I came across this image on an education blog. It’s tres cool. I can imagine it sparking some questions and starting some pretty interesting conversations in the classroom.
This map was created by a facebook intern named Paul Butler. Here is a description of the methods he used:
I defined weights for each pair of cities as a function of the
Euclidean distance between them and the number of friends between them.
Then I plotted lines between the pairs by weight, so that pairs of
cities with the most friendships between them were drawn on top of the
others. I used a color ramp from black to blue to white, with each
line’s color depending on its weight. I also transformed some of the
lines to wrap around the image, rather than spanning more than halfway
around the world.
It’s interesting to see where facebook has a very strong presence, and even more interesting, where it doesn’t. I also like to see all those connections between countries and continents.
Lately, there have been a lot of articles arging that virtual friends are
not the same, or as good as, real friends that you physically get
together with.
Does it make you feel like we are all connected? Does facebook and other social media help you feel connected?
Over 11 years ago I joined an online discussion board for moms with kids born in 1999. It was very basic compared to technology today but the connections were real and the support priceless.
I spend my life connecting with social media between UrbanMoms, twitter and facebook and I don’t know what I would do without all of you guys! My life would be pretty empty.
Great post and cool image!
I lovvve that picture! So cool! I love my virtual family – in you guys, in my facebook friends who I don’t see that often, to my friends who I keep in touch with daily. I find that when I get home – I don’t want to talk once Will is in bed so to be able to connect without actually talking is perfect for me. The support I’ve received from the PPD/PPAD community online has been invaluable –
I totally love my “imaginary” friends… outside of the blogging community, where nearly ALL the people I’m associated with I’ve never met, I have several Facebook friends with whom I have daily contact… we adore each other. I’m thinking of two people in specific, and we are the BEST of friends, though we’ve not been physically in contact yet. It’s cool to stay connected to so many other people I never get to see, because they live in another country across the world, or even across the city from me. I just love social media. LOVE!
And I can’t wait to meet you guys too, Erin and Christine! (All the UM peeps… one day!!)
I love them too Christine. I was a member of a yahoo group called AP Parenting Multiples that helped me get through the first year of life with twins. My girls were the first to be born in our local chapter of Multiple Births and we all live so far away from each other that it was impossible to get together in person much in the beginning.
I can see that it would be a problem if one had only virtual friends, because I do think that physical contact is important for us. However, virtual communities are also important and add value and support to my life. That’s what UrbanMoms is all about!
I love virtual communities. I’ve been a part of several for years. The first was babycenter in 2000 and I loved being able to share in like experiences with other women.
Then I became a part of an online autism support system – I am still a part of the same one I started with and we even moved over and created a facebook group for easier/faster communication.
As far as it not being real – our online group is where many of the moms can share their true, REAL feelings so we are bonded with each other in some ways way more than they could be with the real life friends/family.
And also – Ali and I “met” in 2002 online. We became quite good friends, chatting on msn regularly. She even introduced me to blogging. We met in real life for the first time last week after being cyber friends for over 8 years. And there was nothing awkward or odd about it. We knew each enough through the internet that we knew what to expect – although I didn’t know she was THAT teeny!!