Networks and the Future of Society
Today I found three New York Times articles that do a great job of connecting what we’ve learned in class to our world in 2023. The articles – “Has the Age of Mass Protest Actually Achieved Anything?”, “The Future of Social Media Is a Lot Less Social”, and “What Even Is a Social Network Anymore?” – give real-world examples that really emphasize the importance of information cascades in our society, specifically how people either adopt or reject certain behaviors that they perceive.
The first article is about mass protests and ties in with our exploration of information cascades. Just as we learned how individual decisions can lead to greater patterns, David Wallace-Wells illustrates how individual actions in protests accumulate to create significant social movements. This phenomenon reflects the concept of information cascades, where individuals, influenced by the actions of others, join in, thereby amplifying the movement. This is more relevant than ever with the advent of social media; it is like the marble example we talked about, except at a much faster pace.
The second article discusses the future of social media becoming less social and relates very much to our discussions on network structures and their evolution over time, like with the behavioral cascades. Most of the article focuses on the shift in social media from broad-based platforms to more intimate, conversation-driven spaces echoing the dynamics we studied about network evolution and the role of individual nodes (users) in shaping the network’s structure. This shift signifies a move from a broadcast model to a more clustered, community-oriented model, reflecting our class discussions on how real-world networks evolve and adapt over time.
The third article aligns with our class’s exploration of network theory’s fundamentals. The article’s exploration of how social networks have evolved from purely social spaces to platforms encompassing news, commerce, and more parallels our discussions on the multifaceted nature of networks. It underscores the idea that networks are not static; they are dynamic systems that adapt to the changing needs and behaviors of their users. Again, our principles from class apply here, but more advanced models are going to be required because of the exponential growth of our social media networks.
Articles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/opinion/does-protest-work-bevins.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/technology/personaltech/tiktok-twitter-facebook-social.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/style/social-media-apps.html