Examples of weak ties might include acquaintances, friends on social media, people you meet at a conference, or even an old classmate from your high school days. Weak ties are less stable in that they involve individuals with whom we are not as tightly connected. Examples of strong ties might include family, friends, and teammates. Strong ties exist between actors who are close and familiar with each other they are usually long-lasting and enduring. One of the main themes for social network theorists is whether the ties among actors are strong or weak. These relationships or ties are often the main focus of study in social network analysis. It considers how actors (often referred to as “nodes” because they may not be actual individuals but could be organizations, societies, or other nonhuman units of analysis) engage in relationships (often referred to as “ties” or “edges”) with other actors. Dating back to some of the research of Émile Durkheim and Georg Simmel (especially his work on dyads and triads), social network analysis looks at the relationships between individuals, groups, organizations, and even societies. Within sociology, the small-world phenomenon and six degrees of separation fall under the banner of social network analysis. In popular culture, the small-world phenomenon is often referred to as six degrees of separation because the original social scientific experiments on the small-world phenomenon (carried out by Stanley Milgrim in the 1960s) revealed that most people are connected by no more than six connections.

The small-world phenomenon suggests that any two people are connected by a series of acquaintances-usually friends of friends of friends. Experiences like this are often referred to as small world stories because they illustrate how we are more intimately connected than may seem evident.

Network analysis definition sociology