Fascination with Social Network Sites
If aliens landed on earth today, they’d likely consider humans very strange creatures. Many of us spend hours staring at a computer screen, lingering on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, growing virtual gardens of friends and associates. With a little observation, even extraterrestrials could appreciate the utility of such sites. People across the world are drawn to social networking sites, for many different reasons.
The most obvious use of such sites is to make new friends and keep the old, as a Girl Scout might say. With the capability to search by location, interest, and age, many new friendships have been formed through Friendster, Photospace, MySpace, and Facebook. Many also use such social networking sites to reconnect with old friends. In our post-modern digital age, when a question about an acquaintance pops into your head, there’s no reason to forget it. Thanks to social networking sites, you can figure out whatever happened to the guy that sat behind you in geometry. Sites like Facebook and MySpace allow users to search by name, facilitating countless unexpected reunions.
Social Networking in Plain English
Like online dating services, social networking sites are also a great resource for the romantically inclined. Social networks are a natural dating resource, as they allow sweethearts to meet through common interests. Photography buffs might discover their true love through PhotoSpace or Flickr. Avid readers might find their soul mate through literary networking sites like Goodreads and Shelfari. Even the simple ability to scope out your crush’s MySpace music choices can be invaluable—after all, if you’re crazy about the same music, there’s a good chance that you’ll see eye-to-eye on other issues as well.
Business partnerships may also be formed online. A bevy of new social networking sites are connecting business people from around the world. Thanks to the internet, business partnerships are no longer limited by location or even time zone. Sites like LinkedIn allow potential business partners to easily and inexpensively scout new projects and partnerships. Some locally-based business networking sites like biznik.com are even translating successful online connections to offline, in-person networking meetings.
Ultimately, online social networks foster new connections because they reveal previously hidden relationships . Let’s say your friend Theresa owns a coffee shop, and she’s looking for a brilliant barista. You don’t know any baristas, but you post a simple one-line note on your Facebook page, Gmail status, and Twitter: “Know any good java slingers? Job opp.” Later that day, your long-lost high school friend Conner finds your Facebook page through a mutual acquaintance. He’s delighted to discover that you live in the same town. Your message elicits his enthusiastic response—it turns out that he’s just returned from a round-the-world tour of coffee preparation hotspots and is brimming with revolutionary new practices. This perfect match would have been possible before the existence of social networks, but Facebook certainly made it easier.
Social networks allow hidden connections to become visible. It has been said that each of us is connected to Kevin Bacon (or any other human on earth) through six degrees of separation. In fact, a recent Columbia University study found that five to seven degrees of separation is generally enough to connect any two people on earth through email. In other words, if you keep researching friends of friends, it’s likely that you’ll find the perfect connection for your next project. Our personal social networks become intricate webs of connections as we discover who our friends know, and who our friends’ friends know. In this way, social networks create new and more direct pathways for unique connections.
In the end, as valuable as new connections may be, the majority of internet surfers use social networking sites for personal expression and to keep in touch with family and friends. After all, the phenomenon of social networks is nothing new. Long before the dawning of the digital age, scholars questioned the importance of social support in human interactions. It is generally agreed that social networks play an important role in how problems are solved, and how organizations and governments are run. Social network scholars often conclude that the more connections and social support you have, the more likely you are to reach your goals. Social networking sites haven’t changed the importance of social connections; they have just made it much easier and faster to make and maintain new connections around the world. If they’re as social as humans, I’m sure our hypothetical aliens would become as addicted to social networking sites as we are.
~Colleen Welch, 2009
