Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Mapping our virtual proximities

"This map shows an index of connectedness, created using friendship links between pairs of 
anonymous Facebook users from a snapshot of the platform in April 2016." 

 
What a fascinating NYT article: How Connected Is Your Community to Everywhere Else in America?

The graphics speak volumes.

At its core, it illustrates a recent study that correlates who we connect with geographically on Facebook; and the implications of that:
In the millions of ties on Facebook that connect relatives, co-workers, classmates and friends, Americans are far more likely to know people nearby than in distant communities that share their politics or mirror their demographics. The dominant picture in data analyzed by economists at Facebook, Harvard, Princeton and New York University is not that like-minded places are linked; rather, people in counties close to one another are.
Even in the age of the internet, distance matters immensely in determining whom — and, and as a result, what — we know.
Coastal cities like New York, Washington, San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles do exhibit close ties to one another, showing that people in counties with similar incomes, education levels and voting patterns are more likely to be linked. But nationwide, the effect of such similarity is small. And the pull of regionalism is strong even for major cities. Brooklynites are still more likely to know someone on Facebook near Albany or Binghamton than in the Bay Area.

That we cling to physical nearness, even as technology offers us unlimited horizons, pricks some corner of the poet in me and urges me to think that we don't yet want to give up front porches, sidewalks, neighbors, and the realness of our brick & mortar communities.


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