Week 1 - Blog Posting #1 - Web 2.0

The idea of Web 2.0 changing how we as people interact with each other is a complex one. In some ways the interactivity of Web 2.0 is bringing more people together, but in other ways we may be forming more superficial connections at the cost of less deep connections.

Natania Barron discusses this concept in the Wired article "The Internet is People: Social Media Anxiety and Web 2.0." In this article, she discusses how many Web 2.0 services ask and encourage people to open up their social networks and their lives to a wider group of people. With services like Facebook and MySpace, people are connecting with individuals they haven't interacted with in years and/or know well at all. On these websites, people freely friend others and extend their social network. However, often these "friend" connections are nothing more than superficial ties to people, and aren't imbued with the real support and caring an actual friendship entails.

So why do these connections on Web 2.0 websites so often not develop from "friends list" to actual friendship? Perhaps it's due in part to Dunbar's number. This theory, developed by British Anthropologist Robin Dunbar, suggests that humans are only able to maintain a sense of connection and close community with up to 150 people. Maintaining a personal relationship takes time, and there's only a finite amount of time any one person can devote to creating and maintaining their social contacts. 150 appears to be the limit, on average, of connections that most people can manage. According to Dunbar, as a result of this limit humans naturally tend to organize themselves into groups of 150 or less, be it in office divisions, military units, Hutterite colonies, or WOW guilds.

Social networking groups encourage extending one's network well beyond the 150 individuals Dunbar suggests the human brain can truly bond with. The consequences in the short-term range from creating more acquaintance bonds than friendships, to people culling their friends list whenever it grows too large for their likes. The long-term effects of Web 2.0's increased social contacts are unknown, but should be considered.