Read more: 鈥� Instant Expert: Evolution of social networks鈥�
With fast digital communication we are connected like never before. Cellphones and online social networking sites allow us to interact with far more people than our predecessors. As a result the rate of change of fashions and opinions is accelerating. Twitter can bring together very large crowds, very quickly, something that would have been unthinkable before the digital revolution. It has been hailed as the great tool of democracy, the force behind the Arab Spring 鈥� and the London riots. But to make new friends we still need to chat to someone in person. How much has really changed?
Are you looking at me?
Jokes are never as funny in an email as in real life. We don鈥檛 really understand why, but there is something about the immediacy of response in a face-to-face interaction that makes even feeble humour funnier. This may help explain some limitations of online networking media.
Advertisement
In one study, my colleagues and I asked participants to record how satisfied they felt about every interaction they had with their five closest friends over a two week period. Face-to-face and Skype interactions scored significantly higher than those via other media including phone, SMS, texting and social networking sites (Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, in press).
One reason is that Skype seems to create a sense of 鈥渃o-presence鈥� 鈥� of being in the same room as the other person. That feeling doesn鈥檛 happen on the phone or in text-based media. It is more satisfying because it provides many more cues about the other person鈥檚 responses to what we say 鈥� and this seems to be particularly important where laughter is involved. We found that any interaction involving laughter was rated more highly 鈥� even if that laughter was simply coded in a smiley emoticon or a 鈥淟OL鈥�. And people laughed more when face-to-face and on Skype; seeing another person laugh seemed to make it more satisfying than laughter via other media.
The dark side
Despite the opportunities that the digital world offers, it is not without its drawbacks. One is the fact that online conversations take place in a bubble. Because we cannot see the people we are talking to, our imaginations run riot. We attribute to them all the most desirable traits that we would wish to find in the perfect partner or best friend 鈥� sometimes in spite of snippets of counter-information. That makes it very easy for predators of all sorts to lurk in the system and prey on the unsuspecting. Online romantic scams alone are thought to cost victims more than 拢1 billion a year globally.
A second potential problem is the fact that children are spending increasing amounts of time online with their friends rather than meeting them face-to-face. In real life we must confront our social problems head on and in doing so we learn to negotiate our way out of trouble. But if someone upsets us online we can simply pull the plug. As online social networking grows in popularity, we risk creating a generation that has limited social skills and smaller social networks. In our increasingly urban and globalised world, social networks are already more fragmented than they were for our ancestors, but this could leave people feeling even more isolated and alienated.
More friends? Not really
The success of social networking sites such as Facebook stems directly from the fact that they allow us to keep up with friends without seeing them face-to-face. This no doubt helps to slow down the rate at which friendships decay over time, but does it mean we can have more friends? It seems not.
Despite the urban myth that many people have 1000 or more friends on Facebook, in fact very few do. The typical number is actually between 120 and 130 鈥� about the same as we have offline 鈥� and is independent of the amount of time spent on the site. Of course anyone can sign up 500 or even 5000 friends online, but how many of these are real friends who would help out if an individual were in a fix? In this respect, the online world is no different from the offline one: we know up to 1500 people by sight and by name, but most are mere acquaintances. If you have hundreds of Facebook friends most of these are probably just voyeurs into your private life.
鈥淒espite the urban myth that many people have 1000 or more friends on Facebook, in fact very few do鈥�
Cellphone tracking
The new digital technology provides us with unexpected insights into human networking behaviour. Bluetooth-enabled phones, for example, can detect each other up to 5 metres away as long as they are turned on, so can be used to determine whose company we keep and for how long.
Unlike landlines, cellphones are personal, and this lets us explore the structure and dynamics of personal social networks. One such study found that we underestimate the time we spend in contact with casual acquaintances and overestimate that spent with friends. It is also possible to use the entire phone network of one provider to analyse the networks of several million people simultaneously. The unprecedented scale that such analyses offer allow us to see patterns in the networks, both in terms of the number of friends people have but also how they interact across time.
One finding is that people tend to use different media for different purposes. We phone with bad news, for example, but text with good news. Another is that digital technology is better designed for women鈥檚 social networking than it is for men鈥檚. That鈥檚 because men and women maintain their friendships in different ways: men tend to do something active together such as playing sports or going to the pub, whereas women talk. As a result, women make more phone calls than men and spend longer talking when they do call.
