Virtual Connectivity

I recently joined LinkedIn for the benefits of building my online professional connections network as I search for a final coop and a post-graduation job. LinkedIn, I have noticed, makes fantastic use of the social network algorithms that exist online. The site tags each individual with the number of degrees of separation between yourself and that person, greatly increasing the efficiency of searching your network for a path to certain position or person. There is also a feature which tells you how many connections you have and how many other LinkedIn users that ultimately connects you to. In this way, technology can greatly reduce space and distance between people while increasing network information, providing a bird’s-eye view of your own social network.

However, does technology such as this provide us with a false sense of our network capacity? To what extent can it aid you in your job search to be connected on LinkedIn to an employee of the same company whom you have never met? Does that meaningfully expand your network and provide you with actual connections to jobs? While Granovetter argues that weak ties are strong in that they can connect you to job openings (among other benefits) that you would not otherwise know about, is there a threshold after which a weak tie becomes a non-tie?

Online social networks can be representative of real-world connections, but they often lack the depth of a personal connection. I would believe that an online link to my one time boss would be exponentially more beneficial on LinkedIn than a tie to someone whose only connection was being a Northeastern University alumni. The usefulness of virtual connections is diminished by the power of the social investment in building a professional relationship. Just as a single individual has a limit to the amount of very close friends they can have, there is also a limit to how many professional connections an individual can cultivate (though this can be much greater than the friendship number). However, a key difference between professional and personal relationships is that professional relationships can end and still, years later, provide the same benefits that they once did in terms of networking strength for the positive (or negative) value that a person saw in another. These values online disappear, as a connection is less clearly qualified.