The wealth of networks

Well so much for this post being saved so I could revisit it later. Have you ever written a brilliant email or a couple of pages for a paper and then it never saves? That's what happened with this post. Ugh...now to see if I can pull together the threads of Kadushin and Benkler again.

Kadushin and Benkler both examined what social networks were like from the perspective of small groups. Small groups could comprised of any number of individuals, close friends, family members, etc. but these members all had certain roles and characteristics that were enhanced by their small group interaction.

Kadushin probes the idea of small groups or pure informal groups, observing that over time these groups create cliques and that the group exhibits certain characteristics including judging the group by attractiveness and formalizing some sort of leader for the group. Those external to the group will always want to be inside the small group, so will place their social networking efforts in the direction of hopefully joining the group. For members internally, they see no value creating relationships outside of their clique so do not reciprocate social efforts to those externally. A lopsided network is created and maintained (sigh...does this remind anyone of high school and either being one of the cool kids or not?).

Benkler's article examines how with the advent of the Internet came the occurrence of more virtual communities and with that the fear that society would disintegrate. Benkler quotes Howard Rheingold's 1993 The Virtual Community, "There is a hunger for community, no longer satisfied by the declining availability of physical spaces for human connection. There is a newly available medium that allows people to connect despite their physical distance" (Benkler, p. 359) which gives us an understanding of how the advent of the Internet was first received and perceived.

From 1993 to 2000 reports continued to emphasize that the longer that people spent online, the less time they actually invested in human to human contact. However, over time a different picture emerged. Benkler references a study done by Keith Hampton and Barry Wellman. These men studied a Toronto suburb that had access to high-speed wiring ahead of broadband (Benkler, p. 363). What they found was that through Internet access, members of the community began to make connections to the weaker ties in their community, strengthening them so that offline people were more inclined to visit with others when they ran into them around the town. This seemed in direct opposition to what researchers first believed ~ that society would disintegrate physically as more people moved online.

Personally I've seen the change in my family over the years; as we've moved increasingly online, so too has the ways in which we stay in touch with each other. When I first began travelling in 2000 I had daily emails, weekly long distance telephone calls and handwritten letters to stay in touch with my friends and family. Over the years I incorporated IM (instant messaging) and video chatting to the mix. Today I spend a lot of time text messaging or tweeting family or friends and while it's a quick fix to catch up with those I care about, I still prefer to pick up the telephone and call them or arrange a visit in person.

Technology added to the mix or removed, social networking I believe always depends on the person doing it and they will make all the difference to the mix.

Image courtesy of http://www.itsafullnest.com/page/14/