included their parents who are twenty plus years older.
The article titled “Social Isolation in America,” did not take into account large families, or more specifically my family (shocking?) The article showed that more and more people are finding less people in their close networks- specifically noting the change from three to two people- over the past twenty years. Although the authors suggest that social networks are becoming smaller and more intimate, eight of the ten of my adult respondents tried to give me more than six respondents, at which I assured them that was not necessary. Even still, the particular network that I happened to interview showed that the core of this network is doing anything but depleting and knowing them all on a personal basis I can say that contrary to the articles assertions, the larger this network gets, the more occupational, financial, and emotional opportunities there seem to be available.
On the other hand, as indicated by the article, the shrinking of the networks has drawn close relationships back to kin, which is extremely evident with my sample. The authors suggest that people have less close ties with people due to occupation, proximity, and other community contexts, and now rely more on their families to fulfill the roles of close ties. Another connection made between my sample and the findings from McPherson et all was the inclusion of a spouse which all of my adult respondents did. This finding of the inclusion of a spouse lends itself the McPherson’s idea of privatization and “the shift toward conversations with close kin, especially spouses.” This is clearly evidenced in the number of in-person contact between spouses as well as supplemented through a large number of cell phone calls.
Age seemed to be the determining factor in social capital. There was an extremely large divide between all but one of the young adults and the older adults in terms of the position generator. On average, the young adults knew roughly three people serving as one of the included occupations. Of my ten young adult respondents, all are either in college or have been out of college for less than a year, thus I infer this narrows their knowledge of people in these fields as most of their friends are either jobless or starting a job that falls between the mid and highest prestige levels. Of the occupations listed, none of my immediate relatives work in any of the job occupations listed, except for one distant relative who is a policeman. Also adding to the homophily of this network, eight of the ten older adults in my sample are engineers and all ten received Bachelors degrees, which I would argue further homophilized my findings. The youngest respondents in my sample also had the lowest social capital (my eighteen year old sister and eighteen year old, male cousin.) Similarly, my oldest relative in the sample had the highest social capital, knowing someone in each of the occupations. Although many would argue that kin are exposed to smaller and less diverse networks, it was not evidenced here it was the age factor- not a lack of resources. There were only slight difference between males and females in the occupation generator; more woman than men knew hairdressers and flight attendants and more men than women knew truck drivers and mechanics, which evens out the position generator score. On average, the younger men had higher social capital in relation to the occupation generator. This follows along with Lin’s findings suggesting that males have more of an opportunity to accrue social capital.
Having recently lost their father, my mother, her eleven siblings, and their mother are very close. Had they not had the close-knit network and a plethora of close ties, I doubt they would have been able to bounce back as they have- which lends itself to some of the findings of Dickens et all in the “Lack of Close Confidant, but not Depression” article.
I did find something very surprising with my findings. The adults used email to stay in close contact with one another. Because of the size of their close network, all but the spouses, said email was nearly tied with the phone (no differentiation was made between land line and cell) as their main method of contact. Although Granovetter determines weak and strong ties through in person communication, I think this my sample speaks to the contrary as this group pf people are very close, yet do not have very much face time with one another. I often associate email with weak ties and younger generations, but in the case of my sample, it was used for contact amongst the older adults and between close ties. Although the younger adults connected more using IM, adults reported using email on a much larger and more regular scale with close contacts. My findings, like Baym’s, also suggest that young adults, when in close proximity, are using the internet to supplement their face-to face interactions; which remain their number one method of communication when possible. A few of my respondents asked whether or not facebook messaging counted as emailing, which I said did not.

