Social Network Blog - y35

Over the course of the semester, many researchers have attempted to take an accurate snapshot of the current social scheme in order to draw conclusions about community and the different factors that impact the larger social network. The reduction in personal social support and the decline of the community is one of the surface findings that poses important questions about the importance of networks and what factors may influence individuals’ personal networks. Many analyses point to issues of network size, network density, network diversity, and network privatization that they claim have molded social networks into smaller, insulated, and less diverse networks. Major findings from the field of social network analysis suggest that increased homophily can have negative social results, so it is very important to analyze the factors that contribute to these network changes, and the impact that it will have in the greater world. Social network surveys are one of the most helpful ways in gaining insight into networks on a smaller scale.

One of the social network analysts most frequently cited in class is Barry Wellman. In “The Network Community,” Wellman analyzes many of the important findings of social network research thus far, claiming that changes that are commonly attributes to the dissolution of the community are only a result of the change from mechanical networking to organic networking. Gone are the days where the community was a survival resource; individuals now take an active role in shaping their networks to fit their needs, making room for commutes to work and the wonders of new media. While Wellman acknowledges that dependency no longer binds us and that “people are not wrapped up in traditionally densely knit communities,”(24) other researchers like McPherson believe that new networks still represent a neighborhood quality in their insular nature. Looking at the results of the Social Network Survey, there is evidence that supports both concepts. I think that the high number of low-position selections that respondents made points to the changing nature of the community. Based on the prior research on position generators, and McPherson’s belief that people are socially isolated, I predicted that people would not know many people who worked in positions unlike their own. While during the survey I did not ask about the respondent’s occupation, I do not believe that many members of my sample had the exact same occupation as was on the list. I thought that there would be fewer positions known by each person because people are more socially isolated, but the results better support Wellman’s idea that social activities have moved out of the neighborhood and into a more organic sphere. If people were as isolated as some research suggests, one would expect to see concentrations of positions on either the high end or the low end of the spectrum, but the common positions generated like hairdresser and store clerk suggest that people are interacting more outside of the home and connecting with members of various sectors of society.

One of the major flaws of Granovetter’s famous analysis of social networks is the question that she asks in order to draw conclusions about the nature of discussion networks. He asks, “how often they saw the person around the time that they passed on job information to them.”(1371) While this question is designed to answer questions about weak ties and how they help in job information, it does not align perfectly with his conclusions about the strength of weak ties. A much better indicator is the position generator and name generator. These forms of analyses avoid looking at networks from a birds-eye and general view, and account for the changes explained by Wellman as simply a result of analyses of neighborhoods and not networks, which he blames for inaccurate conclusions. Despite the faults in the probing question that Mark Granovetter used in his research, the conclusions hold true when looking the results from the position generator. I found that many people had very few people with which they discussed important matters. There were no major differences between males and females between the ages of 18 and 22, but women above 33 reported having an average of 6 people on their list while men had an average of 4. This compliments the results of other position generator studies. In “The Position Generator: Measurement Techniques for Investigations of Social Capital,” Lin, Fu, and Hsung, conclude that there is major inequality between males and females in access to social capital. The division of labor in Taiwan creates the disadvantage between the sexes in this study, but the results are similar in my results from the survey. I found that men from both age groups reported six people on the position list that they knew by first name, including one or two positions on the higher side of the spectrum (above and including nurse occupation). Women, on the other hand, knew fewer positions, younger women knowing an average of 4 and older women knowing slightly more with an average of 5 positions on the list. Like the results in the Lin, Fu, and Hsung study, men know more positions possibly because of the division of labor and other social factors that impact network characteristics across gender.

