Social Networking: From Paleolithic to Facebook Era ........

Hadza(1) is a fast disappearing aboriginal tribe in Eastern Africa; Tanzania to be precise.   Hunters and gatherers for several thousands of years,(naturally, women are the gatherers and men the hunters) they communicate through clicks(2). They live  usually in small  groups of about 25.  The groups are loosely knit; members could come and go as they please, no questions asked nor answers sought.  Personal freedom is at the zenith.   Married couple can opt out of matrimony by living separately  for a fortnight, or by  adopting  the dress code of the  unmarried.   To  our civilized myopic eyes their  social norms or traditions are just a blur or altogether nonexistent.   

In forager societies there is no concept of personal wealth.  They live for the present, no hoarding  or saving.  Hunting is not an individual, but a team  effort, so also consuming the  prey.  Gathering may be a n individual effort, but the amount gathered is  so much that it is   shared.    How does such a group come together? Or rather  what holds such a heterogeneous  group (of  young and old, men and women,  active and lazy) together?   There indeed has to be a high degree of give and take or in modern terminology  Cooperativity.  Do like minded members seek out  each other ?  Are conflicts always settled by those with divergent views moving out?     Apicella and team  (3) reasoned that this is a  ideal system to study the intricacies of human interactions   since  prehistoric times. Because the Hadza haven't changed their ways in the least bit except perhaps  discarding the animal skin loin cloth for the manmade fabric. 

The  research paper published in January issue of   Nature (3)  reports   the social   networking pattern among Hadza tribe. 205 adults (men and women)  spread over 17 groups  were studied.  The sample size may not appear statistically significant;  yet considering the dwindling population, there  indeed is no other option but to accept. The affinity between individuals within the group and  outside group  and their voluntary contributions  for  a common cause came under scrutiny.  The methods used might sound a bit trivial. For example person to person affinity was  measured in terms of  sharing /gifting honey sticks ( high prized item among Hadza) and  choosing a preferred  group mate from a set of photographs.  The team concluded that  cooperativity is the glue that holds a group together. This could spring from  genetic,(parents, siblings, cousins) affinal (marriage)  ties or simple friendship.  They found cooperators  tend to flock together,  and often influence the  non-cooperators to fall in line, or else, get left out.   There is always an undeniable  element of  emotional quotient  when humans are involved. Somehow that seems to be absent in this study.   

  

If cooperativity  is at the core of social networking during prehistoric times, is it relevant today too? What better social networking site than the Facebook, a  vast network of friends and friends’ friends.?  Lewis et al (2) mapped  more than 1500 jottings by college students over a 4 year period, from the time they first entered the college till  they graduated out.  In principle could as well  be  a ‘Developmental Sociology”  project.  Lewis and team are cautious in the anlysis and interpretation of their data.   They did observe  is a tendency to seek out those who have similar tastes in music and films  however no trend to influence others. 

(1) Hadza_people

(2) Click_consonant

(3)Social networks and cooperation in hunter-gatherers: Coren Apicella, Frank W. Marlowe,James H. Fowler and Nicholas A. Christakis,  Nature 2012 481,497-501

(4)Social selection and peer influence in an online social network :

Kevin Lewis, 

Marco Gonzalez, 

and Jason Kaufman,   

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2012 109 (1) 68-72;