Why SNS?

There are many different social network sites out there by now and more people starting every day. Suddenly, I was wondering why more and more people join social network sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Orkut and Hi5 and so on. What do people get out of them? The main reason joining the social network sites would be that people can meet and find new friends. Everyone in SNS can browse the network and meet new people from all over the world. According to Dunbar, chatting and socializing in humans is similar to physical grooming in ape wild world. 'Language is much more efficient than physical grooming for one can talk to several people at once. Also, language helps people learn about cultural norms, evaluate others' behavior and keep up with the news and shifting opinions of their surrounding community. '(Dunbar, 1996) People say “hello” to their neighbors, ask how they're doing and share their common interests and news. So people can create social bonds. Moreover, SNS enables people to strengthen and maintain their relationships with friends.

I have an account with facebook. As my experience, Facebook is sort of a current affairs site where latest news and events are updated at all times. I want to know what happened to my friends and don’t want to miss out. So I view the posting and commenting on status reports wall. Especially, I have many friends who live in different country. It is hard to meet and have a chat on msn or any other instant messages because we all have time difference. So we normally leave the messages and commenting on facebook. To me, SNSs like facebook help me out to keep in touch regularly with my friends who live in different country.

Now people can do so much more with a SNS than just meet people and send messages. People add videos, listen to their favourite music and find old friends. Also, SNS let people share or promote their business, individual talents and help with a problem and ones’ concerns on a condition they may have. To sum up, I think people will get a friendship, networking and a sense of belonging out of SNS. Therefore, more people will join social network sites.

With my weak ties, I find no tie...

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If not for Donath's reading and Week 6's lecture, I wouldn't have noticed how much I actually don't pay attention to friends on my facebook list that are not affiliated with any other friends or interests of mine. I went through my friends list and I must admit, 1 quarter of the list (of approximately 600 people) are people who I either went to secondary school with back in the days but was really never friends with them, or people on the other side of the world I've never met or have any reason to meet in the future. With the former, you'd think I'd have at least something else apart going to the same school in common, but really I don't, so they qualify as weak ties. With the latter, these set of people might have at least 5 friends in common with me (the only reason I accept their request), but these 5 (or more) friends in common are most likely those I'd met online and got to develop a degree of friendship with over time - virtually and offline (thanks to Skype, Instant Messaging, E-mail and phones).

To reiterate the term 'weak ties' for the lost one, weak ties are people on our friends list on social networking sites who we may never be close to, but through them, we can gain new insights and ideas, learn things and be in-the-know. This (apparently) gives us new forms of opportunities when we connect with these wider diversity of people. Personally, this doesn't apply to me, and I know a lot of people it doesn't apply to either. Not all weak ties are constantly engaged in the act of 'fashioning' - that is, not all of them are consistent and up-to-date with facebook and its features. In fact, I don't have much weak ties that frequently update their pages or engage in multiple social interactions, I find this odd because you'd expect the opposite, as in, the outgoing stranger who add you is most likely looking for new friends to include in his/her social grooming habit. This being the opposite in my case, this is why I rarely notice people I have nothing in common with, but are on my pals list.

So if I don't notice them, how exactly does this idea of weak ties as a way of gaining insights apply to me? 'Me' here represents an imagined group of people whose weak ties are also almost obscure. I must however acknowledge the very small group of weak ties that are only an exception in this argument because they have something to offer. That is, the aspiring musicians, writers, fan groups, activists, and so on. I find what they all have to post or say interesting, but that's only just a small number. What about the 1/4 people silently sitting in my list? Surely I cannot delete them, surely they probably don't know I exist, I'm actually curious to start getting to know them, but for now, there's no advantage, no signals, no grooming, nothing that connects us together in any verbal or textual way. Do I have the time? Of course, that's the beauty of SNS addiction... a semi-addict like me can always make time for facebook and social grooming. Do I have the resources? Yes, thanks to facebook's constant useful new features, for instance, the side box that instructs you to "Say Hello to *insert the name of someone passive on your friends list* ". And the 'Chat' (which I never use though).

Long ranting short, how influential are my weak ties on my experience online daily? On a scale of 0 to 10, I'd say a 1 (and a half).