The Scholars of this weeks reading take a deeper analysis into SNS than the previous scholars. The readings suggest that social network sites exist with two main roles of either bridging or bonding for users. Bridging refers to the connections made between users of different race or class, or bonding which is the connections of users with the same interest and value. Both bridging and bonding are equally present in SNS and can be seen as positive benefits and give a sense of community. It seems to all depend of on the type of SNS or online community the user is involved. I would describe my personal SNS experience as a mixture of both. Although, I have FB freinds and follow twitter users of different social class and race, its is because we share a common interest or have been part or the same organization such as school or work. The more i use Facebook I noticed the type of bonding between users.
2 thoughts on “Benefits and Drawbacks of SNS”
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As I mentioned in a comment to another post, the concepts of bridging and bonding seem to be muddied at times. You said that you have FB friends and Twitter followers with diverse backgrounds, but you share common interests with them. Do you follow people who share common interests (say politics) but have significantly different view points than you do? If we only follow or friend people that think like us, is that bridging or bonding? This might be a good topic for our next chat session.
When you describe the bonding that goes on between yourself and your Twitter followers based on mutual interests, you almost describe it as happening in spite of your bridging with them based on differences in ethnic background or socioeconomic situation. I would instead encourage us to think of bridging and bonding as reinforcing elements. You are bonding with people with similar interests and that in turn causes you to bridge over other differences you may have. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, which is why its an interesting concept to study.