McPherson , Smith-Lovin, and Brashears in “Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades,” conclude that there has been a significant reduction in the number of people with which one discusses important matters. This has lead to social isolation, as people interact with kin and close ties and rely on them more than ever before. The name generator results support the findings in the article that people discuss important matters with a very small group of core people that consist of friends and family. Data from the Social Network Survey supports this observation. I found that there were no significant differences between males and females or age groups in their listings of the people with which they discuss important matters. People reported having fewer discussion partners than I expected, and these partners were represented by family, friends, and co-workers overwhelmingly. In fact, only one respondent included a status other than friend, family, or coworker, and that was an advisor. This suggests that people’s core discussion networks may be smaller and more densely knit, but they do include important people outside of the home. Evidence of this is the frequent report of co-worker as one of the people included in important matters. Six of the ten respondents over 33 reported having a discussion with a coworker about important matters, which supports Wellman’s belief that people are moving to more organic networks that include other aspects of their life besides the family or neighborhood such as work.

Another important study that relates to social isolation is “ Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks,” which suggests that homophily limits the social world of each individual and has a large influence on the information they receive. “Homophily is the principle that a contact between similar people occurs at a higher rate than among dissimilar people,”(416) implying the people choose to people who are like them in terms of race and ethnicity, age, religion, education, occupation, and gender. I found evidence of homophily in the results from the Social Network Survey, though it is hard to consider the results significant considering the lack of depth of information about similarity between respondent and connections. People listed as discussion partners consisted of a high number of friends, family, and coworkers, and a high number of people living in the same country. One cannot conclude that there is homophily in the network simply because of being in the same country, but having high numbers of people who are family suggests similar ethnicity, education, religion, and high numbers of coworkers suggests similarity in age, education, and occupation.

Though Barry Wellman is one of the first researchers we studied who believes that the community has changed as a result of various factors that have changed networks, he takes care not to blame the changes on the role of new media in our lives. With so much new technology ranging from the Internet and television for entertainment and information, to cellular phones and emails as principle forms of communication, it is easy to see that technology has developed into an important factor in every day life. Many researchers disagree with Wellman, seeing the role of new media as a distraction that has acted against the community. The only evaluation of new media involved in the Social Network Survey was in the questions about discussion partners and the ways in which respondents have communicated with these partners. I found that most respondents (8 of 10) had someone in the home with which they were very close and did not use much new media. With these 8, their close discussion partner was their spouse and they used more face-to-face contact and reported no email, no Instant Messenger and a range of 5 to 20 days of cell phone activity between partners. With the younger demographic, they contact their closer ties like their parents more often through email and cellular phone. This illustrates obvious lifestyle differences of the living situation and distance account for any media differences.

In “Social Isolation and the Underclass” Fernandez and Harris make the case that the Black urban poor is at major risk of falling into a socially isolated underclass. The authors use the background information to come to a conclusion about the meaning of social isolation: lack of contact or meaningful interaction with the individuals and institutions that make up mainstream society. Anyone who has ever spent time in what the researchers sometimes refer to as the “ghetto,” can appreciate the reality of the homogenous population of poor minorities that are both socially and geographically corralled and closed off from the surrounding community. Many individuals in the isolated underclass are unemployed or underemployed, creating an underground economy that has been the subject of some media attention lately. This is another manifestation of the insular nature of the underclass: a whole economic system that has an order and involves payments and transactions occurring under the table. The background information centers on studies of the Black underclass specifically, yet the researchers conclusions do not deal with issues of race. What role does racism play in the social isolation of the Black underclass? The researchers suggest instead, that members of the underclass are isolated because of the multiplexity in their networks. The overlapping ties indicate insularity.

“Social Resources and Mobility Outcomes: A Replication and Extension” seeks to test prior research from Lin, Ensel, and Vaughn (1981), researchers who concluded that the nature of one’s social network has a significant affect on career success. They want to determine the effects of social network resources on the outcomes of job changes. They cite the popular conclusion by Granovetter that weak ties lead to helpful job information. Their results are consistent with the data from prior studies on job matchmaking, but they admittedly still leave many questions unanswered. What would be the effect of the study if the job seeker already knows information about the prospective job?

