Lower socio-economic status individuals are more active in building up weak ties in the electronic world

Sun, Rui, and Laura Vuillier. 2022. “Socioeconomic Status Predicts Who Initiates and Who Awaits Social Connections.” OSF Preprints. August 12. doi:10.31219/osf.io/jvmhd

Abstract: Weak social ties bring people multiple benefits, however, little is known about who initiates social connections that gives rise to weak ties. We propose and tested across 3 studies that socioeconomic status (SES) is a powerful predictor of who initiates or awaits connections with whom, and lower SES individuals are more likely to initiate weak social ties. In Study 1, lower SES individuals reported themselves more likely to initiate and accept Facebook friendship requests. In Study 2, an online dyadic interaction study, people of lower SES were more likely to initiate social connections after a brief chat. In Study 3, across more than 1000 participants, lower SES individuals had more followings (outbound connections) on Twitter, and this result held after controlling hours spent on Twitter and number of followers (inbound connections) on Twitter. Together, we suggested that lower SES individuals are more active in building up weak ties.