Law and Letters: Facebook, Social Network Theory, and Playing Scrabble

from the Cyberian: This is just a brief part of a super posting by Belle Lettres (Over-Educated Epistolary Geek, J.D., LL.M., S.J.D. candidate, and Writer of billet-doux and long law review articles about federalism and employment discrimination law. Oh, and an Aspiring Law Professor.) Legal types, networkers and anyone just looking for a mix of charm, sophistication and some enlightenment should become site regulars...


Law and Letters: Facebook, Social Network Theory, and Playing Scrabble

Just yesterday, Just A Law Prof asked me:

1. What is the point of Facebook
2. Why would anyone want to broadcast his or her personal details and private information to strangers, and why would we care about someone else's business?
3. What are the rules of etiquette for Facebook? Must you "friend" (v., transitive) someone you've only met once? What about students?


My take:

As Rick Bales says, don't be so quick to knock thes social network power of Facebook. For more on this, read Danah Boyd's work on social networking sites. Danah Boyd is a PhD candidate at the School of Information at Berkeley and a fellow at the Harvard Berkman Law & Technology center.

I really don't like certain aspects of exhibitionism on Facebook. But I understand its social network appeal. I've been learning a lot about organizational behavior and social network theory in the context of employment networks, and so to me this is just the division between the real world vs. the virtual world, rather than a generational gap (although that's articulated in other ways on Facebook).

The Milgram Small World Experiment set to demonstrate that we are no more than six degrees separated from anyone else in the world. If I had to get a package to another person in another state, and did not know that person, I would have to think of people I know who might know that person, or extend the chain to add a link. It's that "I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a girl who...." joke.