Friendship on SNSs--Conclusion

When reviewing this week’s comments, I conclude four key points:

1.      Information search

2.      The line between the weak tie and the strong tie

3.      The reaction of old community members to new community members

4.      Productivity of social media

Information search and productivity

Information search, one of the most attractive features of social media, was the focal questions in many people’s posting. According to Licklider and Taylor (cited from Galston, 2000), online communication can boost the shared interests within the online community because people are capable of choosing the person to interact with based on common interests. The common interests are not the terminal goal of information search, but the jumping point to build precious interpersonal relationships, which in turn can benefit information search. The virtual interpersonal relationships are like two sides of the same coin. They can help exchange information, just like what Licklider and Taylor perceived. However, they can weaken a person’s link to the real world. As what Dr. Gazan pointed out, overreliance on the social support from the online community can get people’s social abilities regressed. The movie Train Man, I mentioned in my blog, was a box office success because it vividly captured a prevailing phenomenon in Japanese society—tons of millions of geeks who have difficulty communicating with people face-to-face, let alone dating girls. However, with the online social support, the train man, the projection of those geeks, dating a woman and having a happy ending at the end of the movie, really cheered up the geeks who were longing for love. I guess this is why the movie was a huge success at that time :). 

Another issue connected to information search is the productivity of SNSs. When reading other people’s blogs, I found that two people said that there was little interaction between them and the old online community members after they joined a new SNS. One person, joining a medical online community, questioned whether little interaction was due to the nature of this professional SNS. I think the answer could be “No” because the other person, joining a common SNS, also had the same problem. I guess little interaction may have nothing to do with professional or non-professional issues. It is more about the intimacy to the old community members and the nature of the question posted. One article I read in the first week pointed out that people are used to extreme expressions, which boosts the occurrence of extreme opinions online. I am not saying that the two students should post extreme questions. I just try to say maybe we can try to make the questions “attractive” enough to solicit other community members’ response.

The reaction of old community members to new community members

Based on the question mentioned above, I make a guess that the intimacy to the old community members can be one of the answers. According to Thomas Bender, a community should have affective ties and mutual obligation. However, a new community member is usually weak in the two aspects with the old members. Therefore, it takes time to enable the old members to know the new members. The two students only spent one week on the SNSs, which may be insufficient. Another student posted by saying he cared about privacy, so he would keep a place for “only friends allowed” online. I think it explains why new members need to spend more time interacting with old members in order to be in the circle of “only friends allowed.”

The line between the weak tie and the strong tie

Through posting a question on my Facebook and reading others’ blogs, I believe that the distinction between the weak tie and the strong tie is blurring. Online activities affect offline activities, vice versa.