Contrary to the widely-cited “Strength of Weak Ties” theory, weak social ties often aren’t helpful for getting information. Instead, relationships that bridge across social circles matter more.
https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2024/best-way-to-stay-in-loop-know-people-from-other-social-circles
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Hi, 👋 I’m Dr. Zachary Neal, a professor of psychology at Michigan State University and author of this study. Ask me anything!
Original Article (open access): [https://doi.org/10.1017/nws.2024.12](https://doi.org/10.1017/nws.2024.12)
Data: [https://osf.io/jp2d9/](https://osf.io/jp2d9/)
tl;dr: The [Strength of Weak Ties](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2776392) is one of the most widely cited social science theories of all time. It suggested that your weak ties (e.g., casual acquaintances) are more useful than your strong ties (e.g., close friends) for getting new information. However, I show that this theory is based on some assumptions about social networks that are almost never true in reality, and so its claim is often wrong. What’s important is not whether a relationship weak or strong, but whether it is a “bridge” to another part of the social world.
Makes sense, I imagine it used to be knowing a lot of people from different backgrounds meant you learned more about all these different angles of life, but nowadays with the huge ramp up in access to global information, that kind of knowledge is freely available, whereas the knowledge you would gain from someone in a context of being a close and trusted friend is probably a lot harder to find elsewhere.