No, I’m not on facebook. I actually really kind of dislike social networking, twitter, and all the other Net 2.0 stuff. I don’t find anything very fascinating in other people’s little mind farts, preferring to read a bit more thoughtful posting than 140 characters, even though the little twitter haikus can be amusing at times. I do think I would like being on grunter and stalker, though!
Also see: 25 things I hate about facebook.
But I do find it interesting that there really are only a few people that we really keep close to, no matter how large our networks may seem to be. And since what I value most are my most intimate relationships, perhaps my petty jealousies over those who seem to have a lot of friends are somewhat misplaced. Maybe they really are only as close to the same number of people that I am, after all.
OH, I also note that my Google reader now has about 130 blogs listed, which also fits perfectly into the Dunbar number theory.
What also struck Dr Marlow, however, was that the number of people on an individual’s friend list with whom he (or she) frequently interacts is remarkably small and stable. The more “active” or intimate the interaction, the smaller and more stable the group.
Thus an average man—one with 120 friends—generally responds to the postings of only seven of those friends by leaving comments on the posting individual’s photos, status messages or “wall”. An average woman is slightly more sociable, responding to ten. When it comes to two-way communication such as e-mails or chats, the average man interacts with only four people and the average woman with six. Among those Facebook users with 500 friends, these numbers are somewhat higher, but not hugely so. Men leave comments for 17 friends, women for 26. Men communicate with ten, women with 16.
What mainly goes up, therefore, is not the core network but the number of casual contacts that people track more passively. This corroborates Dr Marsden’s ideas about core networks, since even those Facebook users with the most friends communicate only with a relatively small number of them.
Put differently, people who are members of online social networks are not so much “networking” as they are “broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren’t necessarily inside the Dunbar circle,” says Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a polling organisation. Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever.
via The size of social networks | Primates on Facebook | The Economist.
8 Responses
Blogs are social networking too, Donna. Just a bit less restricted.
I must agree at the ridiculousness of the ‘mind farts’ – ha, you said it well! 😉 I don’t really like Facebook. It’s silly and creepy. There as in everywhere else, there are just a couple of people I communicate with regularly. Most of the rest of it is flagrant self-promotion (guilty) or silliness (try to stay away from that, but esp. on Facebook, hard to avoid). On the other hand, Twitter has revealed quite a few issues and articles I might not have heard of, relevant to my own work – and I have 377 blogs on my reader as of today!! AARGH!
I’ve actually been working on expanding my little virtual blogging network community. Still, the point is well made that few people are going to keep up with a few hundred so-called “friends” on any type of a regular basis. A person would almost have to give up everything else in their life (work, family, eating, sleeping, etc.) simply to find sufficient time to communicate with that many folks.
Not only do I not avail myself of Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, I’m not altogether certain I even understand what each of them does. Heck, I don’t even own a cellphone!
I don’t think of blogs as social networking, Mahakal, although they can be. I wrote for a long time here before anyone really noticed. ;^) I’m glad people read and comment now, but I long ago decided I actually write for myself, as awesome as it would be to be able to write well for other people. But my social network is very different, and mostly in my head, unfortunately. A lot of people I know aren’t even aware that they are in my social network, and always seem quite surprised to find out what I know about them. ;^)
I would have that many blogs to read, too, Angela if I let myself. ;^) I tend to try and observe the phases of what I’m interested in and adjust my blog reading accordingly. The art blogs in particular seem to come and go as I find the time. Tao blogs I always read, and right now, politics still (but not as much) and especially economics, to track what’s going on.
Rambling Taoist, I’m so happy to see you expanding your community. I know how tough that can be for you, and glad you’re communicating so much lately! I think you can certainly “blast” a lot of people with your info and twitters and so forth, but keeping up with other people, yes, that’s the harder part. And for me, the more interesting part, really. But again, there are larger patterns to what I pay attention to, and a lot of individuals I know aren’t even aware that they are a part of the patterns I am tracking.
Donna, I understand what you are saying but you write your thoughts on a public blog not a private diary because you want (or don’t mind) people reading them. You link to other blogs, and other blogs link to you, and whether you are consciously networking or not, it is always a big part of what makes a blog a blog.
I definitely get that you don’t blog for the purpose of networking, and likewise that is not the only reason people use Twitter. I think of it as a microblogging platform, actually. On my blog, which I also wrote largely for myself, I made an effort to use as few words as possible in many of my posts, because I value efficiency of language, and because it has a certain artistic quality that reminds me of what Antoine de St. Exupery said, “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
I’m not arguing with you, though. If you don’t like the platform, there’s no reason you should use it.
“broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances” seems a useful notion. i began blogging three years ago because it seemed a good way to locate thinking people i’d never meet any other way. that’s worked! of course, this also has been influenced by my having worked in a solitary manner–and then being retired.
It’s not that I don’t like the platform. It’s that I find it stupid and vapid, and lacking in content. it doesn’t have to be, but it is.
Yes, Naomi, locating other thinking people is indeed part of the goal. I sort of resent the term “retired”, as if we are retired from life — if anything , not being tied up with making a living makes me feel more alive, less tired, and more able to focus on those things that seem most important. Perhaps we are simply not as tired as those stuck at work, rather than retired. ;^)
I read far fewer blogs than you, and have a very small number of people I interact with in person.
And that’s enough for me. So far.