208B: Fischer, Granovetter, Social Networks and a damn crazy SIMS class...

(for people not at SIMS, I will be posting blog assignments for a clas that you may or may not find interesting... I will preface the titles of these entries with "208B" and you may or may not choose to ignore them.)

First, I need to come clean: I didn't read Fischer or Granovetter. (although I've already done all the reading for Wednesday... so there!) I take from the discussion in class that weak ties are important for jobs and information... although ryan doesn't think that SIMS people have any information that he hasn't seen.

Second, I'd really like to make these entries short enough so that someone will read them if they find them interesting (even if that is only danah!). So, I've decided on a compromise: I'll do rhyming haiku abstracts and then longer entries.

Social networks rule
too damn busy in school
to read and accrue

What are the purposes of your various social networks? My social networks are largely academic, friendly and familiar. Parts of these overlap. The "purpose" of these networks? I don't rightly know... I didn't erect them consciously with a specific purpose, they just exist and I hope that they don't get measurably smaller due to some act of mine. The academic social network is for geeky information, friends are for fun and family is rock solid and to die for.

What are the shapes of your social networks: how large are they? How do they combine face-to-face and online contacts? How old are they? What are their functions? Whoa! One at a time, there partner! Let's see... my academic network is large, my friend network is small and my familiar network gets bigger with every new Young or Hall-family human brought into this world. Friends are old and new, academics are mostly new but there are some oldies and family is mostly old. "Functions?" I don't like that question... I know that I "use" my networks but operationalizing them to this point makes me feel weird.

Are you going to use your social networks to get a job? Find a partner? Possibly... probably not. I've got a job for a while... I'm trying my damnedest to keep my partner although I'm so busy she rarely gets to see me.

How, and when, do you use your social networks? All the freakin' time. I am a prolific emailer and an information junky. I consume information mostly from my academic network, dissimenate to academics, friends and family.

Propose a typology of the functions, origin and duration, and size and density of social networks, based upon your own experience. I'm going to do something else. Since my academic and familial networks only grow... I'd like to talk a little bit about my network of friends. I had a lot of friends in undergrad. at Northern Arizona University and as well during High School in Albuquerque. Both of these networks experienced a punctuated evolution of sorts... that is, when I moved away from High School and then from undergrad. my friend network seemed to experience a mass-extinction.

This social network extinction was particularly dramatic when coming to grad. school here at Berkeley. In contrast, when coming from High School to undergrad. in Flagstaff I lived in a dorm with a slew of other people out of their element, in need of friends. At grad. school, I didn't have easy contact to the demographic that makes up what I had become comfortable with calling my "friends". And, goddamn if it's not hard as hell to make friends the older we get. This has changed somewhat with my change of career paths from astrophysics to tech. policy... SIMS kids are very heterogeneous, artsy and unabashedly fun-loving... now my biggest barrier is just having enough time to socialize... especially since I don't see my partner very much and I love her to death.

Posted by joebeone at Marzo 16, 2004 09:14 AM