Monday, October 1, 2012

The networked-way-of-life and SNA



As Facebook is increasingly being referred to as the “Third nation” and Obama officially met with Zuckerberg, I would like to think about the impact of social media on our behavior, and a way of analyzing the changes it has instaured in our lives from a social network analysis perspective.

How does the use of social network impact real-life relationships? How many “friends” have we never met IRL? How many happy-married couples met through a friend’s friend… on Facebook? 

Another question sprung to my mind as a wind of panic blew on Facebook (last week, “private messages” were posted on our “walls” due to, supposedly, a bug in the system): Are technology-averse people condemned to become isolates, outliers in a virtually-connected world, or will they on the contrary become the crucial nodes in linking people in real life?  It would be interesting to find someone that has never been on Facebook and analyze their ego network, and the way they are related to their friends... if such a person exists. 


No comments: