COVID-19 and the Strong Triadic Closure Property
COVID-19 and the Strong Triadic Closure Property
Article Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/27/style/coronavirus-friends-winnowing.html
Prior to the pandemic, we were meeting and interacting with people almost everyday. Whether interacting with co-workers, classmates, family friends, or even the barista that saw us daily at the cafe, we were making and maintaining connections everywhere. However, as classes moved online, orders became contactless and in-person events were postponed, it was more difficult to maintain certain connections and friendships. The article, “We Want Our Friends Back! (But Which Ones?)” written by Alex Williams for the New York Times highlights this very phenomenon.
Using multiple personal accounts, the article discusses the ways in which our networks shrank, how our relationships were strengthened or weakened by the lack of physical contact and interaction. Specifically, it discusses the way that the social “pods” that we put ourselves into –the small group that we limited ourselves to — became most people’s primary network or group of friends, decreasing the size of our friend groups in general. However, at the same time, as others were making their own pods, this meant that our friendship networks changed significantly.
In lecture, we’ve discussed the various ways in which we can label and describe edges. Using the labels of “strong” and “weak” ties seems the most appropriate to detail how relationships have developed since the pandemic began. Using this lens, we can assume that many of our acquaintances: coworkers, classmates, people that we only talked to because we saw them everyday, and mutual friends, were and/or became weak ties as the pandemic progressed. As the article mentions, as in-person hangouts became short Zoom calls, it was more difficult for new connections to be made and more casual friendships to be maintained. This brings into question the phenomenon of Triadic Closure: how did these changing ties influence how relationships satisfy the Strong Triadic Closure Property?
There are several reasons why Triadic Closure occurs: opportunity (an increased chance of meeting when connecting or hanging out with a mutual connection), incentive (an incentive for a friend to bring their mutuals together), and similarity/trust. Due to the pandemic, opportunity definitely decreased (in person hangouts are more difficult) as did incentive (what is the point of keeping up with someone you no longer see everyday or need to see at hangouts?). With weak ties, similarity might not be enough to keep up the connection. Thus, we can say that in a lot of cases, the chances of a network violating the Strong Triadic Closure Property are higher due to decreased frequency of interaction, fewer opportunities for weaker links to interact, and motivation to bring weaker ties together. It’s interesting to see how the global pandemic had the power to shift so many networks and relationship dynamics on such a large scale.