Blog #12 Oh, what a network we weave! 6/23/22
If we were to weave together the various roles that we hold, the communities in which we belong, and the networks that we have formed, we would most likely produce a very strong fabric.
As sons or daughters, brothers or sisters, family members, boyfriends or girlfriends, friends, students, colleagues or coworkers, or even seekers of entertainment, we have so many opportunities to meet people, extend our connections, and add to our strategic alliances. Our networks extend from our communities, both real and virtual and strong-tie and weak tie. Our human networks may not always provide the intimacy that many of us desire, they certainly provide social capital.
In the real world, probably like most people, I first belong to my family network, which is the strongest network to which I belong. Following my family, my friend network is my second strongest. Both of these networks provide strong-tie bonds and emotional support.
As a student at Salisbury University, I belong to a weak-tie bridging network. Within this network, I am surrounded by a diverse group of people with a variety of backgrounds, but we are joined together by an interest in education and an inherent desire to grow as learners.
Within my workplace, I belong to both strong-tie and weak-tie networks. As a realtor in a large community of realtors, we belong to a large network of information. While we may have common interests and goals and have access to common resources, we are not tightly connected relationally. Thus, the greater realtor community is clearly weak-tied. However, within my small work circle, we have greater trust, support, and emotional bonding.
Lastly, in the virtual world, I belong to a large network of people through social media. We have been joined together through friendship, acquaintances, geographic location, and other networking modalities through the use of CMC. We have a vast array of backgrounds, experiences, etc. and we function together as an informational resource. To sum up the virtual network as a whole would be like placing a picture of my face and connecting it with numerous grayed out pictures of nameless faces. I could extract different people from that large network and place them in any of the aforementioned groups, but the group as a whole is substantially disengaged from any personal relationship to me.
The poet John Donne said "No man is an island." We truly exist as part of larger communities, and we cannot dismiss the importance of all kinds of networks.