According to McPherson et all, "As a result, women no longer have a significantly more kinship-focused discussion network than men; nor are they significantly less likely than men to be social isolates."(p. 372) I'm not so sure I agree even though I have no concrete evidence to support my claim and am up against pretty stiff competition. The authors conclude that women only have marginally larger networks than men and that men have stepped it up with core contacts outside the family. I guess I always look to my family for examples, but when I look at my two brothers vs. my two sisters I see my sisters having a comparatively larger networks and close contacts and it seems the same with my parents. I'm curious as to whether or not others agree with sex having lost its stratifying power over the past 20 years..? On a slightly different note, I wonder what other people find to be critical factors in the reasons "Americans are connected far less tightly now then they were 19 years ago?" The authors give some adequate reasons, but there I feel there are so many things that speak to the contrary. Yes, neighborly relationships may have suffered over the past twenty years, but there are so many more groups now- think books clubs, exercise classes, adult sports leagues, a corporate world that is more accepting and encompasses a lot of women, more people are going to college, high school drop out rates are down, etc. There are a lot of opportunities for people to make up these neighborly relations- it just so happens that these days people's neighbors live across town.
In Burt's "Social Structure of Competition" I was a little confused by the following comment: "But these easily accumulated contacts do not expand the network so much as fatten it, weakening its efficiency and effectiveness by increasing contact redundancy and tying up time" (p. 73). See, even after reading this whole chapter I don't know if I think this is true. He even seems to contradict this a fair amount in his article as well. He is saying that this is not beneficial because you will have redundant contacts- but its really rare that any one person knows exactly and only exactly everyone that any other person knows. And even if they know all the same people, different opportunities may present themselves and thus the redundancy is not necessarily a wash. I think this could potentially work in the adverse way because if you have a bunch of similar friends- and a group of redundant contacts- you may be more likely to get something you want because you may have more people working towards a common goal. You and your friends are all big fans of some band..one of your not super close friends is able to get tickets and then you get to tag along and also get to meet the band. I know this is a semi-awkward fabricated scenario, but I feel like with redundancy comes persistence and often multiplied efforts.
As for Granovetter's article- what about anything other than strength? He even identifies that he has barely touched on content or a variety of other rather important measures of a tie. Without taking into account the tie as a whole first, isn't it a bit premature to evaluate its individual parts. I think this leads to a more inductive approach and thus can get confusing.