Use the comments of this thread to suggest questions for writing assignment related to touchgraph.
Friendship networks on Facebook can reveal how our social relationships have been structured. There are many potentially interesting things that we can observe about those networks. Lets consider the number of clusters that we find. Clusters identified by the application are the sets of colored nodes that tend to have more connections to each other than to other nodes in the graph. Where do these clusters come from? Often they appear because we have been involved in organizations that build overlapping ties within the group but fewer ties outside of it.
Given all the ideas raised in class and in the books, what sorts of questions should we ask about what is happening in these networks? Differences between different peoples graphs or even in your own graph at different times might raise interesting issues.
I am kinda wondering why some peoples' "nodes" are bigger and some are small. Like one persons bubble will be large and some of my other ones have very small bubbles behind their names. Why?
ReplyDeleteSince facebook is such a popular online social network and it stretches across the globe, are you surprised that your networks are made up of mostly people you already are affiliated with in your life? Does this mean that facebook is a place to stay connected, or a place to get connected?
ReplyDeleteWhat causes different peoples' graphs look SO different from each other? Are certain people communicating with more individuals, causing their graphs to encompas a wider variety of people, or do some people just know that many more people than everyone else does from so many different "networks"?
ReplyDeleteI was actually going to ask the same thing as Shelby lol. Her and Sara's questions are both very good. As for Stacy, I have no idea for sure but it could depend on the amount you are in contact with them. If you communicate with a certain person a lot on FB, their bubble might be larger than someone that you only talk to once a week or less. Just an idea though :)
ReplyDeleteI also really like Shelby's question :) Looking at mine, I noticed that I now have ties to different networks because of my high school friends going to different colleges. So now I have ties to the college UCSB, not because I met people from that network, but because friends from my high school network now belong to that network. So in terms of everyone's graphs, do they have many ties to networks because they have direct relationships between people from the networks and themselves, or do they have ties to those networks due to preexisting relationships?
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ReplyDeleteAfter reading the posts, I found Amanda's question to be interesting. I think that people have ties to networks because they have direct relationships with people that are from different networks than they are. For instance, I have ties with Hocking College because my friend goes to school there...not because I have ever attended that college. This is kind of random :), but I know we discussed in class creating a blog about our hobbies, (Dr. Welser said he rock climbed) was this meant to be an assignment for the class or just an addition to our online portfolio?
ReplyDeleteI was confused about why people are what color they are. I had people from my high school in two different colors and people from other high school represented by different colors.
ReplyDeleteI like Shelby's question also. I would have to add re-connected to the question though.
ReplyDeleteAlso since facebook is one of the leading social networking sites, what does this mean for the future? Should one second guess the information they put on facebook? Could this information one day haunt you?
I had a question similar to Jamie’s. My touchgraph screen had clusters from the same group that were different colors. How does the program distinguish between the two? Could this mean the different colors don’t communicate as much with each other even though they are part of the same network?
ReplyDeletewhen looking at the graph do you see any friends that you think should be in a different group?
ReplyDeleteMine did the same thing Lauren, but I think you are right about the fact that one group of friends keeps in contact a lot more with each other then another group of friends do. I have a lot of friends that know one another too but they were in different groups.
ReplyDeleteQuestion for class:
Do you feel that one of the groups that you had on your touch graph you hardly ever keep in contact with and why do you think that is?
I'd like to know if someone who was born in a differnt country and is now a U.S. citizen has more groups around the world than someone who was born in the U.S.
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ReplyDeletei was surprised by the amount of connections that many of my friends had to each other so i was considering how in such a huge and vast society, why is it so easy to be connected with totally random people? and what does this connection mean about our roles in society?
ReplyDeleteThis application of Facebook was really neat because of how closley it was able to identify you and the many networks you are affiliated with. My TouchGraph has three very distinct social networks where i could identify a majority of the individuals within these networks. There was a section separating one of the networks that had many different colors; How does the TouchGraph put this distinct line spearating one of my social networks? Does this mean something with how i am affiliated with these individuals?
