I’ve made more of an effort to keep in touch with my loved ones simply by making time for them. In person. Weekly brunches. Dinners. Coffee. I invite classmates over to make homemade meals for them, I plan things in advance, and I check up on people with a quick phone call or a Skype date because I understand how important it is to maintain “real-life” social connections in real-time.
And I’ve seen a tremendous change in how I handle stress now. Social interactions really do relieve some of the pressures from school and work because it takes your mind off of things… forcing you to somewhat “resign” from all the B.S. going on around you by allowing you to be “more present” with who is beside you and understand why you’re with this person in that very moment. Why you chose to interact with this person in particular or why you took time out of your busy schedule to make homemade hummus and fresh spring rolls.
Now… Would I be able to define my relationships with these people as “strong ties” then? Yes. Period. Despite wanting to be this independent woman that does not show any vulnerability, these people are my current support system and though it is natural we drift apart later on, I would not hesitate to call them years down the line because of how much time and energy was spent on fostering these relationships. I do think there is a difference between “online friends” and who you talk to “offline” because sometimes you really do need to face your reality and realize that you can’t keep escaping from your problems. Being online is great, but does it necessitate that your friendship is weaker or stronger if this person can’t even take the time to hang out with you IRL? I don’t know, but I don’t want to get in the middle of that either (mediating between interpersonal conflicts is the last thing I want to do when I become a therapist… can’t do it anymore; it’s just way too draining).
With that being said, I totally get what Malcolm Gladwell is saying when he starts his essay off with real-life examples of how student protests were organized without the use of social media. One of my favorite books written by Gladwell “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” had been introduced in a psychology class as a way to recognize the signs around you and to better trust your instincts with real-world examples that had been “tried and tested” using social cognition. I think the main difference in Gladwell’s argument is that he assumes that weak ties based on Twitter and FB are not necessarily a “good, productive” way to build relationships… that Twitter activism is somewhat “less than” organized protests where sit-downs were congregated by word of mouth, by friends of friends, or a kind of frenzy that fueled solidarity.
“The kind of activism associated with social media isn’t like this at all. The platforms of social media are built around weak ties. Twitter is a way of following (or being followed by) people you may never have met. Facebook is a tool for efficiently managing your acquaintances, for keeping up with the people you would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with. That’s why you can have a thousand “friends” on Facebook, as you never could in real life.”
And yet… I think if used correctly, social media can be such a powerful tool when it pulls strong voices and influencers from all around the world by bringing them together to enact change or policy. Sometimes celebrities do possess the platform to “bring attention” to what is important to them, what has personally affected them, etc. (despite critics who do deem this to be a kind of “publicity stunt”) and it can bring enough change to overlook the superficialities.
I’ve seen petitions that require a certain amount of signatures to send to Congress (requiring that the KKK be recognized as a terrorist group when the Klansmen had made a petition that the organizers of Black Lives Matter be viewed as a political threat as well) or online fundraisers like Patreon that gives donations to support your favorite artists and even crowdfunding campaigns to give strangers the surgery that they need to save their life, to help the fallen lives of Black men and women due to police brutality, and so on and so forth.
Studies have shown that weak ties are, in fact, “better” in terms of networking when you need to get a job and hear from a trusted acquaintance that they’re hiring. They are more likely to give you the heads up or put in a good word for you because you were at science camp together or happened to run into each other at a long DMV line. Chances are your weak ties are “more helpful” than your “stronger ties” because they provide you the opportunity to “open up” and “broaden your horizons” when you feel “stuck” or need a change.
In Meg Jay’s book “The Defining Decade: Why your twenties matter—and how to make the most of them now” she has an entire chapter on the importance of weak ties that I transcribed in my Evernotes last year:
“Weak ties give us access to something free. They know things and people that we don’t know. Information and opportunity spread farther and faster through weak ties than through close friends because weak ties have fewer overlapping contacts. Weak ties are like bridges you cannot see all the way across so there is no telling where they might lead.” (21)
Weak ties force us to communicate from a place of difference, to use what is called elaborated speech that does not presume the listener thinks in the same way or knows the same information. We need to be more thorough when we talk to weak ties, and this requires more organization and reflection — which promotes, and sometimes even force, thoughtful growth and change. (22)
Funny enough, the book was lent out to me by a roommate who I consider to be more of an acquaintance than a friend. We share mutual interests, a passion for the U.K. and weird trinkets, but it never fully developed into the kind of friendship where I call her if I had a tire break down and needed a ride. This book brought my attention to how weak ties can be valued and maintained if we decide to treat these said ties as “potential for more” instead of dismissing them as artificial. Sometimes our strong ties may, in turn, actually be the “weak ties” that we end up having to sever because they were hindering our growth.
So perhaps, weak ties are not necessarily a bad thing. At times you may find compassion from a stranger who noticed you were down on your luck and asked you about your day or send a hug online by pressing the “Poke” button. In many cases nowadays, strangers can even send you support by compensating you during a difficult time. Venmo, a money-exchanging app, has been used predominantly by college students and millennials to make group dinners easier to split the bill or to pay your roommate rent/utilities for the month… in terms of its social function, “Venmo me” has become the norm of asking for reimbursements. This has also “bridged” the awkward gap of “giving” your friends money when you see that they skipped lunch or need financial assistance. Instead of “asking” your friends to borrow money, sometimes your friends or family proactively send you money in case you need it for a rainy day. Your supporters, in this sense, can also be considered “weak ties” if they “passively” like your status posts but have nothing to say to you in person… is this the person you want to keep as a potential contact?
One of the main differences I’ve noticed this quarter is that I’m not on FB anymore, but I am on Twitter this time around. Actively (somewhat). I write my thoughts out, I share articles, product reviews, or favorite tunes and TV shows, etc. and I feel no pressure to “perform” or “brag” because there’s no “audience” other than the people who do genuinely follow me and retweet my stuff out of shared interest. My Twitter, however, is also under a pseudonym compared to being on FB with my “real self” where I feel this weird, intrusive “cyber-obligation” to respond to acquaintances or pretend like I care about them jetting off to Hawaii again with their parents’ money. It’s a give and take, I feel, that perhaps I am still not used to. Gladwell makes an interesting argument in terms of weak ties being superficially on the surface level, but there are levels to any kind of relationship. Just because it’s on Twitter or any social media platform doesn’t necessarily negate the impact that the internet has provided for strangers all around the world.
My mind is calmer now. I’m less anxious. There’s a feeling of “zen” that I’m not normally accustomed to at all unless it’s paired with laying on the floor during yoga in the log position called “corpse pose” or shavasana and I finally have a chance to take a series of deep breaths… food comas also have a tendency to provide a similar “togetherness” as well, I suppose, of mind (‘Why did I eat all of this food?’) and body (‘Sleepy time! ZzZzZ...)~ and I think a lot of it has to do with some kind of balance. I’m learning something new everyday when I’m on Twitter and I get to follow whoever I want without necessarily needing to “reply back” to their text vs. actually making real connections IRL to release some of those pressures. Sometimes good company is all you really need.
Comments