Learning to Appreciate Online Networking

Reading Clive Thompson's article comparing in-person social networking to that on Facebook (Thompson on Real-World Social Networks vs. Facebook 'Friends', Wired Magazine, July 2008) reaffirmed my belief that online social networks create a false sense of relationships. However, after reading Malcolm Gladwell's "Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg" (The New Yorker, January 1999), I am beginning to see that online social networking facilitates the type of networking people have always engaged in.

In the effort of full disclosure, I have to say that I am not a strong member of the online social networking community. I refuse to touch Twitter, my Linkedin account is rarely touched, and I use Facebook purely for recreation. It makes me uncomfortable when someone I barely know tries to "connect" with me, or when people share every detail of their lives through these mediums. I have trouble with the fact that these sites lack "intimacy," which Benjamin Waber--the social scientist whose work is the basis of Thompson's article--describes as the difference between Web-based and in-person social networking. To me, these sites are for connecting with established friends, not for creating new relationships.

Learning about Lois Weisberg helped me better understand the benefits of online social networking. These social networks can help you spot more "Lois's"--people who know everyone. Maybe these individuals' connections are not as genuine are Lois's are, and they may not be the product of thoughtful effort, but they are connections nonetheless. That girl that lived down the hall from you freshman year may not have 1,094 close friends, but 1,094 people did accept her Facebook friendship. She has 1,094 legitimate connections. Social networking sites are helping to create more Lois Weisberg's, and likely benefiting countless others as a result.

Gladwell comments that weak ties are more powerful than strong ties, that weak ties have the possibility to get your further because these ties come from outside your comfort zone. I realize that I never considered social networking sites as a means of actually networking, that the people I was hesitating to connect with could be those "weak ties." Maybe this reading assignment is the inspiration I need to deal with my 12 pending "friend requests."