ReplyDeleteMy question is when i looked at my TouchGraph i had three distinct groups, one from high school, one from OU, and the other i could not figure out because it had people i went to high school with and other people that i worked with. That was the only thing i could not figure out about the TouchGraph. Also, i would like to know how the graph works with facebook to show how i know these people and if it can tell if i actually talk to them or am just friends with them?
ReplyDeleteHere is my proposed question:
ReplyDeleteDo you think that the distance a particular cluster is away from you name in the center has anything to do with how much the people in that cluster show up in your news feed?
Here is an example. I communicate with people at OU much more frequently on facebook than I do with people from my high school. However, My largest network is my high school and people in that network are in my newsfeed much more frequently than people from OU. My high school is the largest cluster and is closest to my name in the center.
I liked Jamie's question way up the thread. It took me forever to figure out what each color was. I have 3 roommates and 2 of them were in 1 color (orange) and 1 was in light green. They are all involved with really similar activities and know a lot of the same people. So, I couldn't understand why they were in separate groups. So, I want to know how Touchgraph divided up the connections.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting that alot of my close friends had different colors and larger nodes than my other facebook friends. I wondered if its because we share alot of facebook friends and have alot of similar connections, or if it means that I interact with them the most on facebook? I also want to know why alot more of my highschool friends showed up for my top 250 friends when I have almost double the amount of friends in the OU facebook network and I hardly talk to my high school friends anymore.
ReplyDeleteThis assigment was very confusing, but after actually taking the time to look over the different colors and size of the names of people I'm connected with a realized a lot more. I don't know how it worked, but Touchgraph was able to take my Facebook friends (the ones that I associate with the most from certain groups it seems) and represented how much I communicate with them.
ReplyDeleteWhen I look at someone’s profile a lot of the time I look at how many friends someone has; some have 400 to 500 but then there are some with over 1,000. I generally will not accept a friend or ask to be someone’s friend without knowing the person or have met them once or twice. I think it would be interesting to see what other people’s views are when accepting friends; will their graphs look different because they have so many people or because they won’t keep in contact with those random people they accept?
ReplyDeleteThe overall ratio of the people I talk to and the diversity of the locations were interesting. Many of the people I talk to on face book are not the people I hang out with or see on a regular basis. They are more of the people that are good friends to me but do not go to school here. Face book is a way to keep in contact with my friends and family while I am at school.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that I didn't have a cluster for people I knew from OU. I was confused by this at first, but I think that it is probably because most of my friends from OU don't have a lot of friends in common with me from the other people I know from OU, and the ones that do, are friends with some of my highschool friends, so facebook touchgraph doesn't see a connection between them to be able to create a cluster for people from OU.
ReplyDeleteAfter looking at my TouchGraph for the first time I was some what confused on what each color represented. I noticed that one of my friends from high school was a different color than the color of the group that most of my other high school friends were in. How does TouchGraph divide all my friends into groups?
ReplyDeleteI wondered the same thing Megan did with regards to my hometown friends being rated higher in my connections than those of the high school I went to when I moved. I don't stay in contact with them as much the friends from my high school and yet so many of them are depicted in a cluster bigger than those from my high school. I used to use Facebook much more than I do now for communicating with people so are the previous connections more numerous due to the fact that I made more connections in the past?
ReplyDeleteI as well am a fan of Shelby's..
ReplyDelete'The clusters are self-explanatory:I'm wondering about the following...
"Analyze your non-grouped individuals, and explain why you are connected with them./Also, are your family members closer to the center of your touchgraph than your friends?"
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I'm jealous that other people have more than 2 primary clusters. Looks like I need to join more organizations
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed doing this assignment once I found out how to actually do it. Very interesting to see how many groups/networks I am in and how large some of those networks are.
ReplyDeleteHow do you feel facebook has helped or hurt your personal relationships? Do you find it easier to lie to be who you want people to think you are? Or, is it easier to be honest because you don't have to look someone in the eye?
ReplyDeletei think it can certainly be a waste of time
ReplyDeleteFacebook can be a great tool for keeping in touch. However, it can be used to make others jealous, talk badly about others, "creep" on others. It is good and bad.
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