A Network or a Facebook Group: What is the Difference?

Social media plays a tremendous role in my personal networks and how I receive information. I use many social media platforms, but as with many of my classmates, I’m going to focus on Facebook since it is the platform that I use most. I am dependent on Facebook, and I don’t try to hide it.

It’s easy for me to see my defined networks; they’re one and the same with Facebook groups. At the moment, I’m an admin of 14 Facebook groups, and I’m a member of another 50 or so, which leaves me at about 65 groups.  Of these groups, I’d say that there are 10 from which I regularly receive information. The rest are either inactive, or I have muted notifications.

Posts in these 10 active groups make up the majority of my notifications. I looked at my notifications at this very moment, and sure enough, 5 out of my last 7 notifications were from groups.

Not only do these Facebook groups make up the majority of my notifications, but in case I’m too lazy to click on that little, light blue earth, Facebook algorithms have astutely decided to include recent posts in these groups at the top of my news feed.

So it’s easy for me to identify that the majority of my network information comes through Facebook groups, but how does that change the structure of my social networks? What would my networks look like if Facebook groups were nonexistent?

I think these groups have made all of my networks less central (to use language from the orgnet article). Any one member could be removed from a network, but there would be no information lost. Similarly, information transfers at the same rate between all members of a Facebook group, no matter their direct relationship to me. I’ll receive information from my best friend at the same rate that I will receive information from an acquaintance. These groups have also reduced the need for “boundary spanners.” For example, I don’t know everyone in my major. Without Facebook groups, I would need to use someone as a bridge between me and those who I do not know, but with social media, I can communicate just as easily with a group member as I can with a friend.

In regards to the things that I post, the same logic applies, simply in reverse. I release information to many more acquaintances than I would without Facebook groups. I am much more likely to receive feedback (a like or a comment) from closer friends, but it is safe to assume that acquaintances are seeing the information as well.

One takeaway I have from this short reflection is that Facebook has the power to make my speech weaker or stronger. I chose who can receive my information, but Facebook decides how high my information lands on someone’s news feed. I find the article about Facebook’s short experiment hilarious, and wonder how many other social experiments the company has conducted on its users.