![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
Many people ask me what it means, or how to read it. People often think the bigger, more central names are an estimation of who their best friends are. I don't see this group like that. Instead, the big, central names are likely to be a good estimation of who you are. If I see a stranger's MindMap, and I know some of the people in the central core, the things I know about them probably describe the stranger pretty well, too.I always see two major groups when I look at my MindMap. One is "funny, nervous people". They're blue here, north of me. I call the other group "Euro-art anarchists". They're big, in green. Even though every MindMap I've made for myself is different, they all show these two groups. This is because everyone within these groups is a reader of everyone else. If you think about it, if five people all read each other, those five people have made 20 separate friendship decisions! Yet they probably didn't sit down one day and decide to friend each other. It happened over time, for its own myserious but undeniable reasons.
With most browsers, you can hover your mouse over names in a MindMap to see where some people live. People who have their own MindMaps have [brackets] around their names, and you can click to go to their MindMap. Using brackets, you can surf around groups near you, and perhaps learn more about your neighborhood. Often I see core groups all living in the same city.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
distantsun's MindMap even shows a Perth, Australia core, a London, England smaller core, and a cluster of other Europeans beyond that. It's practically a history lesson.Sometimes I see LJ'ers in a solid core of friends... from all over the world. You can be LJ friends with four other people throughout the world. But what does it mean when all five of you are friends with each other? That's 20 independent choices! That has to mean something... but what?
My friend
zeet called this an "unconscious psychological organization". It's unlikely these people sat down and promised to all read each other. And they're not living in the same city, either. Instead, they've met in an entirely mental space, and for specific, unique reasons, found a kinship together.Before I saw my 2 inner cores, I had no clue what they might be. But seeing those groups around me, I can say that I definitely find myself drawn to them! I remember the day I discovered most of those journals for the first time, and just knew this was someone very special. I wondered why the pull felt so strong.
These are not the questions MindMap can answer. It can only show you the data, but it can't explain why. So many things bring people together (or push them apart). What makes friendships grow, and communities form? People have formed tribes, clubs, and parties since the beginning of time. Political parties try to represent the values of groups of people. Forming groups seems part of our human nature, and groups are at the heart of headlines and world events. Loneliness is as big a risk to your health as smoking.
Sociologists and political scientists have looked at many facets of personality and beliefs. Liberal or conservative, hostile or friendly, dominant or submissive? And people share cultural, religious, age, or other bonds. I think all these factors blend to build our friendship networks.
I want to hear your thoughts on friendship networks.
- What factors do you think create them?
- Are they ever planned?
- Is there a limit to their potential size?
- Have you experienced a whole group splitting apart?
Enjoy topics like this? Press here to join our community!
← Ctrl← Alt
Ctrl →Alt →
March 2 2004, 08:02:06 UTC 8 years ago
friendship ... patterns
... hmmmmm ... cyberrelationships .... fascinating.
I would 'friend' you for this post alone (unconscious and psychological reasons? ) ... this really is one of my favorite topics ... however, lol, I think you would agree that my 'friending' is indeed due to more specific and unique reasons
wow ,,, good to see you, jd ,,, long time
March 3 2004, 15:19:48 UTC 8 years ago
i think open source, blogs, and online communities are the best anachistic and non-commercial response to the rise of corporate web branding. i think in some significant ways blog communities are beginning to exceed what a search engine and traditional web hiarchy can offer. what's a better connector and match to a specific and unique mind than like minds?
to like minds,
john
8 years ago
8 years ago
March 4 2004, 10:59:57 UTC 8 years ago
Deeply cool
Wow! I like this alot! Gonna read how it reeeaaallly works. Friendship networks are fascinating. Kind of like the patterns of bees pollinating flowers.
1. Mutual interests create them. Curiosity creates them. A drive to self-actualize through learning from others creates them....Inspiration creates....
2. Some are. Some aren't. My new LJ friends are more & less planned.
3. Time limits them to some degree. But I see no grounds for a size limit. The more the merrier!
4. I'm new to LJ so No. In real life...yes.
March 23 2004, 14:45:52 UTC 8 years ago
documentation?
