[Air-l] disjunction

[Ellis Godard]

The conceptual answer: They don't discuss important matters with their
Facebook friends. They may reveal important information, but the discussion
(if both are called that) is different.

The operational answer: 200 "friends" on Facebook is a status indicator
because it's atypical. Most Facebook participants have far fewer, and most
Americans aren't on Facebook.

-eg

> -----Original Message-----
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org 
> [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Barry Wellman
> Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 7:42 PM
> To: aoir list
> Subject: [Air-l] disjunction
> 
> 
> The US General Social Survey claims the average American has 
> slightly more than 2 people they discuss important matters with.
> 
> Our Connected Lives and Pew Strength of Ties studies show 
> somewhat higher numbers (see Hogan, Carrasco & Wellman on our 
> website). But still reckoned by the dozen (or two).
> 
> When the inevitable reporter calls, how do I reconcile these 
> numbers with the 100-200 or so that folks on this list are 
> saying are Facebook "friends".
> 
> Does anyone have a distribution of the # of friends per 
> Facebook account: mean, median, mode, quartiles, ranges would 
> be nice too.
> 
>  Barry  
> _____________________________________________________________________
> 
>   Barry Wellman         Professor of Sociology        NetLab Director
>   wellman at chass.utoronto.ca  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
> 
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