Issue date: 5/16/08 Section: Campus

Alice Feng/the daily northwestern. University of Chicago Professor Cass Sunstein spoke Thursday on the importance of social networks.

The Kaplan Humanities Scholars Program's first Spring Symposium, focusing on how society changes through social networking, attracted about 60 students and faculty in Harris Hall Thursday night.

The event, "Social Networks and the Good Society," featured two speakers, University of Chicago law professor and author Cass Sunstein and University of Virginia professor and author Siva Vaidhyanathan, who delivered half-hour presentations on the digital age's social implications. Communication Prof. Eszter Hargittai moderated the event, followed by a 45-minute question-and-answer session.

Sunstein focused his presentation on extremism in social networks, which he explained through three studies he worked on. The results of these studies indicate that when like-minded people gather to discuss their views on issues, their conviction that their own views are correct will likely be hardened.

In one of these studies, residents of Boulder, Colo., a liberal area, were anonymously questioned about their views on climate change, same-sex unions and affirmative action. The residents were divided into several small groups and discussed ideas on these issues and then were questioned individually again on the same topics. The results found the group collectively became more liberal. The same experiment was performed in Colorado Springs, Colo., a conservative area, and those results confirmed an increase in the participants' conservative views.

These findings contribute to the fear that social networking based on similar interests may further polarize groups, Sunstein said. Though he said a discussion among like-minded people, usually on the Internet, can bring new and worthwhile ideas to the table, often any productivity is suppressed by the group mentality of these networks.

"Networks, through voluntary self-selection, are frequently too insulated," Sunstein said. "The suggestion is that in a good society, when individuals move, it's for good reasons because of the force of the argument, and not because of the logic of social interactions."

Vaidhyanathan argued against the concept of today's youth being "digital natives," or more naturally able to use in recent technologies than their parents. While many students frequently use social networking communities like Facebook or MySpace, they do so because the programs are easy to use, not because the students are a digital generation, he said.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools