Public Displays of Connection

Participants in social network sites create self-descriptive profiles that include their links to other members, creating a visible network of connections — the ostensible purpose of these sites is to use this network to make friends, dates, and business connections. In this paper we explore the social implications of the public display of one's social network. Why do people display their social connections in everyday life, and why do they do so in these networking sites? What do people learn about another's identity through the signal of network display? How does this display facilitate connections, and how does it change the costs and benefits of making and brokering such connections compared to traditional means? The paper includes several design recommendations for future networking sites.

[1]  H. Kim,et al.  Social Capital, Embedded Status, and the Endorsement Effect* , 2001 .

[2]  Bonnie A. Nardi,et al.  It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know: Work in the Information Age , 2000, First Monday.

[3]  Mark S. Granovetter.  The Strength of Weak Ties , 1973, American Journal of Sociology.

[4]  M. Spence.  Job Market Signaling , 1973 .

[5]  Danah Boyd,et al.  Friendster and publicly articulated social networking , 2004, CHI EA '04.

[6]  Francis Bloch,et al.  Wedding Celebrations as Conspicuous Consumption , 2004, The Journal of Human Resources.

[7]  A. Grafen.  Biological signals as handicaps. , 1990, Journal of theoretical biology.

[8]  T. Guilford,et al.  The corruption of honest signalling , 1991, Animal Behaviour.

[9]  Nan Lin,et al.  SOCIAL NETWORKS AND STATUS ATTAINMENT , 1999 .

[10]  Mark S. Granovetter.  T H E S T R E N G T H O F WEAK TIES: A NETWORK THEORY REVISITED , 1983 .

[11]  E. Goffman.  The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life , 1959 .

[12]  Veronique Kiermer,et al.  Six degrees of separation , 2006, Nature Methods.

[13]  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,et al.  The Meaning Of Things , 1981 .

[14]  S. Feld.  The Focused Organization of Social Ties , 1981, American Journal of Sociology.

[15]  T. Veblen.  The Theory of the Leisure Class , 1901 .

[16]  Judith Donath,et al.  Identity and deception in the virtual community , 1998 .

[17]  A. Zahavi.  The cost of honesty (further remarks on the handicap principle). , 1977, Journal of theoretical biology.

[18]  danah boyd,et al.  Faceted Id/Entity : managing representation in a digital world , 2002 .

[19]  E. Friedman,et al.  The Social Cost of Cheap Pseudonyms , 2001 .