The Effect of Remote Work on Social Networks
Since the pandemic began, working remotely has come into the spotlight, and has been a topic of discussion for many. At first, it was required, and some believed that the age of the in-person office was behind us. Then there was a counter demand of people who wished to return to the office. Even after that, according to the article, occupancy in office buildings in 10 large cities across the US is roughly 47.5%. The researchers, who are based in a lab at MIT and collaborating with Texas A&M University, Technical University of Denmark, and the University of Oxford, originally started collecting data in 2019, before the pandemic. They were monitoring social networks by collecting data on MIT’s email network. When the pandemic happened, they realized that the effect of the variable of physical space was now accidentally being tested.
As we spoke about in class, societies are filled with both strong ties and weak ties. Strong ties tend to create overlapping networks, but it is weak ties that connect us to larger and more diverse groups of people. After the pandemic, email data showed that weak ties dropped by 38%. As a result, in the next 18 months, about 5,100 new weak ties were lost. The individual’s personal web of connections became more stagnant, as people saw many of the same contacts throughout the pandemic. The return to campus in Fall 2021 showed that proximity was tied to weak ties. Those who were close to others in physical distance began to form weak ties. This effect on an individual’s social network is very interesting, and connects back to what we talked about in class concerning social networks, including both strong and weak ties.
I would agree with what this article has to say. During the pandemic, I didn’t meet anyone new, and my circle narrowed down to the same people week after week. There was the idea of staying within a ‘bubble’ of people, which was a good idea for safety, but did lead to me feeling stagnant and restless. In terms of working remotely, I have noticed that my parents are perfectly happy with working from home—they get more time to be home with us and more time to get the work that they need to get done at home done. They feel no need to expand their social network as they have plenty of friends from work, the neighborhood, and family. I, on the other hand, really dislike working remotely, especially this summer, as it was my first real job experience and I couldn’t easily interact with and work with new people.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/09/26/opinion/how-remote-work-withers-our-social-networks/