Everyone must have heard of the term six degrees of separation, which it is referred to as the "Human Web", and to the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth. It seems unreal or something like a sci-fi movie. But what's happening is that the modern world is 'shrinking' due to this ever-increasing connectedness of human beings. Despite great physical distances between the globe's individuals, the growing density of human networks made the actual social distance far smaller. The numerous of social networking websites we have today make us somehow think of a 'shrinking world'. Yes, I think it's pretty weird to imagine (in theory) that I'm might be at 6 people apart from Bono Vox or Tenzin Giatso(Dalai Lama). However, even before these social networking sites come to our lives I always had the impression, and used to say, that we live in a world that is such a 'village' or a large neighborhood in which we may encounter anyone we know in other place in the world. This happened to me several times- I’ve bumped into people I know in cities or countries I couldn’t possible think of encountering them; then considering the possibilities in terms of days, months, and hours it could have happen - it’s definitely a huge coincidence.
So what’s new then? Why today people are having the sensation of a smaller world? What I think is that now we can find people we one day met with the purpose of doing it; that is, when we want to find someone we haven't seen in a long time, we now have a tool to find them- a social networking website: Facebook, Orkut, Myspace, Friendster, Linkedin, Hi5, Twitter, and so forth.
Then, thinking of that way there is no more coincidences in meeting someone on the other side of the planet. What's different now? I'd say that today we don’t need to leave it for our destiny to decide but we can search someone we want to see (meet) again through one of those social networking websites.
Lots of research and articles have been done in terms of what makes people choose one and not other website- is it related to age, annual income, education, gender, or ethnicity?
I’ll leave here my own experience and reflections on what make me access a social networking website regularly.
I currently access two websites: Orkut(everyday) and Facebook( 2/3 per week) which the second one I have mostly my Canadians and Brazilians friends living in Canada. On the other hand, Orkut became to me a great and important tool to communicate with my family members and friends in Brazil. Today, about 67 million people around the world have an Orkut account, and for some reason most are Brazilians, which means everyone I know in Brazil, who has access to a computer, certainly has an Orkut account.
I’ve been accessing Orkut since its beginning –2004 and after 2008 it’s been fully operated in Brazil by Google Brazil. I've found old friends from elementary school, many from high school and former neighbors. I also re-encounter friends of my son who now are grown as well as some of his former teachers.
Important to say that all of them I first met in person and I’ve never added one person, and probably never will, that I have not met before face-to-face.
In short, I see Orkut or any other social networking site as a tool to maintain existing friendships or accountancies but not to start a friendship or any kind of relationship.
And lastly, one question I make to myself is if I were in Brazil I would have the same numbers of friends I have today living in Canada on my Orkut, and/or would I have an Orkut account?
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You raised some really interesting points Mara. I think the internet has almost stripped the excitement away from the idea of six degrees of separation. It used to be for me that meeting someone on a street corner who was a blast from the past, or learning that a new co-worker went to the same elementary school and also loved our sixth grade teacher Mr.Stark would make me squeal with excitement and want to trade stories. I think now, however, with the evolution of online social networking tools such as Facebook, the element of surprise and mystery about what happened to that crazy girl from highschool is gone...simply because I can look her up on Facebook or someone else already has and they have told me every nitty gritty detail about her life.
ReplyDeleteThis is not to take away from the incredible aspects of these tools, but it makes me wonder whether online social networking tools diminish - or rather shift - some of the special qualities of various communities to which we are tied. My high school holds a very special place in my heart (likely more than most) but now I get monthly e-newsletters from them along with frequent messages on Facebook and LinkedIn; and while I still feel very much part of the community - possibly even more connected to it - the unique nature of that tie has shifted and morphed into something different and I do attribute that to the internet. Six degrees of separation has turned into two, and I'm not quite as excited to play the game.
Well...it's certainly a mixed bag of feelings when it comes to social networking. While indeed it has changed our lives and made the concept of 6 degrees of separation a more real concept than one we may have noticed before. (Real but virtually real) I'm with you guys in terms of how far this concept will go in social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut (thanks for teaching me about that one Mara!). Will this be just another fad way of connecting with people like ICQ or MySpace (although i always felt MySpace was more impersonal where you'd more likely connect with strangers with similar interests, but many of my friends keep other friends engaged on there).
ReplyDeleteI remember the first time I logged on to Facebook to see what all the hype was about and was thinking...why would people spend so much time on here posting stuff about themselves and digging for info on others...but after a few weeks i was inevitably hooked and looking for friends and family online. However, after a few months...the novelty started to wear off and i found myself connected to way too many people who i had no intention of keeping up with or sharing my life with...guess there was a reason why we didn't keep in touch in the first place. I've now modified my usage to just close family and friends, especially like you Mara, keeping in touch with those in another country (my family's from Trinidad--so it's been great to communicate more often for less this way). Like Caleigh, i'm interested to see where this all goes and what's next.