http://www.mysocialnetwork.net/blog/mt-tb.cgi/233

http://www.mysocialnetwork.net/blog/481/y35/2006/09/small_university.html

A similar theme in the results of the Stevenson et al. article and the class Small World Experiment results is the pattern of homophily. I predicted that, despite the diversity of the Penn population and my social network, my chain would still consist mainly of females that are similar to myself. Stanley Milgram also notes the prevalence of homophily in social circles in “Small World Problem.” “Small World of the University: A Classroom Exercise in the Study of Networks” exhibits the same tendency toward females passing their folders to other females: “this homophilous tendency is especially pronounced among undergraduate women: 6 out of the 8 paths that originated from undergraduate female students went to other females.” Our results with the S.Y. female folder reflect an even stronger pattern of homophily. Of the ten folders targeted at S.Y., there were only two exchanges from female to male. Our results could possibly be skewed because we have a higher proportion of female participants with a female target in our experiment than in the Stevenson et al. project. Folders targeted at A.P., the male target, also exhibit the tendency to pass to folders to members of the same sex. For this target there were only two completed chains; neither of them show the same degree of homophily. However, the incomplete chains do still echo the prediction that the folders will pass between members of the same sex.

Another reflection of the tendency toward homophily lies in the decision to pass the folders to members of the same class and rarely to members of a lower grade. Results of the Stevenson et al. experiment show that 7 out of the 16 chains had all intermediaries sharing the same class. The results of the A.P. folder somewhat reflect the same tendency to pass the folder to members of the same class or a higher class. In the A.P. chain, 43% of transfers were student to student in the same year, and 28% passed student to student in lower class, as well as 28% of transfers that were student to student in a higher class. Though these results are not dramatic, we have a smaller sample in our experiment that could explain why the trend is not more pronounced in our data.

Differences in design between the two experiments can account for much of the difference in results. While the Stevenson et al. experiment shows the differences in the transfers between class and includes freshmen, our class has Juniors and Seniors, making it difficult to draw conclusions about classes. It would be interesting to see if our results would have replicated the Stevenson et al. data if our experiment involved more folders and lower classes. “Small World of the University: A Classroom Exercise in the Study of Networks” concludes that freshmen are more socially isolated than other Undergraduates because only one out of the 37 starters or immediate intermediary links in the completed chains was a freshman, and no folders in any of the chains were passed to freshman or members of a lower class. When I was planning who I would pass my folder to first, I certainly considered class. I wanted to pass is to someone who is my year or older because I felt that it is more likely that they will know someone in a Graduate program who could access my target. It makes sense that members of the University community would have fewer ties and may be socially isolated. I suspect that my folder did not reach my target because of my last intermediary’s first-year status. While I hoped and predicted that my trustworthy close tie who is also a female would pass the folder to another Senior female, the folder ended up in the hands of a first year student which probably impacted the path of the folder.

A major limitation in the Stevenson et al. research was that they were unable to expand their information about the incomplete chains and about the nature of the ties because they did not use postcards and they did not collect information about tie strength. While our experiment suffered because we did not have as many participants, we are able to draw some conclusions about the incomplete chains. In our experiment, there was no major difference between success rates in chains that began with a strong tie transfer versus chains that began with a weak tie transfer. This is a surprise in some ways because I predicted that closer ties would me more successful in passing the folder to an appropriate intermediary than weaker ties.

Eighty percent of the folders with S.Y. as the target reached her successfully, while only two folders reached A.P. With such a great disparity between the two success rates, one has to wonder what aspect of the chain failed consistently with the A.P. folder. Looking at the two sets of aggregate data, there is no major difference in the nature of the paths that could account for the lack of success in the A.P. folders. The difference could be attributed to the differences in the characteristics of the individual targets. Wasserman and Faust in “Centrality and Prestige” outline the different factors that contribute to degree centrality and degree prestige that impact the position of various members of the Penn community, including both of our targets. I would predict that personal characteristics related to access and prominence of our targets accounts for the different success rates. I would argue that S.Y. is more easily accessible than A.P. because she is a Graduate at the Education school which is geographically closer to Annenberg and is closer in subject matter to communications. A.P., on the other hand, is a staff member who works in a lab that is less related to communications by subject and also more distant geographically.

