A new study from researchers from Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Liverpool, whose results have been summarized in the Chronicles of Higher Education, reveal what many of us already sensed:
Social networking applications do not increase the number of strong links that people have but rather, they drastically increase their weaker links.
The study investigated users of social networking applications and showed that these users often claim 150 to 200 "friends", but that they also recognize that they have about 5 core friends, on average. Incidentally, the people who are not users of social networking applications also consider that they have 5 core friends.
Myspace and Facebook are therefore really useful to expand one's world of weak links (always useful for job search and for fun), but building stronger links is a more selective process.
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