Race plays minor role in Facebook friendships
Race may not be as important as previously thought in determining who befriends whom, suggests a new study of American college students’ habits on Facebook. The findings, by a pair of sociologists from Harvard University and UCLA, appear in the current issue of the American Journal of Sociology. The strongest attraction, the researchers found, turned out to be old-fashioned social pressure. For the average student, the tendency to reciprocate a friendly overture is seven times stronger than the attraction of a shared racial background. “We both were surprised by the strength of social pressure to return friendships,” says Kevin Lewis, a doctoral student in sociology at Harvard. “If I befriend you, chances are that you’re going to feel the need to balance things out and become my friend, and often even the friend of my friends.” Other mechanisms that proved stronger than same-race preference included having attended an elite prep school, hailing from...