Sunday, November 18, 2007

The inbreeding of social networks

I've come to the conclusion that my social networks are decidedly inbred. When I take a look at my Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter friends - or for that matter, almost any of the social networks I'm in - the same people appear. Sure, there are some slight variations - but for the most part, my friends on one network tend to be my friends on others. The network itself may expand slightly, but there ends up being a stable group of people, most of whom are also friends with each other.

The exceptions tend to be my family members - and the tendrils that spread from there. The core of my social networks are librarians, though. Which can make for interesting conversations - or boring ones, depending on your point of view.

2 comments:

Courtney F said...

I've noticed this too, actually. And that, particularly on Facebook, I have two distinct social networks - one is library people. The other is everyone else. And never the twain shall meet :) The friend wheel on Facebook is fascinating because of this. I love seeing how people are connected and who the "nodes" of my social circles are.

Anonymous said...

Yes--I've definitely noticed the librarian/everybody else split--although I also notice that I seem to know the librarians better. Random people I went to college with keep friending me, and I have to search through the haze of memory to figure out who the hell they are.