In “Social Integration and Health: The Case of the Common Cold” Cohen, Skoner, and Doyle create a thorough experiment to answer questions about how social isolation impacts health for individuals. They want to find out if the extent to which one participates in the social community affects the likelihood of catching the common cold. They begin with the prediction that increased interaction will lead to decreased mortality. Their background literature has many conclusions from other experiments that used self-reports about how social a patient thinks they are after being discharged from the hospital. Pre-experiment surveys and tests of the immune system help to rule out other factors in the experiment. They conclude that social integration is important to preventing illness because of the psychological self-esteem boost through meeting social expectations, and the social control aspect of maintaining healthful behaviors. Isolates receive less social pressure and have fewer challenges to meet socially, and they are also less exposed to information about healthful behaviors. The design of the experiment seems very thorough, they rule out many other factors through many experiments and a system of quarantine for participants that rules out outside infections. They conclude that social isolation is a major risk for developing an illness. This finding is important and can help change health policy in the future.

Like the first article “Lack of a Close Confidant, Not Depression, Predicts Further Cardiac Events After Myocardial Infarction” seeks to expose the relationship between sociability and health. This study seems less structured because the researchers do not go through the extensive tests that the Cold study did to eliminate other factors. They admit that there are other factors that could explain for the connection. Despite the other factors, they do conclude that lack of a close confidant is associated with “adverse reactions” post-heart attack. They suggest that people without a close confidant may have a harder time following recommendations from health professionals.

“Chains of Affection: The Structures of Adolescent Romantic and Sexual Networks” explores the romantic networks in a typical American high school and seeks to make a comprehensive map of these networks. Like other experiments like it, this report seeks to expose the network and draw conclusions about how sexually transmitted diseases could pass through the population. They make a good point that sexual partner choices and the networks that these little decisions create are completely different than random mixing. Ignoring this point ignores the underlying contact structure that is crucial in preventing the spread of STDs. One possible flaw in the study is choosing the school that they choose, while they say that Jefferson is like any American High school, how do you think the results may change if the school was more upper class instead of more lower class, or if the school was less isolated? The isolation of the community is important to the researchers because many suburban neighborhoods are similarly isolated and insular. There is some risk of bias from self-report, how could researchers have avoided the bias through home interviews? One way that they reduce the bias is by outlining the network from a bird-eye-view way through asking other students to confirm partners. They discover that 52% of students are in one component while many others are in dyads and triads. I do not understand why 52% of students in one component is not the same as the dreaded “core” that is thought to lead to the explosion of disease because that seems like a large number of individuals. They also discover major homophily in these relationships, and I would like to know more about how they test homophily if the school is considered not very diverse. The researchers suggest that the core is avoided because there are norms in the high school community against seconds partnerships, which is a very interesting and correct explanation of the difference between this study and the general population.

1.) The five people that I interacted with most often were my mother, father, former significant other, my teammate and close friend, and another friend from outside of Penn. Most of my cell phone conversations were made to my parents, while most of my email was taken up by university mail about jobs/classes. The person I used SMS the most with was my teammate. I do not use Instant Messenger or Internet phone services. My parents are my closest ties, and I have known them for all of my life of course. My former significant other is also a very close time, and we are in frequent contact through SMS and cell phone calls.
2.) Looking that my time use diary, it is clear that my use illustrates the concept that users maintain relationships through multiple media. This concept, outlined by Baym, Zhang, and Lin in “Social Interaction Across Media,” says that people use multiple outlets to contact their ties, an important reason why Internet communication should not be seen as meaningless. Though multiple outlets may be used to contact ties, there is some relationship between medium used and the tie contacted. When looking to reach a professor, advisor, or other resource in the Penn community, it is easiest to use University web-mail because I am contacting a weaker tie and the format is beneficial for finding and contacting weaker resources. Email is less personal, which makes it more appropriate and easier to ask a question or reach out to a faculty or staff member. Also, the features of email obviously have benefits. One feature that is a benefit in the University web-mail is the address book and search feature that makes it easy to find weaker ties.