I followed all the links in "Learn More about MindMap", as well as the links on the mindmap site itself, and still haven't found any documention of these mindmaps. I understand that it has something to do with clusters of users with mutual friendships, but what do the colors mean? What do the sizes mean? What does the spatial arrangement of names mean? I ran across mindmap by seeing a friend's post asking these kinds of questions, and figured I could find the answers by looking at the site... but I couldn't.I'd make a donation if I understood what I was getting :)
March 23 2004, 22:10:24 UTC 8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
6 years ago
6 years ago
March 24 2004, 09:58:30 UTC 8 years ago
March 24 2004, 12:16:03 UTC 8 years ago
Pick it up at
http://ljmindmap.com/pickup/pickup.a
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
March 24 2004, 17:01:09 UTC 8 years ago
I ended up here somehow, whilst trying to map my friends
My friends find me (traditionally) through their friends. I think they friend me because they respect the common friend. Not sure. I've had many 'strangers' friend me from out of the blue. I don't always reciprocate; plus I've noticed if I 86 any 'friend' they go psycho.EXPLAIN THAT! LOL :)
March 24 2004, 18:28:16 UTC 8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
April 5 2004, 14:39:16 UTC 8 years ago
No map for me :/
I've been waiting since March 23rd... Still no map. Is it broken or is it my b.o.?April 5 2004, 15:04:05 UTC 8 years ago
Currently I'm working on a backlog of 1,680 people. Sometimes people give me a dollar and get done next, but certainly I'll complete yours eventually in any case. Sorry about the delay.
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
7 years ago
April 13 2004, 09:25:32 UTC 8 years ago
April 13 2004, 10:22:50 UTC 8 years ago
April 14 2004, 23:07:54 UTC 8 years ago
April 15 2004, 11:16:59 UTC 8 years ago
April 20 2004, 12:29:15 UTC 8 years ago
April 20 2004, 13:47:58 UTC 8 years ago
April 24 2004, 06:58:05 UTC 8 years ago
Mostly, I was very surprised to find that a person, namely
April 25 2004, 03:51:11 UTC 8 years ago
8 years ago
April 26 2004, 09:57:05 UTC 8 years ago
April 27 2004, 08:59:06 UTC 8 years ago
http://www.livejournal.com/users/circus
April 29 2004, 00:40:19 UTC 8 years ago
April 29 2004, 09:12:45 UTC 8 years ago
May 15 2004, 05:51:11 UTC 8 years ago
What factors do you think creates them?
Among them would be shared experiences, spirituality, politics, interests, curiousity, music, and things of that nature (cultural similarities, one might say). Another set of factors that might create the friendship networks are, as you suggested, shared locations which would lead to shared experiences (geographical proximity). Yet another factor might be people who have an interest in each other for reasons which have no apparent cause (emotional factors).
Are they ever planned?
I'd say usually, they aren't planned. Most people just sorta get together based on their shared goals, interests, etc. However, as humans are a weird species, some people might decide to round up people who share some criterion and form a group (a Livejournal Community searching through interest lists for potential members, for example).
Is there a limit to their potential size?
Only insomuch as a person can remember everyone they are friends with. There would be inherent differences, I would think. Using my own friendship network as an example: I like everyone who is on it, but there are notably more acquaintances on it than friends. Thus, I think close friends would definitely have limit, but acquaintances is only limited by how many people a person wishes to have some acquaintance with.
Have you experienced a whole group splitting apart?
Thankfully, not really. I'm still only 18, though, so that might change in the future.
May 15 2004, 05:59:35 UTC 8 years ago
8 years ago
May 17 2004, 09:42:39 UTC 8 years ago
they dont have it anymore but they did
i always wanted to know why they didnt anymore
i find this stuff fascinating
May 23 2004, 01:27:23 UTC 8 years ago
This looks very interesting, but:
I am not sure how to get my map done! I have a crappy 56k connection, so it may very well be that I am overlooking a link or something buried in a graphic that my computer isn't loading. Or maybe I just have "special needs." LOL... Anyway, could you please point me toward the URL/link that I should be at to get started? All I get on the mindmap page is something that allows me to "search" (which I click on, and then nothing comes thru), or to make a donation. Am I missing something? Thanks :)May 23 2004, 01:35:16 UTC 8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
May 24 2004, 23:49:31 UTC 8 years ago
MindMap suggestions
I'm sure it would bump up the processing time, but I've got a request for additional features within the MindMap. This is one of the coolest social analysis tools I've seen, with the potential for genuine research value, and it seems to me that it would be significantly niftier if it wasn't limited to mutual "friends."My "Friends" list is the list of people whose journals I like to read. My "Friend Of" list is the list of people who like to read my journal. Neither group has a monopoly on social connectedness, but there is also no such monopoly for those in both groups! Just to take an example from my own lists: I have
For this, I would propose that on my MindMap, a person who I have friended but who has not friended me should be represented in, say, an outline font; and a person who has friended me but who I have not friended should be listed in parentheses. Links between these people and the others already listed could then be analyzed. This could of course be limited to only the paid, "color" MindMaps (which, being the only ones with connecting lines, are the truly useful ones anyway).
