Social Networks and the success of Internet Social Networks

Of the many aspects of human nature that define us both culturally and physically, it is our inherent desire to ‘belong and be apart of a greater fraternity’ that remains one of the most prominent. From a purely physical standpoint, this desire makes perfect sense. As human beings, we are in a constant search for our identity and place in society, a search which is made ultimately easier by finding a group in which to align to.

Emerging from this yearning for group membership is that of the social network. ‘A social network is a set of people connected by a set of socially meaningful relationships’ states Wellman, and it is these sequences of relationships that satiate our yearning for the support and identity construction. In this current age of globalisation and technological advancement, the desire to assimilate has not changed. The amazing success of social networking websites such as MySpace, Facebook and Friendster is a testament to society’s constant need to connect to other individuals. However the creation of these new ‘internet networks’ has changed the way in which we both interact and define social inclusion. The previous limits on social networking such as geography and language barriers have been greatly diminished due to the all encompassing nature of the internet. Our very own definition of a social network has undeniably changed, as well as the means in which we interact within and throughout the network. These drastic changes to human interaction and indeed the evolution of our own self identification are issues that are prominent not only as pure sociological discussions, but also in terms of the ever growing presence of the internet on our daily livelihoods. It is inevitable; however, that when discussing the internet and interaction, that the presence of large multinational corporations and the marketing dollar is also raised. This presence to, has a large a significant impact in not only the formation of the social network but on the methods and limitation of interaction.

In the coming blogs, I will discuss the new and enhanced form of social networking through the internet, with a distinct concentration on the new opportunities for identity construction, as well as the conflict which arises from corporate aggregation of these websites. In this discussion I will focus primarily on the most popular social networking sites, such as MySpace, Friendster and Facebook, as all three sites encompass the core values of internet social networking. In order to analyse these networks properly however, they must be compared with the old physical style networks to gauge their efficiency.