On the other hand, stronger ties were most often contacted through multiple media. My close friends that I contacted the most over the course of the week are people that I spend a lot of time with, as well as spending a lot of my new media usage sending text messages, calling, or emailing those same people. In my case, there is a relationship between face-to-face interactions with friends and how much I contact them in general. People that I do not see often I do not contact often, and many of my messages to those two friends that I see often were about a face-to-face interaction, or planning a face-to-face interaction. This supports the conclusion in the Baym, Zhang, and Lin study that despite the use of new media to reach out to ties, face-to-face interaction still remains dominant.

While there is little connection between medium of communication and distance to the person, or the person’s age and gender, there is a connection in my diary between medium of communication and type of relationship. As discussed above, weaker ties, but more specifically, business or school related ties, are easily accessed through email. Email is less intrusive, making it acceptable to contact busy individuals about job information or school information. I also notice a connection between medium and type of support exchanged. I used email for small services and job information, while other media are better for emotional support or companionship. In fact, there were no exchanges about job information over the phone, and no exchanges of emotional support through email. This is not a coincidence but support for the idea that different media are better outlets for different types of interaction.
3.) There are many factors that can influence what media is used in public spaces versus private spaces. My interactions in the home were mostly my email interactions. Home is a place for setting up plans for outside of the home, so it makes sense that many of my interactions about job information or school information took place in the home. Also, home is the place where many of my text messages for companionship purposes were used. While neither my email use nor text use implies anything about my social network, it does imply that access and convenience may drive my email use. On days that I could not check my email at home, I did not contact through any alternative media the weaker ties for job information or school information that I otherwise would have been in contact with through email. I also find that the few cell phone interactions that occurred over the week for emotional aid or companionship were made on the street. This supports the concept that while new media may displace interactions with strangers on the street, it does give stronger ties instant access to people that are closer like friends and family.

Email and text messages are important alternatives to using a cell phone in public, an act that is considered rude in many settings such as a classroom or library. In this case, the setting is more important than the relationship between the ties or the type of support. Looking at the time diary, I used text messaging often while walking, in a quiet place, or while in class. This is because talking on the phone while rushing to class is a hassle, and text messaging is less intrusive for both the user and other people in the area. This may be another example of how new media is not as destructive and intrusive as scholars suggest. Forms of new media like email and SMS messaging allow users to interact with many contacts simultaneously, and without disturbing others in public, avoiding the negative implications of new media use in the community.

Researchers focus on how new media destroys the community by ruining interactions in the public sphere, but the segregation that occurs with the availability of new media could have a positive impact on an individual’s access to ties. While cases where people stop using more intimate forms of communication and switch to less personal forms of communication can ruin strong ties, having different levels of ties could help strengthen strong ties. Being able to contact ties through so many options makes using an intimate form or communication more special because of the variety of options. Instead of using the phone to contact everyone, stronger ties get special treatment, which could make the relationship more intimate. If there were only one way to reach ties, it would not seem as special to receive a personal phone call or hand written letter which undeniably takes more time and attention than other forms of communication. Based on the assumption that intimacy depends at least partially on exclusivity, I would argue that the divisions apparent in my media use suggest that my stronger ties are stronger and weaker ties stay weak. This is a benefit because energy is not wasted on ties that will never become strong, such as ties to a faculty member or Career Services.

Online search tools and public opinion play an important role in what results we find in searches and in shaping tastes. “Deviance as a search process” deals with a different type of opinion in the discussion of the relationship between deviance and searches. Lorne Tepperman describes deviance as a trend. There is group deviance, where all members of a group practice participate in the trend through contagion, while individual deviance involves a curious individual who must seek out the hardware, facilitators, and providers of support. Tepperman sets up the example of an individual on a search for marijuana in Saskatoon, and makes an interesting point that the “development of cognitive maps that are highly successful in either day to day activities or deviant searches requires acculturation.” In order to find the correct hardware, the searcher needs a map. The necessity of a map suggests that cultural surroundings and experiences play an important role in the success of searches and deviance. The learned ability to seek out information and tools in this manner has implications for both negative trends like drug or alcohol use, as well as Internet searching skills. How could the idea of this map be used by anti-drug interests?

