Social Network Blog - r5

I found this week's readings interesting. I’m not sure I would agree with all of what was said, but I am continuously comparing my family and my experiences with the findings in each of the different articles. Some of my skepticism arises from having lived in a variety of places growing up- in cities, suburbia, and out in “the country.” I’ll talk about it later in my post, but I think the authors failed to touch on the geographic region for their studies. My neighbors and my family’s interaction with them varied greatly from Texas to New York and I don’t think it was the type of neighborhood- we lived with some of the same people in a similar neighborhood, but the interactions were vastly different.
In Bott’s Urban Families article I was surprised to see that lower income partners were more likely to have the most segregated role relationships. In my mind I am picturing the trophy wife who stays at home, cleans the kitchen, picks up the children and does the household chores while the husband is at the office and relaxes at home on the weekends while Mom takes the kids to soccer practice. Another thing I don’t think Bott hit on enough was that the size of a family has a lot to do with whether or not the network is/will be considered dispersed. There are seven people in my family and thus my parents have, without anything really to do with their efforts, a larger network than they would had they only had two children vs. five. Urban families do this, closed community families do that…..my family was pretty much exactly the same when we lived in the city vs. when we lived next door to a farm. My family may be an exception, but I think that a family’s network in actuality doesn’t have all that much to do with where your house is because most of your day is spent elsewhere.
Wellman’s “Different strokes for different folks” also makes some distinctions too clean cut. Haven’t you ever heard “She’s like a sister to me.” It was interesting to see what people value about their friendships with certain people and what they count on them for, but it is also so varied. My two sisters are my best friends and I tell them everything. People who don’t have sisters will obviously rely on some other relationship to gossip with. Some people find this relationship in their friend, boyfriend/girlfriend, parent. I think it is just all so subjective and varying and for a lot of people this person constantly changes as you progress in life. It also varies depending on age. On page 581 it says “the delivery of support is not based on who you know, but how you know them”…..? I don’t buy this though. I really don’t find this to be true. Don’t you think support is way more indicative of the type of person you are interacting with then by how you know them? Also, Wellman says that only fulltime mothers are in closely knit networks of neighbors. I think children should also be added, because every neighborhood I have ever lived in has always had a brat pack that stormed the streets at about 3:25 after school every day for years. And again, I doubt this assertion: personal characteristics of network members are not directly related to their likelihood of providing support. I happen to think personal characteristics play a large part.
OOOOK, Kalmijn must know some of my friends. The ones who fell off the face of the earth when their boyfriends were invented. His first sentence is captivating, but also extremely obvious- I think all seventh graders even know that when a girl gets a boyfriend she becomes less available and visa versa. Is dyadic withdrawal possible to completely avoid? One thing I don’t think was touched on though was that you do gain some friends when you have a significant other- so I would think that your strong ties may suffer, but you could potentially come out even with your weak ties having lost some of your weakest pre-dating friends but gained a few of your boy/girlfriends friends. Kalmijn says “that the decline is stronger for men than for women can also serve as evidence that women can also serve as evidence favoring the competition principle. After all, it is plausible to assume that the functions of women’s friendships can not be fulfilled easily by a husband.” Do you think that women need their girl friends more than guys need their guy friends?
Networks are inbred…I love it because it is so true. Fischer’s “To Dwell Among Friends” also hit a little on my pet peeve that makes cities and towns polar opposites, but again I found this article pretty interesting.
“It is through personal connections that society is structures and the individual integrated into society.” I agree. Although the article starts off a little alarming and very pessimistic (people are socially burdened rather than socially supported) and by saying that there is evidence against social interaction being beneficial for ones health…..the author does eventually branch out and find some good in the world. The author says “by adulthood we have all chosen our network.” True and False. Networks are continually changing, people are getting cut, drafted, added, swapped, added-then dropped-then added again, cut and then bringing a whole section with them. There is some serious work done to people’s networks (daily might be a little extreme being as though I used the world serious) monthly or so. Also what I feel was not adequately touched on were those individuals who show up in your network that you don’t necessarily invite. We build our network, and we include certain people, but what if someone we don’t include includes us…are they transitively a part of ours? Claude also makes a good point that our friends aren’t actually all that random..they are due in part to convenience and we may not have all that much selection if we live in a small area or work with only a few people. This then creates an environment of some fabricated friendships that may not stand the test of time. Although this is only touched upon slightly, but do you think men are less attached to kin then women? I think the bond between brothers is one of the strongest ties possible.