Megan Stinson
November 29th, 2006
Comm. 481
Professor K. Hampton
Blog ID: r5

Assignment 1, Part 3

Link to my part 1: http://www.mysocialnetwork.net/blog/481/r5/Assignment_#1_(Part_1)_COMM_481/
I found both significant similarities and differences between Stevenson’s results and the aggregated results of my classmates and also of my individual experience with the experiment. Similarly, there are some valuable comparisons between our class’ findings and those found by Milgram, but I would argue that the closer proximity of ourselves to our target allowed for shorter chains. The most significant similarity between Stevenson’s findings and those from Penn would be the homophilous gender travel traits. The biggest difference I found between the two would have to be that some students passed folders down to presumably younger students and that Penn students, reportedly unlike Stevenson’s participants, were not isolated from other groups and passed folders frequently to other groups such as faculty who could pass them along directly to the administration.
“A student who wanted to get the folder to the administration quickly would have been wise to pass the faculty, graduate students, or staff people who 88% of the time would pass the folder directly to the administration.” (Stevenson, 5.) This was not the case with my folder, although it could/should have been. I gave my folder to one of the two women who teach a class that I am in in the Graduate School of Education. I had planned to ask my teacher, Diane, but she was still talking to another student and the other teacher, Monica, asked if she could help. Thus, Monica was my first hand-off, where upon she quickly filled out her postcard and passed it over to Diane- an unnecessary first step was added and had this not have been the case my finding would have agreed with this finding and added to this statistic in our study. Diane and Monica are both weak ties to me. I had talked to them both outside of class, but most often when walking to class and twice in a coffee shop My folder’s path was strictly comprised of women and once it left my hand it traveled amongst only faculty. I chose Monica/Diane for their bridging abilities, but risked having a weak tie drop the ball and not passed along my folder (which luckily they did.) I also chose “them” because they were within close proximity of the target and also because as educators, I figured they would like to help their students succeed.
According to Stevenson et all’ s “Hypothesis 1,” the longer time at the university, the more likely a student is to initiate a successful chain. (Stevenson, 2.) Out of the eighteen students in the class, ten folders successfully reached their targets. Of these ten successful folder hander-offers, eight were seniors or super seniors (80%.) The other two were juniors, which happens to be the youngest grade represented by my classmates. Juniors, in general, only comprise about 28% of the class’ student body and thus I feel that their performance was not that off the mark and that the seniors don’t know that many more people than the younger students do. But this may have to do with the fact that these students are only one year younger, versus the three year difference noticed between seniors and freshman in Stevenson’s study. Additionally, the amount of links necessary to reach the targets by the younger students is very similar to the amount hat the seniors had to endure, thus the “quality” seems similar as well (avg. links for a senior to get folder to Susan, 3.1; avg. link for junior, 3.5.) I had hypothesized that my folder would travel amongst women because Diane told me she was going to hand it to Susan herself and also because the teachers in the education school are almost all women.
Milgram found that the second link was based on friendship, residence of the target, occupation of the target, and successful chains involved participants with higher occupational prestige and weaker, infrequent relations than unsuccessful chains. (Stevenson, 2.) I think this is interesting to note because in a few cases this first link was with an administrator and thus it follows Milgram’s thought that successful chains often included people in the same occupation of the target and often people of higher occupational prestige than their own (in this case, I am using student as the lowest rank of occupational prestige.) I think it is valuable to note that three of the successful folders made it to their final targets without involving someone of a higher occupational prestige, and rather traveled solely amongst students (g23, r45, g10.) One reason for this may be that Penn students are more connected than most.
In Claude Fischer’s article “To Dwell among Friends,” he states that cities, by their very nature, are more socially heterogeneous then small communities” (Fischer, 11.) I am going to take the liberty and say that not only cities, but city schools as well are more likely to have more heterogeneous social networks. This can be evidenced by the aggregated data that shows that large variety of departments the folder was passed through (over 25) and in no situation did the folder remain solely in one department, showing that our networks may be more heterogeneous than a smaller school. Perhaps this is why our study had a 44% completion rate versus the disappointing 27% in Stevenson’s study. Irregardless, neither study had a turn out meriting bragging rights. Had this study taken place at a school like Dartmouth, where the students are similarly motivated, but the atmosphere is vastly different, would the results have likely yielded a higher or lower response rate?
Stevenson’s “hypothesis 2” contends that “small world folders are more likely to be passed within a class than between classes and occupational groups in a university. “Small world studies in the organizational setting have shown that barriers between professional groups exist and these barriers make it difficult for Small World folders to cross these barriers. Therefore we expected it to be difficult for folders to cross boundaries between professors, staff members, administrators, and students.”(Stevenson, 2.) This was not nearly as evident among the results found by my classmates. Many of the folders crossed from students to faculty (in order for them to be successful they had to.) Some folders crossed over more than once, but I do assume that had the target been a student the amount of links needed would have been lower in general. I think that a common problem/theme occurring in the trek to Antonio was that not many people were even familiar with the Winstar Institute. The Education School is easy enough to find even if you don’t know where it is at first, but ask anyone of the Walk where Winstar is and I would imagine receiving many blank stares.

Stevenson’s “Hypothesis 3” states that “small world folders sill converge on faculty and staff before reaching the target.” The aggregated results from Susan’s folder support this hypothesis because all of the folders received by Susan were given by someone affiliated with the Graduate School of Education. Both folders that were destined for Susan that were unsuccessful, were also unsuccessful at bridging to the GSE. Although this pertains to gender, I wonder if Antonio had been an Antonia would we have had better luck being as though our class is predominately female or would the unpopularity of Winstar still stood in the way?
I also hypothesized that Susan would have a higher completion rate versus Antonio because of the gender make-up of our class. Stevenson’s “Hypothesis 4” states that “small world folders are more likely to be passed to members of the same sex.” This was definitely the case with my folder. I do not have many close male ties that are in any way tied to the education school (I would fathom whether or not they know we even have one.) For that and other reasons, I passed my folder to a female whereupon it was passed to one another female and then landed at its final destination; with yet another woman, Susan Yoon. My path is congruent with Stevenson’s findings as he reported that “there is an especially pronounced homophilous tendency among undergraduate women as shown by six of eight folders that originated with females, stayed with females until reaching its target. My folder also adds evidence that one may prefer to cross boundaries to keep the folder in their same gender as I passed my folder along to a female teacher.) This also agrees with the common theme reiterated by Stevenson that says that women rely more on homophilous relationships compared to men.
Comm. 481 is comprised entirely of females, except for our one brave male, Jason. This may also help explain why Antonio had such a dismal success rate in comparison to abundance of folders received by Susan. Antonio, who received only two of eight folders, for a 25% success rate required a gender transfer from all but one folder (Jason’s.) McPherson’s article, “Birds of a Feather,” states that similarity breeds connection. In this case, similarity amongst gender (all eight folders to reach Susan were started by females) lends itself to this assertion showing that more successful passes were made if the end target was gender homophilous.
According to Hypothesis 1, Stevenson and Co. expected that folders starting with seniors would reach the target, but in reality 81% of the folders that successfully reached their target were started by sophomores or juniors and only two of the completed folders were started by seniors. One folder was also completed after having started with a freshman. Another interesting thing to note from this study is that the folder was never passed to a student in a younger class (Stevenson, 5.) I think it would have been interesting to have noted the age of the participants ( this may become somewhat problematic in that oftentimes women do not like to reveal their age,) but this would have helped us analyze the findings further to see if their were any age boundaries; for instance people tended to pass to people within five years of their own age and whether or not the folders would ever travel to a younger person after exiting the student population and traveling amidst the faculty or staff. Our statistics did show that of the eight folders to reach Susan, four of them were first passed on to people who had been at the school for less time than they had. As this is not necessarily indicative of age and thus not able to directly relate/contrast Stevenson’s findings, it would make for an interesting component to look further into.
Wellman and Wortley suggest that strong ties provide small services. I would think this, passing a folder, to be a small service. Yet, only 7 of the 18 original folder holders passed it off to a close tie. I think this may have to do with the redundancy and the overlap of ties/ contacts, an issue that was talked about in great detail by Granovetter. (I AM NOT SURE WHO TALKED ABOUT THIS!) This may also be due in part to the specifications of our assignment needing to remain solely within the Penn community and perhaps a large number of us consider our strong ties to be people outside this jurisdiction.
It is a small world after all. With such a big and diverse Univeristy, it was not surprising that two of the folders had the same final link and other some similar paths. Three of the folders went through the men in the Milgram study, but we did not see as much popularity amongst any of our folder-holders. Although we didn’t see a core path through which many folders were passed, this I feel would have been more evident had we had a bigger sample or a wider scale target. Overall, this was a very exciting experiment and I wish I had not known the destiny of my folders path from the beginning. I am pleased to see first hand the similarities and differences of our study with those done by famous social networkers.