Robert Everett’s “Diffusion Networks” discusses the other side of Tepperman’s deviance discussion, group dynamics and diffusion of innovations. Opinion leaders determine the direction and rate of adoption of a new idea in any given system. According to Everett, even thought opinion leaders are innovative enough to adopt the new idea before the masses, they still maintain the norms of the rest of the group. This is in line with Tepperman’s more brief discussion of group deviance. Everett describes in much detail the different types of ways to determine opinion leadership through questions, and the various experiments conducted to determine opinion leadership. The tables are useful in organizing the different models, experiments, and information that he uses to support his point. His analysis paints the picture of a living, breathing environment that has a huge impact on the trends an individual may adopt. Every aspect of the social environment contributes to an individual’s adoption of an innovation including the chances that others will pick up on the innovation in the future, and social learning theory.

In “The Social Capital of Opinion Leaders,” Robert Burt is more interested in the fringes of groups than the inner workings of groups and the way trends move inside of groups. The opinion leaders are often just on the boundaries of the groups, playing the role of opinion brokers with the privilege of crossing the boundaries between groups. Burt addresses the interactions within the interactions within groups and between segments of networks like it is a game; the broker who has relationships that span structural holes will have the competitive advantage. This gives the user ultimate control over the information shared within the group and between their group and the rest of the network. The skills to be an opinion broker are learned, like the skills to create a map for searches.

Each of this week’s readings described virtual networks as real realms with nearly tangible boundaries and structures. “The Structure of the Web” by Jon Kleinberg and Steve Lawrence exposes the secret structure that lies underneath the chaotic surface of the Internet. This structure composed of core sites, upstream nodes, downstream nodes, and tendrils, challenges the conception the Internet lacks organizations. The core is the small percentage of most popular sites all other sites can be arranged in relationship to the core. The model is described as the “governing of web growth” controlled by users. This landscape also includes “community structures,” areas of dense links that indicate a common theme among the multitude of pages.

Paul Marks’ examination of the possible uses of social networking sites in investigations calls to mind the numerous examples of information on social networking sites attracting a lot of public attention. Marks suggests that information from social networking sites can be aggregated based on circles of friends and common interests. This virtual dimension adds a deeper level to monitoring American call logs. Though Marks describes this as something that can be very useful in finding out information about dangerous individuals, the literature suggests that these individuals are private and hard to track making virtual tracking impossible. Marks also talks about the future of the Internet when a common data structure will equalize all of the different formats, with unambiguous tags that will eliminate inconsistencies in searches. With this new technology, tracking individuals on the Internet will be easier, what will be the implications of a uniform format language on the Internet?

“Spatially Bounded Online Social Networks and Social Capital: The Role of Facebook” examines the popular social networking site that has influenced social life on many college campuses. Ellison, Steinfield, and lampe seek to research various aspect of Facebook use including the difference in personal characteristics between users and non-users, how people use Facebook, and how use or abstinence affects social capital on campus and with high school friends. They used a random sample of 800 MSU students and had a 35% response rate. The surveys measured time used, features used, and purposes for use. The sample was random and they reached out to many students, which increases the chances of accurate results. Another positive aspect about the method was the relationship between the questions; questions to assess emotional connectedness and uses of features helps draw meaningful connections between needs and uses for this sample. They conclude that use of Facebook is prevalent, and increases high school social capital. They further conclude that intense use is a predictor of bonding, bridging, and high school social capital. These results are pretty remarkable and raise doubts about prior reports of the negative social impact of heavy Internet use in general. What do you think is the extent of impact that a sample taken at a public state school had on the results? Would the increase in high school social capital be as dramatic if the students were possibly further from home and more isolated from high school friends?

