Compare strong ties, weak ties, and latent ties. Discuss how social media places a role in interpersonal communication for each type.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

- Strong ties include relationships such as those with friends, romantic partners, and family members. These relationships exhibit behavior that reflects heightened emotion, interdependence, intimacy, and high levels of closeness.
- Weak ties are casual contacts that are more loosely connected to an individual's social network and are not characterized by intimacy.
- Latent ties represent potential relationships within a social circle that are present but have not been activated.
- According to media multiplexity theory, the number of different social media that friends use is strongly associated with whether a tie is weak or strong. Specifically, strong ties use several forms of social media, but weak ties use only one or two social media. Social media are important devices that help us maintain our strong social ties.
- Although people use social networking sites to maintain existing relationships, they are sites of new relationship formation as well. Social networks are home to many latent ties. Friends of friends on Facebook are a good example of latent ties and a source of new relationships.