Networks

Early in 2013, Facebook published findings that detailed how people with strong ties (best friends) and people with weak ties (loose acquaintances) interact with each other on Facebook. They found that one could deduce strong ties and weak ties by measuring how often two people interact on Facebook. They discovered that a high number of chat messages, wall posts, and shared photos indicated a strong tie and a lower number of such interactions indicated a weak tie. At first, one might find this a very intuitive discovery since it makes sense that good friends are more likely to interact with each other. However, ideas from Network Theory on strong ties and weak ties might suggest otherwise. Network theory says that interactions on Facebook might be more likely to occur between weak ties than strong ties. This is because people with strong ties often have other means of interaction (in-­‐person, phone, etc.) and new information often flows between weak ties (since loosely connected people likely know less about each other). Thus we may wonder why Facebook interactions could be a good indicator of tie strength when it seems strong tie behavior would actually occur less on Facebook. The researchers asked themselves the same question when reviewing their results (pg. 4). However, they were able to come up with an explanation.

It turns out that the reason Facebook interactions still serve as a good indicator of tie strength is due to media multiplexity. Media multiplexity is the idea that different communication channels such as in-­‐person, mobile, online, etc. are not necessarily substitutes for each other. This is because such interactions are often linked to each other. For example, suppose one is planning a party. One might tell their friend in-­‐person that they are invited to the party. Then, they might later talk on the phone about what to bring to the party. After the party, they may share pictures of the party on Facebook. We thus see that an in-­‐person interaction can cause a chain of other weaker interactions to occur. This would explain why people with strong ties would still have a large amount of interaction over Facebook, despite the objections raised by Network Theory.