My Facebook Analysis

After completing the second homework, I found some interesting things that I would like to share - that is, assuming that I created the visualizations correctly.

My Facebook network is comprised of 22 communities, which is not surprising. These communities are differentiated by the people I know, the people I don't know who randomly added me as a friend, my family, my friends, acquaintances, former coworkers, people I went to high school with, etc, etc. Normally I just accept anyone, unless you seem reallllllllly sketchy.

According to the analysis, my brother and best friend from home play two very important roles in my life. They both are the nodes with the highest degrees; therefore they have the most connections to others in my (Facebook) life. These two are also the nodes with the highest values of betweenness centrality, acting as bridges between communities. And last but not least, these two people, yet again, are the ones who are the most close to other nodes/people in my Facebook life. 

What this really made me think about was why my brother and best friend filled all of these roles. The fact that my best friend does isn’t too, too surprising, even though I’ve only known her since high school. As a close friend, we’re bound to know many of the same people. In high school, we did almost everything together – joined the same clubs, volunteered together, did the same varsity sports, etc.

My brother and I have gone to the same daycare, elementary, middle and high school. And as far back as I can remember, we have always, ALWAYS shared the same circle of friends, and that holds true even to this day. Heck, we even go to the same college. I guess because we are always together and share many common interests, we have come to form a social network which includes many of the same people.

A lot of people find it weird how I “hang out with my brother all the time”. But because I have always done it, I do not see the weirdness of it. People usually say things along the lines of “My brother/sister comes here too and we have the same friends, but we don’t hang out with each other”. But it’s not particularly because I thoroughly enjoy hanging out with him. Maybe it’s more that we are not hanging out with each other, but more like we are hanging out with people that are hanging with us both at the same time? But, either way it’s comforting to know that he’s there sometimes, at least when we’re not arguing, because it’s nice to have family around (although I’d never admit it to him J).