Dickens & Co.
The research that was done using British hospital participants showed that not having a close confidant led to future cardiac problems. The researches tested for a number of causes, but the only direct link to the cardiac problems was established by the lack of social support. This seems plausible because if you picture yourself recovering from a cardiac problem and have no one to count on for emotional support, your heart must my both physically and emotionally hurting and thus the recovery period extends, in some cases indefinitely. Did age play a particularly influential factor in the finding of this article? Had the avg. age of the participants been younger, would the results likely have been as well? Also, what other types of people could they have included in the study to broaden the scope and get a larger sample but still keep their same focus?
Cohen and Brissette
These researchers looked at the relationship between one’s social network and their immune system. This article, which I found more interesting than most, found that the greater ones social circle, the better chance at fighting colds and the likes. Although I am a little confused as to what specifically helped build their immune systems from the diversity, I have heard this rumor for some time and it was good to see some actual evidence to support it. Are kids then at large elementary schools less likely to get sick than smaller ones? I would have thought the opposite because less people are around to spread germs. Sidenote; I remember hearing about a public school near my house growing up that had a lice problem of epidemic proportions. In my small school I can only ever remember two people having it. I wonder what their thoughts towards lice would be? I know the authors said that it is diversity and not the number of relationships, but with two schools in the same town, one with 700 students, the other with 200, you would assume the larger one would probably have more diversity. Additionally, the way the study was set up it was hard to get a feel for their participant’s prior exposure to these illnesses were (and if I were a parent, I would not want my children participating.) How could this study have been done more effectively?
Moody & Stovel
This article looked at the relationships of adolecents at Jefferson high school in a National Institutional Study of Adolescent Health. The study focused primarily on the romantic and sexual aspects of these relationships and found that these relationships imitate a spanning tree. Their methodology was a bit tricky for me to follow and the students they studied seemed a little bit different than the daters that I remember- do you think any of these finding can be attributed to a general lifestyle in the Midwest? How do you see the adult network structures differently from its high school counterpart? How are they the same? To me they seem more alike that Moody and Stovel argue.

Dickens & Co.
The research that was done using British hospital participants showed that not having a close confidant led to future cardiac problems. The researches tested for a number of causes, but the only direct link to the cardiac problems was established by the lack of social support. This seems plausible because if you picture yourself recovering from a cardiac problem and have no one to count on for emotional support, your heart must my both physically and emotionally hurting and thus the recovery period extends, in some cases indefinitely. Did age play a particularly influential factor in the finding of this article? Had the avg. age of the participants been younger, would the results likely have been as well? Also, what other types of people could they have included in the study to broaden the scope and get a larger sample but still keep their same focus?
Cohen and Brissette
These researchers looked at the relationship between one’s social network and their immune system. This article, which I found more interesting than most, found that the greater ones social circle, the better chance at fighting colds and the likes. Although I am a little confused as to what specifically helped build their immune systems from the diversity, I have heard this rumor for some time and it was good to see some actual evidence to support it. Are kids then at large elementary schools less likely to get sick than smaller ones? I would have thought the opposite because less people are around to spread germs. Sidenote; I remember hearing about a public school near my house growing up that had a lice problem of epidemic proportions. In my small school I can only ever remember two people having it. I wonder what their thoughts towards lice would be? I know the authors said that it is diversity and not the number of relationships, but with two schools in the same town, one with 700 students, the other with 200, you would assume the larger one would probably have more diversity. Additionally, the way the study was set up it was hard to get a feel for their participant’s prior exposure to these illnesses were (and if I were a parent, I would not want my children participating.) How could this study have been done more effectively?
Moody & Stovel
This article looked at the relationships of adolecents at Jefferson high school in a National Institutional Study of Adolescent Health. The study focused primarily on the romantic and sexual aspects of these relationships and found that these relationships imitate a spanning tree. Their methodology was a bit tricky for me to follow and the students they studied seemed a little bit different than the daters that I remember- do you think any of these finding can be attributed to a general lifestyle in the Midwest? How do you see the adult network structures differently from its high school counterpart? How are they the same? To me they seem more alike that Moody and Stovel argue.

Megan Stinson
Comm 481
Professor Hampton
November 16th, 2006

Assignment #3: New Media

Questions

1: The five people I interacted most with:

Overall: Mom, Dad, Liz, Nora, Mary
On my cell phone: Mom, Dad, Liz, Lee, Mary
Via Text Messaging: Liz, Ali, Nora, Rog, Lara
Via Email: Emma, Rachel, Coach

Descriptions:
Mom: my mother who lives an hour away in New Jersey. We have a very close relationship and talk often (48 year old/female/close tie.)
Dad: my father who lives an hour away in New Jersey. We have a very close relationship and talk often (48 year old/male/close tie.)
Liz: a friend who attends Penn and lives two blocks away and is a student at Penn (21 year old/female/close tie.)
Nora: a friend who I also live with and is a student at Penn (21 year old/female/close tie.)
Mary: my sister who goes to school in Boston (18 year old/female/close tie.)
Bridget: my sister who lives in New Jersey (16 year old/female/close tie.)
Lee: my brother who lives in New Jersey ( 22 year old/male/close tie.)
Ali: a friend who lives three blocks away and is a student at Penn (21 year old/female/close tie.)
Rog: a friend and teammate who I live with and is a student at Penn (21 year old/female/close tie.)
Nishi: teammate and classmate who lives two blocks away and is a student at Penn
Ali: a friend who lives two blocks away and is a student at Penn (21 year old/female/close tie.)
Lara: a friend who lives two blocks away and is a student at Penn (21 year old/female/close tie.)
Emma: head of a community service group that I am in and is a student at Penn (22 year old/female/moderate tie.)
Rachel: the other head of a community service group that I am in and is a student at Penn (22 year old/female/moderate tie.)
Paula: a friend and teammate who lives three blocks away and is a student at Penn (21 year old/female/close tie.)
Jenna: a friend who I also live with and is a student at Penn (21 year old/female/close tie.)
Jay: friend from high school who is in the Navy. (22 year old/male/moderate tie.)
Coach: My rowing coach at Penn. (60 year old/male/moderate tie.)
Mike: friend and co-worker who goes to school in Philadelphia (22 year old/male/moderate tie.)
Berger: a friend who lives two blocks away and is a student at Penn (21 year old/female/close tie.)
Claire: a friend who lives two blocks away and is a student at Penn (21 year old/female/close tie.)
Dr. Summer: Professor for one of my current classes at Penn (50 year old/female/weak tie.)
Marta: co-worker, classmate, and student at Penn. (20 year old/female/ close tie.)
Lea: a friend who lives two blocks away and is a student at Penn (female/close tie.)
Karen: HR representative from JPMorgan Chase in Delaware (28 year old/female/moderate tie.)
Kelley: friend who lives three blocks away and is a student at Penn (21 year old/female/close tie.)
Mere: friend who lives two blocks away and is a student at Penn (21 year old/female/close tie.)

