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Understanding Social Networks

How and why our social background, friends, neighborhoods, groups, and organizations keep us connected or apart

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Social Networks and Inequality

Charles Kadushin Ph.D. on March 7, 2012

Social networking, which claims to make connections and bring people together, paradoxically exacerbates social divisions and inequalities. Social networks are inherently unfair and exclusionary. They operate on the principle of homophily—a Greek derived word that means "love of same," or, more colloquially, "birds of a feather flock together."

Social networking, which claims to make connections and bring people together, paradoxically exacerbates social divisions and inequalities. Social networks are inherently unfair and exclusionary. They operate on the principle of homophily—a Greek derived word that means "love of same," or, more colloquially, "birds of a feather flock together."