Musings on Granovetter, social media and friendships

I attended F5 Expo recently and sat through Malcolm Gladwell’s keynote talk. At the end of his talk, I asked what ended up being the last question. While the gist of his talk goes beyond “social media won’t create revolutions and there are a number of holes in Gladwell’s argument that I was going to write about, this post is focused only on one element of Gladwell’s talk – his repeated mention of Mark Granovetter’s theory of the strength of weak ties.

I am not against popularizers of science, and in particular, social science. I pride myself in being an academic who can speak plain English, and I welcome the help of people who take it upon themselves to increase access to scientific research and who conduct knowledge translation of social science. The problem I have is with the misuse of research, leading to overgeneralizations and misconceptions. There is a failure in the translation of what Granovetter meant to say and what is commonly said about his theory of the strength of weak ties.

Having surveyed the sociological literature and used it as a foundation of my academic research on environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), I am quite familiar with Granovetter’s work. I am a bit disappointed when people seem to misunderstand what Granovetter was trying to do and say.

Granovetter’s 1983 article revisits his 1973 network theory by surveying the empirical studies that occurred in the following eight years since he published his first theoretical work. In the words of Granovetter,

our acquaintances (weak ties) are less likely to be socially involved with one another than are our close friends (strong ties). Thus the set of people made up of any individual and his or her acquaintances comprises a low-density network (one in which many of the possible relational lines are absent) whereas the set consisting of the same individual and his or her close friends will be densely knit (many of the possible lines are present) (Granovetter 1983, pp. 201-202).

The main gist of Granovetter is not that social media is evil (hell, there wasn’t social media at the time), nor that our weak ties are irrelevant and that our strong ties are the only ones worth pursuing (as it is sometimes misinterpreted). The point of Granovetter’s theory was that, without those weak ties (acquaintance), no matter how many strong ties (family and friends) you had, you wouldn’t be able to know about potential job opportunities, etc. In fact, it is those weak ties that bridge groups of close-knit friends.

individuals with few weak ties will be deprived of information from distant parts of the social system and will be confined to the provincial news and views of their close friends. This deprivation will not only insulate them from the latest ideas and fashions but may put them in a disadvantaged position in the labor market, where advancement can depend, as I have documented elsewhere (1974), on knowing about appropriate job openings at just the right time. Furthermore, such individuals may be difficult to organize or integrate into political movements of any kind, since without weak ties, any momentum generated in this way does not spread beyond the clique (Granovetter 1983, p. 202).

I have met a lot of people through social media, and created very strong ties. Initially, when I met them, we were mere acquaintances. But I have found that our relationship strengthened through repeated in-person contact. Thus I have suggested that weak ties can help you create a first bond, and then it is up to you to strengthen it with in-person, real life interactions. Thus, I propose the following three notions:

– Building new connections through social media (weak ties) may lead through time to creating wonderful friendships/working relationships (having strong ties). As I have frequently said, social media is a marathon, not a sprint race.

– Strengthening relationships requires in-person (face-to-face) contact. You can’t fully trust someone just through online networks. At some point you will have to use richer media to strengthen the bond (and I find that meeting in person really does strengthen that bond).

– Creating new relationships with acquaintances (weak ties) will have no impact on network growth if there is no reciprocity and bidirectionality. Stronger ties are derived from reciprocal interaction.

At the end of the day, I still have a lot of appreciation for my weak ties. I just hope people my work helps dispel misunderstandings around Granovetter’s ideas. And the negative notion around “weak ties”. There is no need for always having strong ties. There is A LOT of value for weak ties. Never forget it.