Weak Ties in a Small World

We all have them. An acquaintance met at a party from years ago, or a distant cousin who lives on the other side of the country. Maybe it’s the guy who I used to sit next to in high school history class, the one that I never saw after he moved away mid year. They’re the Facebook friends that we just can’t or don’t want to shake. Maybe they don’t post anything except the random cat video, or a passing comment that opposes your political beliefs. Or maybe they post incessantly, constantly blathering on about needing rides to a concert, or their job interviews, or just basic non sequitur that now serves as small talk. We don’t always engage them online, but for some reason we hesitate to block them as friends.

Just when you thought it was safe to delete all Facebook friends that you didn’t really know, it seems that this network of chance acquaintances may be the missing link in making diverse and essential connections online. Author Jill Walker Retterberg claims that sociologist Mark Granovetter’s theory of Weak Ties relates directly to these friend of a friends that get amassed through social network websites,1 and these are the connections that can be the most beneficial in disseminating information to the most diverse group of people.

Is it really important to keep close ties with all of these people? Scientists think so.

The Weak Ties theory says that we have strong ties to people and we have weak ties. Strong ties are the core group of friends that we all have, the social network and tight support circle. Everyone knows everyone intimately in this group, and the networking is rather homogenized among the members since everyone is so familiar with each other. Weak ties are the friends from outside the group that one member may know, and they belong to their own strong linked group of friends and support circle. These weak links connect two circles of people together who may have never known of each other, and a greater ability to network and make deeper connections happens. A classic example is the new kid in school that immediately becomes cool because he’s from outside the circle of friends and has different tastes in music and fashion.

Taken further, Granovetter takes the now famous “Six degrees of separation” theory, actually called “Small World” experiments by Stanley Milgram, and ties his weak link theories to them. The theory of six degrees of separation claims that everyone in the world is connected to everyone else by only six connections, or degrees. It’s an amazing and quite beautiful thing to think about, that as large and diverse as this world is, with now over 7 billion people inhabiting it, and everyone is so very close to everyone else. But Granovetter noted that these studies were more likely to be successful if there was a weak tie between people being connected. The connections that allow for the most diverse and divergent areas of contrary examinations are the ones that come from just outside our comfort zones, they’re tangential but not necessarily a part of our tight social network.

"Everyone is a new door, opening to other worlds."

One of the social advantages of Facebook is that it allows for these tangential connections to filter a bit of their tastes, digital links, and networks into your own. I have Facebook friends that I’m not sure how I became connected to them, but I really enjoy the links to music videos that they post, and I’m sure that I am the same way to others. This ability to connect content as well as networks through Facebook is what essentially gives the site its flavor, the spice that is out of the ordinary social circle. Even if your cousin continues to invite you to all night raves in Portland, don’t delete him. His social circle, though it may be different in many ways from yours, is a connection to a world that may not be so foreign, and you may be surprised by how much you can learn by knowing someone that is just outside your circle of friends.



1 Blogging, Jill Walker Retterberg, 2008, p. 59