In between readings, as my own way of procrastinating, I found myself signing onto facebook now and then. Currently, with 32 friend requests still unanswered (from people I'm not even sure I've met), I am quite aware that facebook is absolutely flooded with weak ties. Out of my 785 friends, I am sure that I have strong ties with 10% or less of them. The others, I either never interact with anymore after an initial meeting, or just hi & bye to.
If we considered degrees of separation, it is very possible that I'm connected to everyone that attends Brown currently. I have a connection and share a community with more than 5000 students. I don't necessarily see these ties as a negative. (I've always wondered, if we were arguing for or against certain things we discuss in section.) I enjoy the feeling of connection, and being apart of a large community, considering our society doesn't necessarily need strong ties in order to function properly anyway. Sharing this connection with so many people, without even meeting them, is an eerie sensation, yet is completely welcomed.
While Jameson would say this community is 'fragmented', I feel making the world smaller and more accessible for people generates connections that may help develop a good sense of community among people without ever meeting, which could better the community. With all these weak ties, we're simply generating more personal faces to interact with, versus the anonymous crowd we associated ourselves with before the times of social networks of the internet.
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