social networks
Digital friendship platforms
Social networks are platforms where people connect, share content, and communicate online—Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, and their predecessors.
The term originally meant webs of personal relationships: Her social network helped her find a job.
That older sense persists in sociology, but the digital meaning now dominates: I spend too much time on social networks.
- likeComparable to, or enjoy
- friend requestOnline connection proposal
- group dynamicsInteraction patterns among members
- communityCollective of connected people
- viralSpreading quickly online
group · join · peer influence · memes · trending topic · twitter · connectivity · going viral · civic engagement · collective behavior · crowdsourcing · influencer · echo chamber · filter bubble · platforms · news feed · graph theory · notifications
- Peer NetworksP2P, peer support, peer review, professional networks, alumni networks
- digital societydigital age, digital natives, digital literacy, online communities, digital citizenship
- systemsecosystems, nervous system, computer system, immune system, circulatory system
- communityneighbors, neighborliness, neighborhoods, kinship, community centers
- community tiesfamily, friendship, neighbors, kinship, neighborhood
- online communitiesforum, online communities, discussion board, forums, message board
social networksface-to-face interaction
Communication with physical presence
meatspace · town square · physical presence · neighborhood community · local community
social networkssocial isolation
Lack of human contact
isolation · solitude · disconnection · loneliness · hermitage
social, society, internet, network, sociable, antisocial, networking, unsocial, sociability