1.)

I may be a bit of an abnormality. Well maybe not “Megan Stinson” of yore, but definitely the “Megan Stinson of Senior Year.” This year, due to technical difficulties (my laptop’s inability to connect to its paid for wireless connection and my cell phone’s maimed volume button) I have become more of a technology-free spirit and a routine person. In light of these new constraints, I have now taken on the role of a passive technological communicator. I check my email at the library, but even then do I rarely open more than one thing in my inbox and archive the rest for a variety of reasons (time constraints, lack of interest, lack of importance, and my overall non-interest.) I mainly talk on the phone for less than a minute at a time unless I am talking to my family. I rarely instant message or Skype, but do find great pleasure and significance in text messaging.
 Is there a relationship between the medium of communication used and the strength of the tie? I tend to talk on my phone more with strong ties. Many of the strong ties that I talk to on the phone are my family members. And by many I mean almost entirely. Wellman and Wortley would probably assume this to be the case because “The larger number of siblings means that they make up a sizeable fraction of supportive bonds (582.)” and I have two brothers and two sisters with whom I talk to very frequently.
Most days I talk to my mom and dad, and oftentimes more than once a day due to a scheduling constraint or a beep-through. My close friends know that I am more likely to text them back then call them because I am always on the run and thus they dominate as the recipients of my text friendly fingers. My close friends, the ones receiving my text messages, often understand my humor or acronyms and thus not a lot of explanation is needed and can be delivered in a short, concise, quick messages. I tend to save my emails for those with whom I am not that close with; mainly work or academic based queries which can be evidenced by the fact that I only sent/read seven emails the entire week. Throughout the week I sent only one email to a friend and it was a short message saying that I would call him soon. The other emails served as work related communications, following suit to Granovetter’s assertion that weak ties (which my email recipients were) can aid in getting jobs. I did not instant message or Skype which thus limits my result analyses.
The type of support exchanged?
I am very systematic and have very little free time, thus texting fits very well with my schedule. My purpose for texting tends to lean towards gossip or confirmation and less towards a specific type of support. I have athletic practice once or twice every day, volunteer four times a week, take four classes, and eat lunch with the same people on the same day each week. I tend to rely on, or even just use, technology for major updates; but major updates can also include who is now dating who, who someone saw in the lunch room, and did you know that Brittany Spears and K Fed broke up? I used the phone primarily for emotional aid and companionship. Most of my phone calls were with family. My mom calls me because I think she is bored and looking for companionship and my dad calls me to give me emotional support and advice on basically anything and everything. According to Fischer; “Parent’s teach children society’s rules, and schoolmates teach them tacit standards for bending those rules. All through life, the facts, fictions, and arguments we hear from kin and friends are the ones that influence our actions most (3).” My parents tend to offer me advice and emotional support and the support I receive from my friends tends to be less thought driven and more action packed. Almost all of my text messages were categorized as companionship as the message’s intent was usually to verify meeting place and/or time. I try to ask my parents for as little money as possible and don’t have very many big favors on my list at the moment.
 The type of relationship?
“Kinship has always been the essential interpersonal glue of society; friendships can be seen as luxuries people develop in times of security, affluence, and freedom (Fischer, 88.)” Because I am very close with my two parents, my two sisters, and my two brothers (most of which live only an hour away,) I had the most interactions with members of my family. I did not have many phone, text, or email interactions with a lot of my closest friends. I think this is because I live with them, eat dinner with them, and play a sport with them- thus we are often close enough to have a face-to-face interaction which, at least for me, is preferred. All but one of the emails I sent were to not close or moderate ties. I never have the urge to write people emails during the school year, but this summer when my friends where spread throughout the country I sent and received emails daily. I think Baym et all would agree with me in saying that the Internet is adaptable to fit your lifestyle and Hampton would agree that the Internet allows you to connect with people in a convenient fashion when you so desire. I also had to re-categorize some of my ties from “close” to “moderate” when I re-wrote my daily communication log. I realized, like Gan had pointed out, that people want to think of people as a strong tie in order to not think of them as a negative one. Now I obviously didn’t re-mark anyone from a strong to a weak, but I did demote some ties from strong to moderate.
 duration of relationship?
Many of the people I texted I have lived with or have been friends with for the past four years. Many of the people I called I have known my (or their) entire life. Almost all of the people I emailed I have known for less than a year. There is a very large correlation between the three; the longer I have known them, the longer, more intense, and more individual my communication efforts seem to be. Although Mesch and Talmund say that multiplexity increases the strength of a tie, I tend to supplement my face to face communication with many times only one type of technological mainstream; For instance my sister, Mary, and I talk in person and on the phone, my friend, Lara, and I talk in person and mainly through text messaging. According to Kalmijn siblings are good at providing emotional support and small services, with which I would definitely agree. Because I often need less words to get across my point to my friends and because I see them a lot more often then my family, text messages suffice. People I haven’t known very long, who for the most part double as my not close ties, often get the least personal email. One outlier is my coach whom I have known for four years but because he is an authority figure and because our relationship is more on the surface, I still prefer to email him instead of calling him (he scares me.)
 distance to the person?
Because I live with eight of my best friends and am on the same team as a number of them, I tend not to need to call or text message them as frequently as similarly close friends who I see less often. I placed very few calls to any of my eight roommates. When I am not around them I usually know where they are and have plans to meet up with them later, or am hiding from them. I mainly called my parents and siblings because I would obviously not run into them in my house at school or on campus. I call my sister in Boston a lot too because we are in similar situations where we do not get to see the other members of our family and because she gets homesick.
My best friend from high school goes to Bucknell and because we are both very busy we rarely get to talk. I would agree with Wellman and Wortley in saying that “Friends who live far apart tend to have weaker, less supportive ties,” because when distance separates us we aren't very close, but when we go home for Thanksgiving and are close in proximity, I am sure our tie will go back to being strong and supportive. Similarly, Wellman and Wortley also say that “Most of one’s network is within one’s own city. Now I have an easier time staying in touch with my sister who is five hours away versus my best friend who is only three, but I have also known my sister for about ten years longer. Kalmijn says that face to face contact is not always necessary and that relationship between talking on the phone and strength do exist, this is less coincidental and more effort is necessary. I tend to agree that face to face isn’t necessarily necessary, but it also proves truer the longer and better you have known someone. Hill and Dunbar also say that “time since last contact increases as distance to the individual increases (59.)” So maybe my relationships are not so much of an abnormality after all.
 the person’s age or gender?
My parents do not text message and thus about 99% of the time we connect by calling one another. I do not call or text very many guys friends; I’m not sure why that is except that I am more of a follower. I did text message my friend Mark several times on Tuesday because I was running late and needed to tell him I would not be on time to meet him for lunch. I have an extremely homophilous texting network. As McPherson et all said “Most people have densely interconnected confidants similar to them.” All of the girls with whom I texted throughout the week are 20-22 year-old, Caucasian, girls attending Penn. I mainly communicated with other 20-22 year olds, my siblings, my forty-eight year old parents, and a few outliers. I emailed with my Coach and Professor because the focus of the email was nothing of immediate importance and could be dealt with at their leisure.
 similarity of age?
My dad types with two fingers. My mom types with her tea in one hand and the phone in the other. Neither can quite handle to intensity that they claim the Internet exudes. My grandfather once told me that boxes would pop up when he tried to use AOL so he stopped going on. My seven year old cousin figured out that those boxes were instant messages from him and other of my young cousins. There is a great divide between those who use the Internet and those whose social peak came before the explosion of the Internet. Besides my family members, almost all of my other contacts were 20-22 years old. There was very miniscule variation here. “People tend to communicate with people like themselves.” In that sense, networks are, “inbred.” Ask any of my friends and they would agree whole heartedly that to be the case within my friendship circle here at school and especially amongst my teammates. “As a consequence of- and as a further cause of- this inwardly turned interaction, people come to share many experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and values; they tend to adopt similar styles of speech, dress, and appearance; they frequent the same places and engage in the same activities, in short they develop a common culture (Fischer, 6.)” I think that quote directly identifies with my group of friends and why it was not a necessity for me to use a whole lot of new media to stay in contact with them, a core of my closest ties.
 what, if anything, does this say about the role of new media in our social networks?
New media has some effect on my life. I got my first cell phone when I came to college and the text messaging capability seemed so cool to me that I have since become way more dependant on this seemingly portable version of AIM. I have an extremely homophilous network and new media has only helped further this. New media definitely played a large part in the establishment of my social network at Penn. During New Student Orientation (famously known by all as “NSO” or “the best time of the year”) had I not had a phone or instant messenger, I feel I would have been left out of a lot of last minute social activities and would have had to put a lot more effort into staying in touch with people I had just met. My parents told me I wasn’t going to get a phone until second semester, and looking back, had that been true I am not sure how I would have survived. I came to Penn early to participate in a Pre-Freshman program and I felt as though I was stuck on a desert island because I was without a phone and the internet; even though I was not accustomed to them and was surrounded by thousands of other people. Although this research doesn’t help show this and because I sometimes claim I have outgrown AIM, I definitely think it has major strengthening capabilities for people’s social networks, especially when adapting to a new environment. Even with the use of new media, my sympathy group is still near the range of 10-15 individuals, given by Hill and Dunbar and thus hasn’t blown tradition out of the water.

