How people make connections. Community or social network 2
From the translator. This text is the second miniseries text from 4 publications on social networks and communities, their similarities and differences, and their interrelationships with each other.
In my previous publication, I outlined some basic differences between social networks and communities in terms of social anthropology. If you have not seen this publication, I recommend that you quickly get acquainted with it: Community or social network? (Community vs. Social Network). Because now I will continue my reasoning on this topic.
Today I will continue our mini-studies on the dynamics and interaction between communities and social networks. As you remember from my previous publication, people on a social network are kept together thanks to predetermined relationships. Today we will learn how these relationships are established initially.
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1. Creating a weak link. 2. Building a strong bond. 3. Maintaining relationships. If you do not engage in supporting relationships, a strong bond may weaken and return to a state of weak bond.
One of the topics I touched on last time is that social networks connect all people on this planet with each other. Moreover, studies have confirmed the truth of the well-known theory of the six handshakes . Recent data and calculations have shown that most people are actually in 6 handshakes from each other. So this theory is also valid in the modern webdvanol era. Therefore, in theory, you can get in touch with any of the 6.8 billion people on this planet in a relatively small number of steps.
In reality, man is not connected with the whole world. In fact, he is not even associated with all people living in the same city, or students in the same school, or working in the same company as him. What prevents this? To understand, let's divide the cycle of building relationships into stages, there are three of them:
On the note . Those types of relationships that I will focus on are bilateral, reciprocal, and reciprocal. Because only such connections can develop with a strong relationship. For this to happen, both parties must agree to interact in order to form a connection. Parties connected to each other by such a link are usually people, but can also be organizations, companies or even countries.
Throughout all three phases, both parties must have a desire for further relations. As soon as one of the parties loses interest in it or does not see the value in their mutual relations, the process is interrupted and the relationship does not go to the next stage. Therefore, a bond may not arise at all, or remain only a weak bond (if it still arose), or a strong bond may weaken and return to the weak link state (if it has already been developed).
So how do people choose with whom to form a link, with whom to strengthen it, and with whom to support it? This is not a trivial question, which is currently the subject of intensive study. Recently, many models of social networks have been proposed and studied. They all rely on game theory , a very complex branch of mathematics that models rational human behavior and tries to explain how a person makes strategic decisions. By the way, the great mathematician John Nash (John F. Nash), about whom the Hollywood film Mind Games was shot, received the Nobel Prize in Economics for his research on game theory. Obviously, full coverage of this topic goes far beyond our publication.
Simplifying, one can perceive human choice as the result of analyzing the benefits and costs of the result to which the choice should lead. What does this mean? For example, by creating a weak link, both individuals analyze the costs (risks) and benefits of creating such a link. And while both parties think that the benefits outweigh the costs, they interact and create a weak link. This is a very interesting topic, and I will definitely return to it in detail in my next publications. Now it’s enough to understand that all three stages in building relationships depend on the desire of both parties to be open for communication. If the parties do not want to interact, no link can be formed.
In addition to personal willingness to communicate, there are a variety of environmental factors that can affect the ability to form relationships between people, limiting their ability to communicate. Obviously, if the environment eliminates even the possibility of two people accidentally intersecting with each other, there is no chance that there can be any connection between them. In fact, there are only two mechanisms by which people can meet and communicate:
Over the centuries, people united in communities, and it was here that social connections initially arose. Years of socio-anthropological observations tell us that most of the relationships in our social networks are initially established in various kinds of communities. Indeed, most of my friends are people with whom I grew up (in my neighborhood community), or with whom I studied (in my student community), or with whom I worked (were together in the same professional community), or who were my fellow researchers (in the research community). These are the people with whom I happened to be in the same community at a certain point in my life. All of these communities can be geographical, cultural, institutional, or be communities of interest.
Thus, joint participation in the same communities (both online and offline) is the main factor that determines the ability of people to intersect with each other. If two people do not participate together in any community, it is impossible for them to form a connection with each other using this mechanism. And the more communities these two people participate in together, the more chances they have to cross each other. And all the more likely that they form a connection with each other.
The second mechanism by which people can meet is with the help of their friends, colleagues, relatives — that is, using their personal social network. Again, the social anthropologist will say that there is nothing new here. People used this mechanism even when they were cavemen. However, for us today is the fact that social networking sites make it very easy for people to explore and discover relationships that would remain unknown to them in their natural environment. Let me illustrate with an example.
Let's say I have a friend Dave. I know him pretty well, but I may well not know all his friends. Jen is Dave's friend, but I don't know about him. If I don’t see Dave and Jen together in any social context, I may never know that they actually know each other. However, through the social networking site, I can study Dave's network and find out that he is associated with Jen. A little later, I can ask Dave to introduce us and form a connection with Jen. Many people traditionally called this scenario a social network, the technological possibility of which gave birth to all of our industry.
Despite the fact that social networking sites greatly facilitate the formation of connections through friends, they have several limitations. Although using the social network it is possible to reach each of us on this planet with the help of 6 or 7 handshakes, in practice, in fact, it is rather difficult to make contact with a person more than 3 steps away from us. Thus, the main factor determining the ability of people to cross each other through a social network is the network distance (degree of separation) between two people.
So, what did we learn about how people form connections with each other?
1. Weak ties can form almost everywhere:
- In communities (those around us)
- With the help of social networks (covering the entire planet)
2. The formation of weak ties between two people depends on:
- From the desire of two people to interact
- From the number of communities in which these people participate together
- From network distance (degree of separation) between people
In the next publication I will look at the second stage of building relationships, and we will try to understand how weak ties develop into strong ones.
- Community or social network?
