Social Network Blog - r5

I guess my family isn’t all that popular. Perhaps it is because we don’t send Christmas cards, but rather we send “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” cards because by the time my mom sends them out it is the middle of January. But I actually think that the 150 cards that the Hill and Dunbar article suggests is the avg. number of cards of family gets is rather high. I’m from a large family, a large Christian family none the less- meaning that we celebrate Christmas and so do a lot of our friends- so I would think that would put us up there to clean-up on X-mas cards. On pg 55 of the article it says that this is the one time of year that people contact everyone whose friendships they value…but this is hardly true. But something I found odd in the study was that it only took into account people who sent Christmas cards- which for the most part tend to be Christian people with extra money. Now I know cards and stamps don’t cost all that much, but with stamps running near 40 cents and it being the holidays when money is often tight and presents need to be bought- I think a smaller percentage of people send them then is adequately portrayed in this study. And are Christmas cards a matter of almost necessary reciprocation? My mom seems to send our annually late cards out to the people who sent us cards. So rater then being a way to connect with friends that we don’t see all that often- which I’m sure is definitely part of my moms purpose, I think some of her return sending is done in a sense as to not seem rude. Sort of like if someone gives you a present you find it necessary to give them one in return. Is the study even reliable? Are the authors measuring what they think they are..are cards sent to annually mainly just to connect with people? Although not necessarily related- Valentines day is a day when people gives cards too….and yes it is to remind people that they love one another, but also because if they didn’t there would be major repercussions.
Moving onto the Killworth et all article, I am confused as to who actually can guess as to how many people are in their social network. Call me crazy, but I have really no idea. I don’t know whether my high school friends would be considered even though half of them I haven’t seen in years because I went to boarding school and don’t live near and what about friends from elementary school that I talk to only occasionally? I find it difficult to evaluate my own network and think it would change rather frequently and would suspect that maybe others feel this way too…? One thing I found weird was that people for this study were solicited through a local paper, which for starters biases their participants because only certain types of people read the newspaper I feel and I think this can skew the findings, although I did correctly predict the findings for New Mexico as the education level would be seemingly lower. I also don’t necessarily think the phone book aspect of the study was all that conducive as peoples names are less likely to ring a bell as is their face. In the discussion of the article I think the authors touched on this briefly first by saying that they understand there are discrepancies between people’s imagined view of their network and also that there were unavoidable problems that came with using the phone book mainly because this is not an easy measurement.
How can researchers get more (accurate) info without further inconveniencing participants?
I found the findings from the homophily study rather surprising, yet the assertions rather obvious. “Smoking, drug-taking an alcohol use tend to be similar between friends.” Agreed. But why people are friends or why they start a specific habit is not always cut and dry. I just started drinking coffee a few weeks ago. My friends have all been drinking coffee for years, but I never felt like it. Why did I start to drink it? I’m not even sure if it was due to assimilation or because of homophily-esq reasons (mainly that we all have a lot of work and need something to keep us awake)? I also disagree with the model for joint evolution which says that “ friendship groups cannot suddenly spring into being but can only grow as the result of a gradual coalescence of friendship ties. Last year I went on an alternative spring break trip and within one day everyone in my group was friends even though we haven’t known each other prior to the trip. I think it is definitely possible for groups to spring into being given the right circumstances. Also on p 53 the authors say that “friendship is unlikely unless there is some additional property added to the desired friendship such as reciprocity.” Yes, this seems true, but everyone also has the annoying neighbor who is 100% content with maintaining your relationship on her own even after you have repeatedly expressed no interest. Why is it that smokers name more friends than non smokers? And in reference to the sports activists drinking more alcohol..are those participating in the sports solely as spectators included in this number?
The birds of a feather article is also interesting, but a lot of it seems rather obvious. Many people look like their friends, act like their friends, have similar beliefs as their friends, etc etc etc. On p. 435 McPheson et co. say that women made a great deal of their friends through their husbands friends wives. And that men tend to focus a great deal of their network around their work buddies. These results seem to be from 1994, do you think a lot has changed in the past 12 years?