Facebook and the friendship curve

Across the country (and the globe, actually) soon-to-be college students are getting to know each other via Facebook. They've been doing it since they got their acceptance letters, or even earlier. To continue using my alma mater, Marist, as the example, one class of 2011 group (there are a few) has almost 560 members -- about 50% of the class.

This means that at least half of the class will have been speaking for four months or so before they even get to campus for orientation. Sure, but they haven't really met yet, right? Not so fast. Many are using Facebook to organize events, find friends in the area, and start building community over the summer. So what does all of this do to the orientation experience? How does it affect programming? How should it affect programming? At the very least, there should be a tip of the hat that students may already know each other.

I think it's important to set the context for social networking as it relates to relationship building. Allow me to opine. One of the key questions is around how community is formed via social networks as compared with how community is formed via the intense, tight-knit experience of sharing a very small space with a person you've never met before. Probably not apples to apples.

For a while now, I've thought of social networking as a powerful tool in relationship building and maintenance across distance or, at the tails. (Here he goes with the bell curves again)

The yellow areas (tails) are what I'm talking about and where I think social networking is most powerful. The left tail represents the time before you see someone face-to-face, either for the first time or in advance of a particular meeting (e.g. an event). The middle represents face time -- no wires or plugs, just human beings. So this would be the on-campus experience during the school year. Social networking still comes into play but its importance in the maintenance of the relationship diminishes in relation to face time. The right tail is post-face time, when the social networking tools become more important again, this time to keep people connected.

I think this is what we're seeing with college students. As admitted students they are exited to start building community and are using Facebook at that left tail to do so. They're getting to know each other, making friends, and setting themselves up for the great middle. Once they're on campus, they'll expand on some of those relationships, build new ones, and do so in person. They'll certainly still use Facebook, but the role changes a bit. In the middle, it's used to communicate, check out other people (maybe someone they saw on campus or in class but don't know yet, etc.). Once the year or, eventually, their four years, ends, they move to the right tail and use Facebook to maintain relationships with folks they bonded with in the middle of the curve.

Colleges should find ways to work with the realities of social networking and figure out it factors into the experience, from recruitment to retention to alumni engagement. These sites are helping students build and maintain community in great new ways. How does it factor into your program?

Comments

[Charlie Melichar]

Interesting thoughts, Sam. You've touched on an area of great interest to me. As I wrote this post, I was looking for research on the relationship between online/offline friendships and pretty much came up empty.

The Berkeley post is terrific as it gives depth and context to the blurring that is happening.

One of the other elements that I find facscinating is in the last paragraph, where Ann's new friendships with old high school friends is discussed. She writes, "This is the girl that I’m talking about, that I didn’t talk to in high school but when we’re in the same school, now we’re talking." This connection probably doesn't happen without Facebook.

[Sam Jackson]

And here's a fresh story from the wonderfully bright folks at berkeley's infoschool, specifically heather horst today, about the blurring boundaries between the two realms: http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/node/76

[Sam Jackson]

I'm with Andy when it comes to valuing that in-between time. The day to day use of tools like facebook is the bread and butter, in 2007, of real life network maintenance, planning, etc for college kids and people like myself. The online and offline realms merge more and more. In terms of volume-of-use, much more goes on in that middle part. Obviously you were referring to 'power' of the tool, not the amount of use. But subtract that middle part of the curve and you're left with a headless relationship. A clear example of this can be when kids use that first yellow part to get to know one another before they ever meet--say, after they all get accepted to a school, as I've written about--but if they never follow up on that later, then all that was wasted. Online friendships are not quite so 'set it and forget it' as we might imagine.

[Charlie Melichar]

"don't underestimate the importance of the same practice ('Facebooking') during the on-campus time. Students are connecting with H.S. friends, and they're using the online tools as a bridge, a crutch, or a framework for support of their real world interactions."

Great point, Andy. For off-campus friends, we'd probably be looking at an inverse of the curve where the low point (where Facebook does its magic to help maintain the relationship) occurs during the school year. For on-campus friends, or friends-to-be, you're right that Facebook provides that crutch or as you put it so well, "a framework for support of their real world interactions."

[Andy Shaindlin]

Interesting (as usual). I think you're right about the "yellow tails," but don't underestimate the importance of the same practice ('Facebooking') during the on-campus time. Students are connecting with H.S. friends, and they're using the online tools as a bridge, a crutch, or a framework for support of their real world interactions.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal just reported on Facebook's plans to "let other companies provide their services on special pages within its popular Web site. These companies will be able to link into Facebook users' networks of online friends, according to people familiar with the matter."

I'm going to write about this in a few days on Alumni Futures, as it has implications for alumni associations. As usual (again), Charlie, you're a week or two ahead of me!

Here's the WSJ item:

http://tinyurl.com/24zu2a