David Roedl

As is often the case regarding new technology, early research about social networking sites (SNS’s) has tended to lean towards either one of two extremes. On one side, utopist techno-enthusiasts predict that SNS’s will enable a more connected, democratic, and productive society. And on the other end, alarmist critics assert that MySpace is eroding the social morality of the Generation Y. For me, both perspectives often seem out of touch from the actual experience of using applications like Facebook or LinkedIn. In contrast, Ellison, Stamp & Steinfiel’s recent article in interactions presents a positive, but realistic description of online social networking that particularly resonates with my own experience. Based on their study of Facebook among college students, the researchers from Michigan State summarize of a few of the most salient aspects of social networking.

SNS’s are built around the idea of connecting and communicating with “friends”. Some critics, such as Christine Rosen, have argued SNS’s “dilute and debase” the term friendship, because they encourage users to add people to their friends list who are really only casual acquaintances. Ellison et al point out that the ability to maintain connection with acquaintances is fact one of the biggest benefits of using SNS. These acquaintances, also called weak ties, are the former friends, friends-of-friends, and other random people that one meets socially and would generally lose contact with. SNS’s make it easier to keep track of these individuals, since adding someone on Facebook is much easier (i.e. less socially awkward) than approaching them in person and requesting their contact information. In the authors words, SNS’s “lower the barriers to social interaction and thus enable connections between individuals that might not otherwise take place… With minimal effort and the thinnest of information, a profile can be located and a connection created.”

These connections may never develop into close friendships, but that does not mean they are not beneficial. On the contrary, sociologists have found that valuable information, such as a new job opportunity, is more likely to come from a distant acquaintance than a close friend. Maintaining a wide network of diverse acquaintances is thus a key to increased social capital; Robert Putnam calls it “bridging social capital” and Mark Granovetter calls it “the strength of weak ties”. Ellison et al.’s survey of college students found that using Facebook did in fact “allow individuals to manage a wider network of weak ties and thus increase bridging social capital.” In addition to providing an easy way to communicate with weak ties, Ellison et al. points out that Facebook’s news feeds feature helps keeps users peripherally aware of their acquaintances activities: “Through status updates and feeds, SNSs enable individuals to broadcast both major life changes and ephemeral activities to their broad network, allowing others to engage in lightweight social surveillance.” This effortless “social surveillance” can often spark new social opportunities. For example, when one notices that an old friend has suddenly moved to the same town, it can provide an opportunity to reestablish a connection.

These beneficial real-world social interactions that can arise from SNS use are overlooked by Rosen. She views the friends lists on Facebook and MySpace as artificial symbols that are managed for narcissistic purposes. In her words, “The impulse to collect as many friends as possible on a MySpace page is not an expression of the human need for companionship but of… the need for status.” She further argues that most social interactions through SNS are shallow, if not morally corrupt: “the activites that social networking ties promote are precisely the ones weak ties promote, like rumor-mongering, gossip, finding people, and tracking the ever-shifting movements of popular culture and fad.”

While these activities surely take place on SNS’s, I do not believe that Rosen’s comments accurately describe the phenomena of online social networking in general. Her arguments have very little relevance to my personal experience using Facebook. For example, I do not feel a desire to collect as many friends as possible; my motivation for growing my network has nothing to do with status. Each of individuals in my Facebook friends list is someone that I have at met and interacted with face-to-face at least once. I always ignore friend requests from people that I haven’t met personally, because I realize that there is very little chance that we will ever communicate on or offline. Instead, I “friend” individuals with whom I’ve had positive off-line interactions at some point in my life. It is true that most of these people are not close friends. I may even go years without speaking to some. But Facebook makes it easy for me to remember them, and I enjoy receiving updates on their activities. Every once in a while, circumstances or just a whim might prompt me to send a message and get back in touch. The ease of this interaction can lead to all sorts of positive experiences, new information, opportunities and even renewed relationships. In short, my Facebook “friends” may not all be close friends in the traditional sense, but they are important and valuable to me in a very real (as opposed to symbolic) way.

Of course, not all online social networking happens the same way. But I do believe that there is a common dynamic which is responsible for the continued and growing popularity of sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. Facebook’s user population has grown exponentially since it launched 2004. They now claim over 175 million active users, and the largest growing demographic is age 30 and above. Clearly SNS’s are not a passing fad. They provide some real and tangible value to their users that can not be explained as simply exploiting the narcissistic tendencies of teenagers. Ellison and her colleagues do a nice job of summarizing some of important values driving the phenomenon.

References
Social Network Sites and Society: Current Trends and Future Possibilities
Nicole B. Ellison, Cliff Lampe, Charles Steinfiel

Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism
Christine Rosen