Friendsters, Romans, Countrymen
Got suckered into Friendster.com a couple of weeks ago. Can’t say I love it or hate it yet. It’s a delight to find how this friend is connected to you in other ways you’ve never thought about. Other than that, I still like the “intimacy” of an e-mail or an instant message or text message or a phone call, personal network be damned.
Also it underscores the digital divide quite apparent in Metro Manila - those who have regular access to the Internet, those who have embraced it as part of their lives belong to the small, middle- and upper- economic class of the country. Look at the interests/occupation of any random person in your network. Look at the number connections you have with one person in your personal network to prove this. Let me see: 47 ‘friends’ give me access to some 430,000 people in my personal network which comes down to an average of 9,148 people per ‘friend.’ Most of which are overlapping, not more than 3 or 4 degrees of separation. It feels like we’re moving in small circles, even if some of your friends are in US or in Rome. Cue Carrie, Sex and the City style voice over: are we really that connected to each other or did we just happen into a digital elite club? Anybody doing a study on this?
Being on Friendster also prompted me to look up long lost friends I “met” on the Net. It was nothing sordid okay? Just people who share the same interest and possesses some wacky wit to keep it interesting. I’ve lost touch with them when invariably I’ve transferred jobs, changed schedules, changed email addresses, etc. And I’m sure they’ve celebrated personal milestones too and have changed priorities and inclinations. Haven’t found them yet via Friendster though. Would be nice to touch base with them again.
4 Comments, Comment or Ping
emer
ehem.
this was something like my college thesis, so i’ll babble.
it’s called the “small world”/boundary definition problem in social network analysis. pretty neat research in this field (i.e. search methods for intimate relationships, STD vectors, power networks and corporate incest) the problem is that the analytical tools are limited to small populations. we have nothing that can scale to friendster-type aggregations.
small, “anthropological” studies seem to confirm your hypothesis, though: we’re not building the global village, we’re just taking our clubs elsewhere :(
Oct 1st, 2003
nic
we didn’t really need friendster to confirm what we knew all along. that manila is extremely small, but only if you move in a certain layer of society. i guess it’s why filipinos could so relate to y tu mama tambien too, in the way the class contrasts between the two leads were played. it took me months before i could come to terms with friendster, because it seemed like high school all over again. i’m still not that convinced.
pero sige na nga, can i be your friendster? :)
Oct 2nd, 2003
Markmomukhamo
Nic, of course! How else would I know what’s up with you now that you’ve blogged out? :)
Oct 3rd, 2003
trix
i’ve been sucked into this friendster business too. and lo and behold, all the friendsters i have (5 at the moment), are mostly from work. so does that count? hehehe
Oct 4th, 2003
Reply to “Friendsters, Romans, Countrymen”