2.) what characteristics of the tie and person were most common for those interactions that took place inside your home?
For the most part, the only technological interactions that took place in my home were with my parents at night. I am not at home between 10am and typically 9pm and I tend to talk my parents at that time because we are typically both free. I sometimes turn my phone off when I get home because I don’t want to be responsible for answering it or calling people back and just want to relax and hang out with my roommates. Therefore I connected only with close ties in my home and although I didn’t do much connecting with weak ties, I tended to save them for the street or the library.
In public places? I tend to text message when I am walking down Locust walk or walking home from practice. When I walk home from the library I will often call home to kill some time and keep me occupied and then continue the conversation for a bit once I am back to my room. I email people from the library. I am very paranoid about talking about people if there is a potential for anyone to overhear my conversation. I went to a small high school where everyone knew everything about everyone else and thus it created the desire for privacy and bred an atmosphere of secrecy. Wellman and Wortley would agree with my tendency to talk in private with my family as they found “kinship networks are more privatized” in general. Like the results that Baym, Zhang, and Lin’s found I am less comfortable interacting online in public than I am making a phone call or talking to someone. In the library, where all of my computing interaction takes place, I would hate for someone to see my chatting on AIM (I’m not saying that I haven’t done it, I would just hate to be caught.)
What if anything does this say about how new media may change the composition of our social networks?
I do not think my week is very representative of the effects new media has on our society. Again, when I was a freshman at Penn three years ago I used AIM every day as a networking tool. In accordance to the Ellison article, the Internet helps affirm the relationships that started offline. I had a busy schedule then too, but was able to still keep in touch with new friends from Penn and friends from high school even if we didn’t physically run into one another around campus. I think the Internet has made for a great networking tool and has supplemented our friendships. I think people tend to make plans synonymously while using AIM or on the Internet and then physically reap the benefits of having such a tool. For instance, talking online may help you find someone who also hasn’t eaten dinner with which whom can save you from eating alone. Wather would agree to my assertions because he found that undergraduates online interactions as sociable and intimate as are one’s in person interactions. It is also important to note the ease to which new media like the Internet make academic type of information easily accessible. Like Baym and co. said, the Internet is extremely useful when it comes to schoolwork and I have a hard time fathoming what it was like when my parents went to school.
It is hard to pinpoint change. Living in a city, growing up, balancing the workloads of college, athletics, and a multitude of other things; it is hard to figure out what can be attributed to new media. According to Fischer, one has fewer kin contacts in their strong tie network when living in a city because you have more non kin people in your network. I have found this to be true because whereas in high school I was extremely close with my cousins, I no longer talk with them as much as I used to. Penn, like an area like SoHo is a confined group of somewhat homophilous people – and we all know what birds of a feather like to do…stick together. I see so many benefits of New Media and can come up with support against those trying to make media technology the scapegoat. My mom orders her groceries online to thus save her the time of having to go shopping in the store. But even though there is a less likely chance of her randomly running into someone at the grocery store now, she is more likely to run into them doing an activity that she enjoys doing and now has time for. I think we all would like a little more time in a day; a twenty-fifth hour, time for a fifteen minute nap, an extra ten minutes in the morning. If new media gives us the opportunity to do more and be happier while doing it, then I say why not?
“We decide whose company to pursue, whom to ignore or to leave as casual acquaintances, whom to neglect or break away from. Even relations with kin become a matter of choice; some people are intimate with and some people are estranged from their parents or siblings. By adulthood, people have chosen their networks (Fischer, 4.)” New media are tools to use in aiding communication, but underneath they are not really what is driving our connections. We need to take responsibility for the state and status of our relationship and either decide to devote more time and effort, or if not, be content rather than blame plastic and wires.