“Physical Place and Cyberplace,” presents a slightly different view of community than the traditional definition. Wellman’s assumption seems to be that communities are loosely-bound and sparsely knit. I think this view is more contemporary and progressive than the other definitions we have centered our discussions around. Wellman’s definition allows makes it easy to see virtual communities as a valuable aspect of one’s social network. Virtual communities do not have the consistency in identity or the accuracy of identity for close enough ties to be made to create a true community in the traditional sense.

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The chain letter in “Science Fair Project Overwhelms Computer,” is a good example of the far-reaching and instantaneous nature of the Internet, and the ability of the technology to dissiminate information across the globe. A chain letter begins with only 23 targets and ends up outlining a network of over 100,000 people from all over the globe. They describe numerous projects begun by schools or other individuals like Shannon who begin chain letters and get impressive results, yet this story is different because of her mother’s interest and the apparent interest of other people in the email chain. It’s like a cooperative project that each link in the chain is adding to. How much do you think the feeling of responsibility to the community affects the success of a chain letter like this one?

“Net Surfers Don’t Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities,” acknowledges the two opposing sides of the never-ending debate about the utility of the Internet. Instead of debating over the benefits and dangers of the Internet community, they are interested in what users do in cyberspace. They seek to answer questions of the level of intimacy and level of displacement with online communities, as well as what types of support users get from Internet communities. They predict that when users are asked to provide services in a web community and receive services in return, they will have more attachment to the community. They also mention somewhat of an informal rewards system in many Internet communities that rewards users who are regular helpers.

“Social Interactions Across Media” examines users’ evaluations of Internet quality as a medium compared to other media. They find that Internet ranks among other forms of media and only excels in the area of keeping in contact with weaker ties that may be distant. The diaries that they use as part of their overall evaluation show that even though the Internet is an integral part of their social networking activities, college students still value and rely on face-to-fact contact. The survey affords a larger sample, and showed that people often communicate with their main contacts through multiple outlets.

“The Quality of Online and Offline Relationships: The Role o Multiplexity and Duration of Social Relationships,” attempts to explain factors that contribute to the perceived intensity of online relationships, suggesting that the quality of an online relationship depends on the duration and diversity of topics and activities together. This concept is hard to grasp for a reason that the authors point out. Online relationships are considered less close because they happen faster and involve less joint activities according to the authors. I also think that the role of identity on the Internet and the instability of Internet identities could play a role in the distance perceived in Internet relationships. Also, users are all involved in multiple activities with less effort than real-world activities, so maybe Internet activities and social gestures mean less.

“Network Sociability” touches on the same issue as “Social Interactions Across Media.” Hampton concludes that Internet relationships move freely into the real world and vice-versa. This of course makes the big picture look more integrated; there is no more wall between cyberspace and the real world, and ties in the real world cannot be better than virtual ties because they all work together on the same plane.

This week’s readings explored the factors that affect centrality and prestige, and the ways that status or position in a social network can impact society. Wasserman and Faust in “Centrality and Prestige” discuss “most important actors” and the measures that can describe importance and prominence. A prominent actor is one whose ties are visible to other members of the network. Choices of ties and the effects of indirect ties both impact the level of prominence. Centrality and prominence are related according to the authors. A central actor is one who is involved in many ties. They focus their discussion on the example of Padgette’s Florentine Families; a table analyzes the levels of prominence of families in Florence. I could not easily make connections between the tables and indexes and the examples used? The way that they were able to manipulate mathematical data and individual characteristics in the example where they were tracking the movement of medical information in the network was interesting. Though the results were not generalizable to the overall study of network science, it seemed like a creative way to come to conclusions about what affects centrality and prestige.

Expanding on the first article, Linton C. Freeman’s “Centrality in Social Networks” discusses the different types of centrality. Point centrality was most interesting to me. It is based on distance from other points, the degree number, strategic location, and the ability to avoid the control potential of other points in the star. The last two criteria were particularly interesting. Strategic location seems to be related to resources possibly. Ability to avoid control potential is a different idea to me, but I agree that the freedom to pass one’s own messages and be able to act independently within the network with a bird’s-eye view is an important aspect of centrality that may be overlooked. Discussion Question: What do you think influences strategic position of a central actor?

