Assignment 7

It's a typical experience of growing up. Your tight-knit circle of friends from high school graduate and head off to different colleges, different jobs, and different lives. Beyond brief periods of homecoming during breaks and summer vacation, the proximity that held together so firmly the social network that served so well during your adolescence is gone. The network of strong ties, frequent interaction, and shared resources is disolved into a weaker network of varied experiences, views, and skills with dispersed periods of interaction.
In my high school days, I had a core network of friends-- maybe 15 or so-- that interacted in class and outside of school. We studied together, ate together, and partied together. Our frequent interaction led to a plethora of inside jokes to tell and exciting stories to relive creating a shared historical identity. Many of us were the top achievers in the class, holding similar commitments to hardwork and success. While, we all weren't the best of friends, being within the social circle created additional contacts between otherwise seperate actors, reinforcing the ties that held together our web.
However, after highschool that all changed. Most of us went off to different colleges in different cities. There were no more friday night bowling events, common tests to study for, or gossip to catch up on. Yet, despite the loss of proximity, the ties that held us together were not shattered, rather they were merely strained. Our interactions, moved into a more mediated realm. We had always interacted together via phones and online via AIM, and we continued this means of communication to stay in touch. In fact, what had been secondary means of interaction, had become the primary resource for contact. Phone conversations and AIM chats were a way for us to keep up with what was going on in eachother lives. There were little more new events upon which to build our historical identity, but sharing in eachothers' seperate stories hearing what we were each upto in our new cities, colleges, and jobs served as a means to continue reciprocal interactions. Facebook is an especially useful tool for this means, as we can view photos of eachothers, leaves comments, and send messages. Further, our historical identity still existed, and we could always reminisce about times past.
While our web of relationships is weaker for the lack of proximity, there has been growth, as well. The friendships that were held more loosely in high school, have generally backtracked into acquaintances without the reinforcement of crisscross relationships to continue to hold them together. But, for some, stronger connections were made. For instance, myself and the ex-girlfriend of one of my good friends both ended up in Ithaca. While we interacted marginally in high school within our social network, in college we became frequent confidants and party-goers. In the end, while we have moved away from home and eachother, we maintain our social network by having moved it online.