A New Religion

Is Online Social Networking The Latest Religious Group?

Online social networking is essentially a virtual community organization or group of organizations that are composed of nodes, which are individual actors within the network, consisting of people or organizations that are connected by interdependency, as a reciprocal relationship develops with others in forms such as mutualism or symbiosis. The relationships become ties, which are now composed of individual actors within a particular network. The ties are the relationships between the actors and the perceived social capital of other individual actors.

Potentially, such networks can play a valuable role in determining the way problems should be solved through feedback from the members of the network’s group. Several metrics are used to analyze particular networks, and are studied for their effect and etiology for their existence. Regardless, the traits of an online network are similar to the traits of a mainstream religion in regards to fulfilling social needs of a particular person, as well as satisfying the emotional needs and desires of such a person. Loyalty traits have been witnessed within such networks, as well as the exclusion of others in these networks as well.

In a way, you could say the moderator of a particular individual online networking site is a type of God with this new virtual religion.

Dan Abshear