“Uncovering Terrorist Networks” is an example of the ways in which network science can be useful in other areas. Krebs’ goal is to map the organizational networks of terrorists. The author analyzes the known ties for closeness, acknowledging that there will be problems with incompleteness in her data because of the group that she is studying. Her statement that there are no ties outside of the hijacker network could be a result of incompleteness. It seems like it would be impossible to conclude that there are no ties outside of the network when it would be difficult to access people who know terrorists; they might not be forthcoming with information. She points out that even though the ties are dense, they provide the redundancy, trust, and resilience that a covert terrorist network depends on.

The Valente et al. article sets out to figure out the connection between smoking and popularity among adolescents. They discover that there is a correlation and they suggest that popular kids are more likely to smoke. They are using a limited sample, so they do not try to generalize, but they do stand by their data because there is a strong connection. Possible explanations include the fact that they contribute more to supporting social norms which in this case means smoking. Also, the smokes name fewer friends, which could suggest that they are making more friends outside of school and those people could be the smoking influence. Discussion Question: What do you think about the apparent paradox between isolates and popular kids?

Mattapa et al. logistical regression analysis seeks to find the predictors of bullying and victimization in social networks. Again, this group is using a small sample, but still finding important and dramatic results. They uncover longitudinal evidence that friendships prevent victimization, which supports the earlier reading about the basics of social networks and the ability to provide resources and protection. Another important finding that supports prior research is the data that bullies and aggressive victims choose aggressive friends, which could be homophily. In addition to the small sample size, the researchers are also concerned about biased self-reports and the 160-item survey they base their conclusions on.

1. According to McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Brashears the dramatic change in the size of core discussion networks cannot be attributed to one simple cause. Instead, the change in the average number of discussion partners from three to two is a result of large-scale changes. They blame the increase in labor over the course of the year. This means that more people are working for longer hours, leaving less time for leisure, which could include discussing important matters. Longer commutes also take away time that could be spent at home. These long commutes are a result of the move from urban community into suburban neighborhoods. Networks then became more dispersed because of even the slight increase in the physical distance in the network and space. Both the change in labor and the movement into the suburbs seem like reasonably significant contributors to the change that the researchers discovered.

Even though there are problems with the question that the researchers ask to obtain their information, their probing questions seem like an excellent way to still get a good sense of respondents’ core discussion networks despite the general nature of the original question. The authors examine the positive and negative points about the questions and what they fail to answer. The Chinese follow-up study also helps add to the strength of the answers to their main question that seemed too general and ineffective at first.

2. Supported by evidence from Burt and the Chinese study, the authors are convinced that the GSS question was successful and respondents chose people that they would trust enough to ask for a job and even co-workers and superiors that they saw informally. These people were their most valued contacts, and they depended on these people for guidance, companionship, socio-emotional support, and institutional support. (McPherson et. al.)

Again, these individuals are considered some of the most valued contacts to an individual, making it disruptive and possibly isolating if one of these ties is eliminated in some way. With so many resources coming from a small group of people that commonly includes ties as close as one’s spouse or other kin, McPherson fears that losing one of those strong ties can really alter the individual’s network. An individual who has limited close ties while many other are focused on their densely knit close networks could end up being socially isolated. If they have none of these highly valued ties, they might not have access to the same employment resources that the participant in the McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Brashears article said was his main social asset. Also, people in the dense, kin-based close discussion network would be at a disadvantage. Maybe individuals in those dense networks would share all of the same resources, making the lack of diversity and a branching network a major disadvantage when trying to get a distant resource. I don’t believe that this scenario would cause people to lose their ability to form new ties, yet I do think that it could reduce the willingness or desire to make new ties in people who already find it difficult or otherwise un-desirable.