The future of social networking sites

   In the article, The Future of Reputation Gossip, Rumor, and Pricacy on the Internet, Solove talks about “strong ties” and “weak ties”. Strong ties refer to close connections, parents and close friends, for example. While weak ties refer the connections with others who we don’t contact and communicate with a lot. According to the author, “ the number of weak ties one can form and maintain may be able to increase substantially by spread of social network websites (33)”. In the case of Facebook, a person can be “friends” with others by one click and keep the relationships automatically after that. In other words, social networking sites enable people to connect with others easily. 

   On the other hand, the number of people who are tired of using social networking sites is increasing. According to Social media fatigue has New Yorkers cuttingthe cord,  Facebook has “1.06 billion monthly users around the globe, while 618 million signed on daily, as of Dec. 31. Paul Guyot, the founder of the analytics firm Semiocast, was quoted last year saying that an analysis his firm performed showed that while Twitter may have more than 500 million users, only a third are active”. In addition, in Facebook Fatigue: How Facebook Can Ruin YourFriendships, the author introduces some examples in which people are tired of seeing their friends’ posts and relationships on Facebook. As you continue to use social networking sites, it is natural that people become “friends” and do follow not only close people, but also people who they are not close with. However, as Solove mentions in the article, “few social network sites allow users to distinguish between close friends and mere acquaintances (27)”. That is why it has become more difficult for people to get their friends’ information they want, while at the same time, people have to see information does’t matter to them. Through such a situation, people get tired of weak ties.

   In this situation, there are movements to create new types of social networking services, which can be use in limited communities. Pair Link and Kazoc are examples. Pair Link is a social networking service for couples. By using it, a couple can share their events and make albums only for them. Kazoc is for a family. Through the site, a family can record the process of their child’s growth. They are tools to reinforce “strong ties”. That is why social networking sites are changing and not only for reinforcing “weak ties” now. In the future, new social networking sites will be created one after another to satisfy user’s demands, and they will influence and change our relationships.