Tie Strength as a Function of Social Media Actions?
Researchers at the University of Illinois have come up with a system to categorize tie strength as a function of actions between friends on social media. They categorize the strength of ties via the following 7 characteristics: Intimacy, Intensity, Duration, Social Distance, Services, Emotional Support, and Structure. I’ll spare the details on how they gather information on these categories, but the point is that after analyzing 35 Facebook friendships and then interviewing the owners of those Facebook accounts, the researchers did a pretty impressive job at assessing the friendships in question.
This research is incredibly applicable considering the dawning of the age of social media. One interesting potential use is that instead of having a Newsfeed that shows information about every person your friends with, it can be streamlined based on tie strength such that you see way more of the people you care about. It could also lead to better friend suggestions and even privacy controls so that only certain networks of friends (those with strong ties) see a broadcasted message.
It’s a well written paper and an easy read, and I’d highly recommend it for any avid user of social media!
http://leonidzhukov.net/hse/2011/seminar/papers/chi09-tie-gilbert.pdf