Interpersonal communication creates a critical mass of adopters
According to Rogers opinion leadership is “the degree to which an individual is able to influence informally other individual’s attitudes or overt behavior in a desired way with relative frequency.” He follows up by saying they are also very important in for diffusion purposes. I do not necessarily agree with Burt when he says that opinion leaders conform more closely to a system’s norms than do their followers. I think in many cases a person achieves greater media exposure, more cosmopoliteness, greater contact, a higher social status for being more deviant or displaying some characteristic that goes against the norm- thus making them popular vs. just a regular. Is the critical mass the same as Gladwell’s Tipping Point?
A tv show- that I doubt many of you have seen- but my sisters are obsessed with is One Tree Hill. The character Mouth on that show is a part of the popular crowd, but is also a dork- and I think Burt would classify him as an opinion leader based on his position, but I don’t think he has much say in anything, he serves primarily as a facilitator.
From Burt’s article- Can an opinion leaders be an opinion broker too? I think the leaders start the trend and the brokers spread it more, both agreeably important, but not one in the same. Opinion leader is based on network position- but I’m not sure I’d agree- the title leader to me screams “top” or “head” and Burt argues that it is in fact not the person who leads a group but the people at the edge of things- then why not call them the opinion edgers- which in my opinion is much more fitting. Another example: the movie “Mean Girls;” Regina George would be, in my opinion, the opinion leader, where as Lindsay Lohan would be the broker who is able to spread the word to other networks (same with Drew Barrymore’s character in “Never Been Kissed.”) I think of the opinion leader as more of the tipping point person who the majority of the talk is somehow generated by/from. Who is a good example of a polymorphic opinion leader?

Tepperman: Deviance as a search process
If the strategy is unsystematic or inefficient it may cost too much and thus not reach completion. Thus strategy plays a major role in conducting a deviant search in order to maintain one’s own secrecy. He says that choice of strategy will determine those who will be successful deviants- that through psychological, intellectual, and other cultural-esq components we will be able to establish patterns- this makes me think of the brutishly handsome men from “Boondock Saints,” and their success’ as social deviants. What types of patterns do we know of that make deviance go unnoticed. The reading talks about the importance of the secrecy of the search- but it is human nature to tell secrets isn’t it? I can guarantee that we have all told or been told secrets before- if they are a secret then why do we need to share them? As well as the importance of intermediaries and knowing what/who is sought after.
What too does Tepperman mean when he says “the deviant need to develop out of casually formed network connections, including people who both provide the hardware and approve its use.”

Steinfield
This study found that certain kinds of facebook use appear to facilitate the maintenance and formation of social capital of all kinds.
what are some of the negatives that can come using facebook/ the
invention of facebook? Would advertising to people like our parents-
in their 40's and 50's ever work? It has worked with high school aged
students and college, but I'm curious to know if people think the
success could be carried over to our parents generations and help them
reconnect with college friends and then perhaps create some sort of
resurgence within their social network. The article states that facebook
can help people make new friends but keep the old, but can it also
work in the reverse- not necessarily making new friends, but more
centered around reconnection with the old. Do you think our class will still be using facebook ten years from now? Do you think that facebook actually
helps those with low self-esteem? It may help mask the problem if people are comfortable friending people they aren’t actually friends with, but I don’t think it lends itself to real life situations. On a different note, I worked for a big corporation this summer that was buying part of facebook.com. I sat in on a number of meetings where my company tried to figure out new ways of advertising and was ultimately trying to get a sense for facebook in general. They had the youngest member of their group, who was about 35 years old, get a facebook account and report back. The person was so off target and didn’t understand that people really don’t have a purpose for being on facebook. They kept trying to find the underlying meaning and to me it looked like they were looking for something intellectual, but in reality I think maybe only college kids can tell you that there is no real purpose or necessity for facebook- but rather it is an amazing procrastination tool.
The Rise of Personalized Networking:

“Each person sups from many tables, but experiences only a single banquet of life” I don’t agree. I think he overanalyzed and that Wellman, if he took a step back, would realize that now can be the time for individuals, for networks, and for groups. As people are now starting to shop online and take classes online, what is next? Will the “cyberplace” ever max out or will it continue to gain further uses and continue to offer more services? We can already order food off of the computer..will movie theatres be obsolete because we can watch them on our computers, music stores all claim bankruptcy? I do agree with Wellman when he points out that many relationships exist in both the physical and cyber worlds and are often dominated/preferred by which ever proves more convenient.
Kleinberg and Lawrence:
This article did a good job setting up the differences between the core, upstream nodes, downstream nodes, and tendrils. I don’t think I agree that they are all the same size as I feel like the core is a lot smaller than the tendrils. The core to me seems like only the companies that are very popular – which I think are extremely outnumbered by smaller and less popular ones. I do agree though that the internet sites that have a lot of links, will get more links and increased visibility- following form with the “rich get richer” theory. Because link structure helps the visibility of web sites, how do niche sites become popular? I have read Gladwell’s tipping point, but if the rich keep expanding the divide, how is it that smaller sites compete? There is ultimately this intricate community embedded in the web.
Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites:
The author says that he is shocked by what people voluntarily post about themselves online. I don’t find it all that shocking. Not everything in life is about work, so what if people have fun outside of work. I’m sure I’ll feel different about that one day though. I find it a little disturbing that the NSA can find out what we look at online- but what is the worst they could see? Buying underwear at Victoria’s Secret? I continually get emails from Career Services reminding all Penn students that potential employers may be able to see my facebook profile- I guess I don’t care. But I also don’t do anything too exciting.

Dear World,
Please stop writing me.
I understand the angst the overwhelming amount of responses must have caused the girl- but seriously, she brought it on herself. Now given her age and inexperience, we can spare her this time, but this here overflow is karma for sending around spam. As mean spirited as this sounds I think she should leave the research up to the researchers and stay on a smaller scale with her experiments until she is ready for what the world can throw her- which as evidenced here is a whole lot.
Net surfers don’t ride alone: Wellman/Gulia
Virtual communities do exist. As weird as this may be I know two married couples who met on the internet and now have very seemingly happy family lives. Additionally, a kid from my hall freshman year was really into this dark art from the 60’s and he found a community of people online that he really clicked with. I, along with basically everyone else, had a hard time talking to him about the art because I wasn’t all that interested and was very confused on all of the small intricacies of this genre, but there on the internet waiting for him was a ton of his kind of people who were waiting anxiously for his contribution. I agree that there is more reward in praising the future than denouncing it, but I also feel like this doesn’t happen until after the idea tips (using Gladwell’s idea of the tipping point.) I don’t agree with the Manicheans that oppose online networking. I feel like their logic is flawed in saying that online networking with negate physical communities because often times the people who are joining the online communities are doing so because nothing is available to them in person. In the case of my freshman hall-mate, had there been people for him to talk about his art with, he probably would not have sought out this other group. Adding to that, had he not joined the online community it was very unlikely that he would have joined any other group and been anymore involved- thus it would not have detracted at all from the surrounding community.
Social Interaction Across Media: Baym, Zhang & Lin
This article made me think of two things: for starters which would I rather give up- phone or the Internet for one week (or the third option would to give them both up simultaneously for three days)? I guess I haven’t really thought about how reliant I am on both of them for separate reasons. If I were to give up my phone then I would lose more contact with close ties and if I were to give up the internet I would lose more contact with weaker ties. This would be a very hard decision and one that I would not be happy about making. Second; if more and more students bring laptops to class and eventually more classes are available on podcast or viewed from home, do you think face-to-face interaction will decrease? The one reason I can think for why this wouldn’t be the case is that it would cut travel time and thus maybe increase leisure time freeing up more time for people to allot to their social agenda.
The role of Multiplexity and duration of social relationships: Mesch and Talmund
If intimacy develops through shared experiences, can an online-only relationship ever be intimate? And by intimate I think the article means warm and friendly, and I think the answer is yes even though the article seems to argue the contrary because they are not involved in the same activities. Now while I am not a online chat room type of person nor do I know anyone strictly from the internet, I do think that some people in certain communities can become close to people using this method. I volunteered when I was younger to write letters to an elderly patient at a local hospital. The lady never knew me but always said she loved my letters and the nurses told me that she often cried of joy when receiving a letter. Even though the letter exchange was our only shared activity, it was seemingly enough to establish an intimate relationship. Is intimacy necessary component of closeness and can it be achieved without participation in shared activities?
Hampton: Network Sociability
Can the internet really offer a replacement for the bar? The internet doesn’t serve drinks. For a café? The internet also doesn’t serve coffee. For the YMCA? The Internet can’t get you on the elliptical machine or on the basketball court. The Utopians idea that the internet is taking away prime social opportunities is skewed. I think it makes us more interested in the opportunities that are available. Now it is so much more convenient to find the nearest hiking trail, fun karaoke bars, a good Thai restaurant. The internet does, in my opinion too, “free us from the pettiness and prejudices of traditional organic relations.” The internet allows people to connect with others far away, but what people are forgetting is that it also brings locals together who may not have had another way of meeting. Where people’s feeling really negative to cell phones when they first became popular. I actually think cell phones create more of a segregated community as it is often used as a clutch and is still more mobile than the internet and I think Hampton does a nice job talking about this phenomenon by saying that people are “cutting themselves off from public spaces by creating private spheres”(in reference to using cell phones in public.)

