While attempting to come up with an idea for this weeks blog assignment that would fit under Haythornwaite’s SNA principles, I came up with the rather simple idea of just examining the random British kids I lived in a dorm with last year when I went abroad. I went abroad the first semester of my junior year and it was an amazing experience – besides traveling all the time and never attending class I got to meet some really cool international kids I likely never would have met. After a week of being there I was friends with kids from the UAE,
According to Haythornthwaite, the ties I originally had to these people were weak. The first day or two I was on british soil – I really hated the place. The majority of people around me were brits and I thought they were just downright strange. They have a weird sense of humor, everyone has a different form of the british accent (some you cant even understand even though you know theyre speaking English), and they eat mayonnaise on absolutely everything. So I strictly hung out with my American friends and went to places only Americans generally go to.
Ultimately though, as I spent more time around these people, I developed common ground with them and my ties between these “nodes” became stronger. After I got over the whole fact that brits generally wont talk to you unless you approach them and after I got over seeing people eating raw mayonnaise out of a jar, I began to appreciate them as people who were just like us. Realizing I had this common ground with just about anyone I met was probably the biggest reward I received out of the whole experience. All kids are pretty much the same. In every setting there’s the kid whos shy, the kids whose annoying, the kid who studies too much and the kid who gets way to drunk all the time and you just know hes on the verge of failing. Reciprocity existed through us commenting on our different cultures. We all talked about certain stereotypes we each had against each other and which were true and which aren’t.
As far as CMC affecting this in the short term I would say it did not have a significant effect. IM’ing someone a few doors down is just annoying. But in the long term it definitely helped me keep my “Gemeinschaft” going longer than it would normally. Calling
4 comments:
i am jealous of the time you spent abroad! i hope to study (or not study..) abroad as well. It is really interesting how you found common ground and reciprocity with these kids, in sort of.. not having common ground with them. Superficially, someone from America, and someone from England might have extremely different cultural ideologies and practices. But in both being young adults, you could identify with each other, and common ground was found, and celebrated. It sounds like it was a true cultural learning experience, probably more profitable than anything going on in a classroom.
Hey Brendan,
I really liked your post about your time in London, it’s really cool to see a perspective about community abroad, rather than here in the US. I think you hit the concept of “Gemeinschaft” right on the head especially as you created stronger bonds with the kids you were living with. You also had a really interesting point that you thought that kids around the world are pretty much the same. I wonder what Haythornthwaite would say about this? Perhaps ties can lead us to similar feelings about each other, regardless of where it occurs. Really nice post!
Brendan,
There are many different parts of your post that I found interesting especially your realization that the common ground you discovered with the British students can be applied to all kinds of social and cultural settings. I also thought it was interesting how while you were living among your international friends CMC was not a big factor in the interactions of your community, but became an important part once you moved away.
You did a good job introducing the concept of “Gemeinschaft” while focusing on the idea of ties, common ground, and reciprocity. This was accomplished through your use of specific examples, by saying that when you first met the differences between you and them were too great to have anything other than weak ties, but as you got to know them better and developed common ground with them you were able to form stronger ties. While you did a good job introducing reciprocity you might’ve wanted to further describe the responses of your community when commenting on the cultures, were the responses themselves positive or negative rather than the topic.
Great job,
Lauren
Hi,
That was a very interesting post that I found rather enjoyable to read. Looking at your post one question I have is now that your back at Cornell would you consider the friends you made abroad to be weak ties or no affiliation at all? You also make an excellent point about the efficiency of CMC for these types of things. You touched base on a lot of factors of a community like common ground, social relationship, and reciprocity. I hope that you still keep some of your bonds in London and commend you on a good post.
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