Social network

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A social network[1], as the term suggests, is a system that connects various individuals or organizations, also known as social actors. It’s not just about online platforms like Facebook[2] or Twitter[3], but about the intricate web of connections between these actors. The relationships, known as dyadic ties, allow for interaction and communication. By studying these networks, we can identify patterns and understand how influence works within the group. The field of social network analysis has roots in several areas such as social psychology, sociology, statistics, and graph theory. It’s an evolving interdisciplinary field that uses various methods to analyze these social structures and provides theoretical explanations for the observed patterns. Key figures like Georg Simmel and Jacob Moreno have made significant contributions to this field.

Terms definitions
1. social network.
1 A social network is a structure made up of individuals or organizations, known as actors, and the relationships or connections between them, referred to as ties. It is a field deeply rooted in disciplines such as sociology, psychology, statistics, and graph theory. The analysis of these networks, known as Social Network Analysis, involves identifying patterns, pinpointing influential entities, and studying how these networks evolve over time. It uses a variety of methodologies to study these structures. The development of this field has been significantly influenced by figures like Georg Simmel and Jacob Moreno, who made significant contributions to social network theories and methods. The study of social networks is interdisciplinary in nature, employing diverse methods to analyze network dynamics and patterns.
2 A social network, as the term suggests, is a system that connects various individuals or organizations, also known as social actors. It's not just about online platforms like Facebook or Twitter, but about the intricate web of connections between these actors. The relationships, known as dyadic ties, allow for interaction and communication. By studying these networks, we can identify patterns and understand how influence works within the group. The field of social network analysis has roots in several areas such as social psychology, sociology, statistics, and graph theory. It's an evolving interdisciplinary field that uses various methods to analyze these social structures and provides theoretical explanations for the observed patterns. Key figures like Georg Simmel and Jacob Moreno have made significant contributions to this field.
2. Facebook ( Facebook ) Facebook, now known as Meta Platforms, is a major Internet company that started as a social networking platform. Founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, Facebook expanded rapidly from Harvard to other universities and later to the general public, becoming a global phenomenon. It is known for its user-friendly interface and various features such as Groups, the Developer Platform, and Facebook Dating. Despite facing criticism for issues like privacy breaches and the spread of fake news, Facebook has remained a dominant player in the online world. It has made significant strides in the field of technology, including the development of its unique data storage system, the use of PHP for its platform, and the launch of the Hack programming language. In recent years, the company has shifted its focus to the metaverse, a virtual reality space where users can interact with a computer-generated environment.
Social network (Wikipedia)

A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for analyzing the structure of whole social entities as well as a variety of theories explaining the patterns observed in these structures. The study of these structures uses social network analysis to identify local and global patterns, locate influential entities, and examine network dynamics.

Evolution graph of a social network: Barabási model.

Social networks and the analysis of them is an inherently interdisciplinary academic field which emerged from social psychology, sociology, statistics, and graph theory. Georg Simmel authored early structural theories in sociology emphasizing the dynamics of triads and "web of group affiliations". Jacob Moreno is credited with developing the first sociograms in the 1930s to study interpersonal relationships. These approaches were mathematically formalized in the 1950s and theories and methods of social networks became pervasive in the social and behavioral sciences by the 1980s. Social network analysis is now one of the major paradigms in contemporary sociology, and is also employed in a number of other social and formal sciences. Together with other complex networks, it forms part of the nascent field of network science.

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