More complex, and difficult to implement within the current visual model, would be friends-of-friends. I know, even just one layer of this would exponentiate processing time. But I have already personally encountered an instance where it would be meaningful data, especially in combination with the one-way linkings described above:
One last minor request: currently, MindMaps are GIFs, which makes the color ones rather ugly due to dithering. 24-bit PNG would work better.
May 25 2004, 04:33:15 UTC 8 years ago
I've often reflected that personalizing and indivualizing each map to one person was a Good Idea. It makes each product meaningful to each individual. As a rule of thumb, mutual friendship bits mean something. But sometimes I see pitiful little MindMaps, and want to pad them out with non-mutual friends. What if your stalker appeared on your mindmap? Or people you don't like? Some emphasis of audience compels asking what is value, if not personal value? Is personal value ungenuine? Or is it the last value really left? In other words, could you identify what people want to research, that would call them to a colder tool, data not about them, a sea of random names?
If you can find an easy way to scan journal content to harvest names of people who maybe should be added to a journal, I will examine it... most of the value I've derived exists in a very clean, elegant dataset. Perhaps trawling through an RSS XML file could direct me to clues. It is another datapoint to examine. But it also sounds like an option. I don't know much about the RSS feeds, but I am skeptical whether they give comment details readily. Do you know?
I think you do raise a point that people you read could pad extra space first. I would like to govern these placements by presence of larger interrelationships, among your mutual friends, if only because interconnections are prettier than disconnected names around a center.
Perhaps there should be some visual indicator of non-mutual relationships, or perhaps not. I could see a sort of
8 years ago
8 years ago
6 years ago
May 30 2004, 05:28:34 UTC 8 years ago
May 30 2004, 08:23:59 UTC 8 years ago
May 30 2004, 17:30:31 UTC 8 years ago
This is quite cool. I can't wait to see mine, even if it takes several months.
May 30 2004, 17:32:09 UTC 8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
May 31 2004, 02:43:20 UTC 8 years ago
The math behind social network analysis
Just, FYI, I recently found a fairly useful document that describes some of the math theory behind how social networks are explored and analyzed. People with a math background (set theory, graph theory, etc) may find this more useful than others.http://www.analytictech.com/networks/gra
June 1 2004, 22:13:33 UTC 8 years ago
June 3 2004, 17:58:54 UTC 8 years ago
How often is the "big map" updated? I presume it uses the data from all the other mindmaps you've made, so it should be changing as more maps are created. But I also guess it probably takes a lot of computation, so you wouldn't want to do one frequently.
I was amused to find myself on the big map at all, then I found out that
June 3 2004, 18:04:06 UTC 8 years ago
But yeah, you'd be on it if you know my brother!
8 years ago
8 years ago
June 12 2004, 15:21:42 UTC 7 years ago
June 12 2004, 17:01:17 UTC 7 years ago
June 19 2004, 03:45:56 UTC 7 years ago
June 19 2004, 03:47:14 UTC 7 years ago
7 years ago
6 years ago
June 20 2004, 14:42:33 UTC 7 years ago
Awesome Project
I found this thing really interesting. I have a close-knit group of friends, and the ones that I conisider "my family" were right there in big letters close to me- these are the ones that have all been friends for years, and no amount of distance (wheather in Dayton, South Dakota, or clear across the country in Washinton) has really been able to make us drift apart. My husband, my sister in law, and my cousin were all right there.Our friendship wasn't planned. We all came together in different ways over a long period of time, and people came and went, but our core always stuck together. Sometimes we'd get people that would go off and form their own groups, and we just never thought anything of it, as long as we had each other it was all okay. It's taken us years to get to that core that's in the center of my map.
There are a couple people that are on the outside, right up above me, that are more my friends than friends with the rest of the group- everyone knows them, but they don't have the "family" bond with everyone that we have.
It was also interesting that the 3 people I have on my list that are connected to me through my cousin in Dayton were next to her.
You also asked about split-ups- last summer my group went through a major split. There were two other people that probably would have been in that inner cluster at one time, at first the fight was between my husband and I and these two, and it shook the stability of the whole group. We tried to keep it just between us, but everyone eventually got pulled in for one reason or another. It was very emotional for everyone, and there was a lot of shifting going on, but eventually we all settled back into where we are now, minus those two people. They're still on a few of the friends lists of my friends, mostly because of emotional or obligational attatchment. This is what I found most interesting about that: Some of the friends on the outskirts of my map still talk to them- but all the people on the inner cluster refuse to have anything to do with them, unless they absolutely have to. I beleive it's because we were closest at one time to them, and now it just hurts too much to even think about it.
I didn't know if you'd find that interesting or not. I did, and besides, you asked :P
June 20 2004, 17:37:49 UTC 7 years ago
7 years ago
← Ctrl← Alt
Ctrl →Alt →