- How do people make connections
- From weak ties to strong
- Maintain strong ties
In my previous publication, I outlined some basic differences between social networks and communities in terms of social anthropology. If you have not seen this publication, I recommend that you quickly get acquainted with it: Community or social network? (Community vs. Social Network). Because now I will continue my reasoning on this topic.
Today I will continue our mini-studies on the dynamics and interaction between communities and social networks. As you remember from my previous publication, people on a social network are kept together thanks to predetermined relationships. Today we will learn how these relationships are established initially.
')
Relationship Life Cycle
1. Creating a weak link. 2. Building a strong bond. 3. Maintaining relationships. If you do not engage in supporting relationships, a strong bond may weaken and return to a state of weak bond.
One of the topics I touched on last time is that social networks connect all people on this planet with each other. Moreover, studies have confirmed the truth of the well-known theory of the six handshakes . Recent data and calculations have shown that most people are actually in 6 handshakes from each other. So this theory is also valid in the modern webdvanol era. Therefore, in theory, you can get in touch with any of the 6.8 billion people on this planet in a relatively small number of steps.
In reality, man is not connected with the whole world. In fact, he is not even associated with all people living in the same city, or students in the same school, or working in the same company as him. What prevents this? To understand, let's divide the cycle of building relationships into stages, there are three of them:
- Creating weak ties: this is the first stage of any relationship
- Building strong bonds: strong bonds grow out of weak bonds
- Maintaining relationships: preventing strong bonds from breaking down and returning them to weak bonds
On the note . Those types of relationships that I will focus on are bilateral, reciprocal, and reciprocal. Because only such connections can develop with a strong relationship. For this to happen, both parties must agree to interact in order to form a connection. Parties connected to each other by such a link are usually people, but can also be organizations, companies or even countries.
Openness to communication is a prerequisite
Throughout all three phases, both parties must have a desire for further relations. As soon as one of the parties loses interest in it or does not see the value in their mutual relations, the process is interrupted and the relationship does not go to the next stage. Therefore, a bond may not arise at all, or remain only a weak bond (if it still arose), or a strong bond may weaken and return to the weak link state (if it has already been developed).
So how do people choose with whom to form a link, with whom to strengthen it, and with whom to support it? This is not a trivial question, which is currently the subject of intensive study. Recently, many models of social networks have been proposed and studied. They all rely on game theory , a very complex branch of mathematics that models rational human behavior and tries to explain how a person makes strategic decisions. By the way, the great mathematician John Nash (John F. Nash), about whom the Hollywood film Mind Games was shot, received the Nobel Prize in Economics for his research on game theory. Obviously, full coverage of this topic goes far beyond our publication.
Simplifying, one can perceive human choice as the result of analyzing the benefits and costs of the result to which the choice should lead. What does this mean? For example, by creating a weak link, both individuals analyze the costs (risks) and benefits of creating such a link. And while both parties think that the benefits outweigh the costs, they interact and create a weak link. This is a very interesting topic, and I will definitely return to it in detail in my next publications. Now it’s enough to understand that all three stages in building relationships depend on the desire of both parties to be open for communication. If the parties do not want to interact, no link can be formed.
Creating weak links
In addition to personal willingness to communicate, there are a variety of environmental factors that can affect the ability to form relationships between people, limiting their ability to communicate. Obviously, if the environment eliminates even the possibility of two people accidentally intersecting with each other, there is no chance that there can be any connection between them. In fact, there are only two mechanisms by which people can meet and communicate:
- Communities (both online and offline)
- Social networks
Gear # 1: community
Over the centuries, people united in communities, and it was here that social connections initially arose. Years of socio-anthropological observations tell us that most of the relationships in our social networks are initially established in various kinds of communities. Indeed, most of my friends are people with whom I grew up (in my neighborhood community), or with whom I studied (in my student community), or with whom I worked (were together in the same professional community), or who were my fellow researchers (in the research community). These are the people with whom I happened to be in the same community at a certain point in my life. All of these communities can be geographical, cultural, institutional, or be communities of interest.
Thus, joint participation in the same communities (both online and offline) is the main factor that determines the ability of people to intersect with each other. If two people do not participate together in any community, it is impossible for them to form a connection with each other using this mechanism. And the more communities these two people participate in together, the more chances they have to cross each other. And all the more likely that they form a connection with each other.
The mechanism number 2: social network
The second mechanism by which people can meet is with the help of their friends, colleagues, relatives — that is, using their personal social network. Again, the social anthropologist will say that there is nothing new here. People used this mechanism even when they were cavemen. However, for us today is the fact that social networking sites make it very easy for people to explore and discover relationships that would remain unknown to them in their natural environment. Let me illustrate with an example.
Let's say I have a friend Dave. I know him pretty well, but I may well not know all his friends. Jen is Dave's friend, but I don't know about him. If I don’t see Dave and Jen together in any social context, I may never know that they actually know each other. However, through the social networking site, I can study Dave's network and find out that he is associated with Jen. A little later, I can ask Dave to introduce us and form a connection with Jen. Many people traditionally called this scenario a social network, the technological possibility of which gave birth to all of our industry.
Despite the fact that social networking sites greatly facilitate the formation of connections through friends, they have several limitations. Although using the social network it is possible to reach each of us on this planet with the help of 6 or 7 handshakes, in practice, in fact, it is rather difficult to make contact with a person more than 3 steps away from us. Thus, the main factor determining the ability of people to cross each other through a social network is the network distance (degree of separation) between two people.
Summarizing
So, what did we learn about how people form connections with each other?
1. Weak ties can form almost everywhere:
- In communities (those around us)
- With the help of social networks (covering the entire planet)
2. The formation of weak ties between two people depends on:
- From the desire of two people to interact
- From the number of communities in which these people participate together
- From network distance (degree of separation) between people
In the next publication I will look at the second stage of building relationships, and we will try to understand how weak ties develop into strong ones.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/138014/
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