The Social Network? - Innovation

“A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature,” wrote Aristotle in 350 B.C.E. Aristotle was not the first nor the last to observe this seemingly innate tendency of human beings to form social ties and create a dense web of relationships. The term “social network” has now become inextricably linked with our web-based behavior. Cyber networks are similar to those formed in person, but have several unique aspects, according to “Social networks on the Internet” in the World Wide Web Journal.

These features include the ability to interact across very large distances and the possibility of communicating “simultaneously with many members” by posting information that will be visible to all friends on a Facebook News Feed, Twitter Feed or other sharing tool (1). The average Facebook user reaches 35% of their friends with each post, and Facebook users will typically reach 61% of their friends within a month, according to a study conducted by Stanford University professors using post viewing information provided by Facebook Data Science (2).

What if someone told you they could look at your brain and tell how many friends you have on Facebook? Now, science is getting close. An article published by the Proceedings of the Royal Society found that online social network size is correlated with grey matter density in several regions that are implicated in social aspects of human cognition (3). The study posits that greater grey matter density in these brain areas may contribute to improved cognitive skills that help these individuals sustain relationships. These enhanced skills are then manifested as larger circles of friends on social networking sites like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

thinking-edit — Fabiana Zonca on Flickr; altered by Marisa Chow.

However, the online community does not solely consist of individuals with socially enhanced brains. Recently, scientists have begun making strides in their investigations of how less-social beings participate in online communities. It is not just social beings contributing to social networks, but how and why do lonely people interact over the web?

Some studies have indicated that lonely people prefer to interact with others online instead of in person, due to a perceived reduction in risk (4). Loneliness, associated with poor social competence, anxiety and lower levels of well-being, may incentivize web-based relationships and communities due to the sense of anonymity or security they provide (5).

Yet for some lonely people, the use of social networking sites may cause a further decline in well-being due to emotional contagion. Just as diseases are transferred from person to person, moods and longer-lasting emotional states like depression can be purposely or unknowingly passed through a social web. A 2014 study published by the National Academy of Sciences reveals that emotional contagion applies in online interactions, not just in person. In fact, when a person sees Facebook posts that contain negative words, as determined by a linguistic software, they are more likely to write posts with negative words (6).

Just as diseases are transferred from person to person, moods and longer-lasting emotional states like depression can be purposely or unknowingly passed through a social web.

As part of the study, Facebook removed a certain percentage of either positive or negative posts from the News Feeds of 689,003 random users. Users who had positive posts removed from their News Feeds for a week were more likely to use negative words in their posts. These negative emotions were transmitted via nonverbal or verbal cues, consistent with the phenomenon of emotional contagion. In addition, people who viewed a greater percentage of positive posts for a week in turn had a more positive influence on their friends. This result further cements the idea that each post and mobile upload that we see online may influence us unconsciously.

Many other studies have also found that social networking site use can enhance mood. “Self-disclosure” on these sites has been positively associated with social support, according to a study published in the Journal of Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Networking (4). It seems that the more that lonely people share online, the more likely they are to receive responses that make them feel cared for. This seems to be a powerful motivation for self-disclosure, since this increased social support was shown to increase the subjects’ level of well-being. Self-disclosure alone had no impact on well-being, demonstrating that this effect depends on online interaction and the building of a digital community.

The establishment of these online communities is not only beneficial for their users. As seen with popular campaigns such as the “Ice Bucket Challenge,” social networking sites have begun to play a central role in efforts to benefit communities beyond those established on the web. A campaign by Facebook to encourage users to share their organ donor status with friends was shown to have a huge impact on perception, simply by helping to normalize the behavior (7). A similar campaign stimulating social networking site users to share where they volunteer or make charitable donations could potentially have a comparable effect. Now that’s positive peer pressure!