The Position Generator:
A catch all term for anything that is social- I like it. I sometimes think that although this is what these authors are hoping to steer clear of, it is what some readers will see to inevitably ensue. In this article the authors state that males benefit much more from access to social capital and nonkin relations in getting more prestigious jobs and higher incomes than females do. Females, in contrast, rely more on human capital (education) to gain job prestige and higher income (p. 75.) I was sort of shocked by this, even though it in many cases seems like woman have to work harder to attain certain rankings and titles in the corporate/professional world. Do you agree with this statement by Lin and co. and if so, why is it that/how do women use education to gain prestige? In just my personal opinion, there will be an equal amount of males and females graduating from Penn this year and I don’t think that women will have a clear advantage over the males- is there another capital that seems more advantageous for women? Also- the authors ask this question as well, but is it advantageous to view both network locations and social resources as indicators of social capital or to postulate network locations as a precursor of social capital?(p. 76)
Professor Hampton’s article was next on my lovely reading during Fall Break. I loved every second of it. Yea, I found some of the findings pretty interesting. I am intrged by their statement about the limitations from the GSS being understated as I too find this to be a factor in the findings. “Measures based on alters who helped respondents with small household tasks and those from who they could borrow a “large sum of money” had the lowest correlations across almost all of the summary measures. Isn’t this low correlation due solely to proximity? If my parents lived in the house to my left and a stranger in the house to my right, I think I would ask my parents every time. Even if they lived a street away or what have you. Would our parents, or those from which we would borrow large sums of money, be the ones we would ask for help from if they lived close or would that create a tie overkill?
The Resource Generator: Van Der Gaag and Snijders
“The results of our empirical basis to the idea that multiple measures are necessary for the measurement of social capital at the individual level, and that an analysis of latent traits is a useful method to distinguish such measures, enabling detailed investigation of the productivity and goal specificity of social capital(26)” Are the more measures included in the study of social capital? I used to think that so many things were necessary to measure it, but at what point does it get out of control and having to many measurements make it immeasurable and chaotic? Yea, subgroups and calculations are fine and good, but that opens up more room for error and more variation among findings.
In the Kwijze-Koning and De Jong article I thought that the different levels of interpretation were almost as hard to dissect as would be pronouncing Karen’s last name. The Data collection structures here seem very up for interpretation and nothing finite seems to be produced. They do highlight the three necessary types of research needed for accurate analysis of social networks, but researching research is not all that captivating for a fall break reader. Is it possible to develop a standard defining how low the density of a communication network can be before it becomes a communication problem? I happen to think not because everyone communicates at different rates and levels.

its taking me awhile to figure out whose blogs i've posted on so here is a list of who has posted on my blog- hopefully this helps and is ok:

melis
g23
r32 x2
r14 x2
ashley
y1
g3 x2
charlie
kat
jen

Centrality and Prestige:
The thing I found most beneficial in this chapter was when the author pointed out that “One should not utilize any single centrality measure. Each has its virtues and utility.” I agree with the author that it is more beneficial to look at the actor and the issues of centrality and prestige as a whole unless there are strong reasons to do the contrary.
It was interesting to see that while centrality focused on the actor’s involvement in general, prestige focused solely on the actor as a recipient (some researchers have referred to this as status.) Which do you think holds more importance?
Uncloaking the Terrorist Networks:
I found this to be a very interesting article and the topic more captivating then most. Do you think it is easier to keep things secret if you have less direct links or is this likely to cause more slips/leaks/ or miscommunication errors? I was surprised to see that the chain was not more connected and that each person in figure two for instance was connected to only about two other people. “For a small network of less than 20 nodes, we see a long average path length of 4.75 steps. From this metric and bin Laden’s comments above we see that covert networks trade efficiency for secrecy.” Does this work; do you think efficiency needs to be traded for a better chance of complete secrecy? The section about prevention and prosecution makes me think of the pre-crime unit from the movie “Minority Report” with Tom Cruise, but this sort of map out is more likely to work with the prosecution rather than the prevention, even though it has a long history of mapping out fraud and criminal conspiracy theories. The author brought up a good question- how do you discover a network that focuses on secrecy and stealth? I just saw the new movie “Departed” and it makes me think that in a situation like that why not just identify the popular people and watch their every move….if only it were that simple. I also found it fitting that the author said “in a covert network, because of their low frequency of activation, strong ties may appear to be weak ties.” This reminds people like myself that it is harder then you think to identify what in the aftermath looks so easy and clear cut. In the last line of the article the author says “ to win this fight against terrorism it appears that the good guys have to build a better information and knowledge sharing network than the bad guys.” This is obviously true, but even though we, the United States, have failed to stop some terrorist attacks, what should be done differently by our government to strengthen our network sharing?
Centrality in Social Networks:
No offense to Freeman, but he seems to repeat himself a lot. I feel like his article could have and should have been half as long, but do agree that it is important. I do find value in his concern of “not locking into any sort of ultimate centrality measure.” I think what this article also does a good job of is indicating that the person with the maximum possible degree is not always the person you think it is. “As the process of communication goes on in a social network, a person who is in a position that permits direct contact with many others should begin to see himself and be seen by those others as a major channel of information.” I feel like this person is often times not the president himself in a big company but the person who is more directly connected with the people. I worked for an investment bank this summer and although everyone knew the CEO, the head of HR was almost just as widely known but the difference was that she knew people on a more personal level. I disagree with the author’s statement on pg 237 when he says that “we are faced with an embarrassment of intellectual riches. We have not one, but three conceptions of centrality, and we have a family of measure for each.” I don’t think that this is an embarrassment, but rather a good thing as there is good that comes out of multiple measures for each variable. Additionally, I think this is good because it is hard to generalize centrality because all situations are different and their needs to be some room for variation.
Do Popular Kids Smoke?
Wow, researchers love California. I happen to think that even though Cali is very large and diverse, it is hard to generalize California kids to the rest of the US because West Coast kids and East Coast kids, let alone kids from the middle are all very very different. The authors finding in this study saying that “Evidence exists that smoking rates differ by gender, with adolescent boys showing slightly higher smoking prevalence rates than adolescent girls.” Last week Pearson’s article, on page 55 ; (4.2.1) said the opposite. Which do you think is more likely to be correct? I also disagree because a lot of times the popular boys tend to be the jocks and the jocks, to me, are not the ones that I would peg as the smokers. At least at the schools that I went to, the popular kids were the ones involved in a variety of activities and were in a totally different crowd then the smokers. The author suggests recruiting popular students to help implement the programs, but the problem is that, like anyone who has seen the movie with the “cool hunters,” once something is announced or when something because forced, it is no longer cool- with or without the cool kids support.
Bullying and Victimization
I thought it was funny that the authors said that females tended to respond to bullying with “helplessness” (p318.) I don’t necessarily think this is true, but I do agree that they are more likely to tell their mom or a teacher, but not so sure about helplessness. This article made me wonder- is it better for a group to have a token aggressive kid or not? If you do have an aggressive friend you may start to adapt some similar behaviors, but on the other hand you may also be less likely to have to fight your own battles and then become more passive and because of your scary friend experience less victimization. Just a thought.