Social Capital, .06 Degrees, and Social Networking

So as you can tell by my two post titles I've put the numbers I've used in decimal format, but this blog is titled split second soo I figured it was a clever thing to do.


So anyway on to social networking...

I feel my generation has a supreme advantage in social networking as compared to our parents and grandparents generation, and that advantage is (yup you guessed it) the Internet. When I saw the topic was social networking, I instinctively checked my facebook account to see if I had any new messages or requests. I have over 500 friends, some of which are family members or close friends, but most are just acquaintances, who I met through someone else (social networking).

The article on Lois Weisberg, http://www.gladwell.com/1999/1999_01_11_a_weisberg.htm, provided some good insights on social networking that I have noticed over the years. The theory that struck me most was:

• "We don't seek out friends; we simply associate with the people who occupy the same physical places that we do."

• College has taught me this because the only people I really associate with are athletes. Since I'm an athlete myself, I often see other athletes by the locker rooms or in the training room everyday. I have become friends with most of them basically because if I didn't I would have no friends at school. I'm not saying that I wouldn't want to be friends with them, just that if we weren't connected through athletics I probably wouldn't seek out their friendship.

I also read about social capital at http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/saguaro/primer.htm. This site defines social capital as "the collective value of all "social networks" [who people know] and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other ["norms of reciprocity"]." The interesting thing I found out from reading or skimming through the other articles is that the networks or relationships with which we have don't have strong ties to, may be the networks we should value the most or those with the highest social capital.

This logically makes sense because we basically know everything a person has to offer in relationships we have strong ties to. The weaker relationships can in some ways provide us with a wild card because we don't really know what the person on the other end has to offer. I guess this thoughts gets back to the idea of

• "It's not what you know, but who you know."