How Do People Become Connected? Community vs. Social Networks 2

Hello Bertil,

Thanks for the comment.

I'm quite curious what you find "surprising" or "bit sad". Uni-directional ties, such as fans who follow some celebrities, are unlikely to develop into strong ties because the celebrity may never get to know the fan. So it is very difficult to have trust in this type of one sided relationships. So personally, I don't think that is surprising at all. I mention that only bi-directional, mutual and reciprocating tie will have more chance to be develop into strong relationships, which is what you called "close ties" right? Unless I miss understood what you meant by "close tie." My impression just from the term is that weak ties are acquaintances, and close ties are people that are close to you, you trust them, and have strong relationships with them.

I'm not saying that weak ties are not valuable. Both strong ties and weak ties has their values. In fact this will be cover in the next installment of this miniseries. I hope you will be back next time to see if it will address your "surprise."

Thanks for the reference. I will definite check out the academic papers you referenced.

Your point about trust in long-lost friends is very interesting. According to my simple model on the 3 stages of relationship, if you simply don't do anything to a strong relationship, that is sufficient to revert it back to a weak tie. But this weak tie is much easier to revive compare to a weak tie that has just been created, because there has been strong relationship before and people will remember that. So people's memory definite plays a role in who they trust.