For nearly ten years, I have spent my Monday evenings attending rehearsals for my amateur choir(合唱队). Mondays are not my favourite day, and I often arrive in a bad mood, but by the end of the rehearsal, I usually feel energized. The singing does me good. So do the people. With a few exceptions, I would not describe my fellow choir members as close friends. We exchange brief chats, smiles and jokes-—but that is enough for me to come away feeling a little better about the world.
There is no choir practice now, and won’t be for a long time. I miss it. In lockdown, I do not feel short on emotional support, but I do feel short of friendly faces and casual conversations. Another way of putting this is that I miss my “weak ties”.
In 1973, Mark Granovetter, a sociology professor at Stanford University, published a paper entitled “The Strength of Weak Ties”. Until then, scholars had assumed that an individual’s well-being depended mainly on the quality of relationships with close friends and family. Granovetter showed that quantity mattered, too. He categorized a person’s social world as “strong ties” and “weak ties”. His central insight was that for new ideas, weak ties are more important to us than strong ones. As Granovetter pointed out, the people whom we often talk to swim in the same pool of information as we do. We depend on acquaintances whom we see infrequently to bring us news of opportunities.
This was the idea behind the Pixar building, the design of which was overseen by Steve Jobs. The building has a large central hall through which employees from different departments have to pass several times a day. Jobs wanted colleagues to bump into each other and shoot the breeze(闲聊). He believed in the power of these seemingly random conversations to fire up creativity.
Encounters with weak ties can be good for our mental well-being, too. Gillian Sandstrom, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Essex, investigated the extent to which people get happiness from weak-tie relationships. She found that on days when a person had a greater number of casual interactions with weak ties-say, a local barista(咖啡师), a neighbour, a member of yoga class-they experienced more happiness and a greater sense of belonging.
For these reasons, we should continue to find ways to cultivate weak-tie relationships, during lockdown and beyond. Sandstrom adds that we can also engage in more weak-tie-style interactions with our strong ties. The goal is to let others know that you are thinking of them without asking for a great deal of time, energy or attention.
50. What can we learn about the author from the article?
A.She has been a singer from an early age. |
B.She finds her Mondays quite difficult. |
C.She barely knows most of her fellow choir members. |
D.She has trouble maintaining friendships during lockdown. |
51. According to Mark Granovetter, it’s less likely for you to get new ideas from your strong ties mainly because you tend to ________.
A.have the same concerns | B.avoid conflicts of interests |
C.see each other too frequently | D.be exposed to similar facts and ideas |
52. According to the article, building networks of weak-tie relationships can NOT ________.
A.make you feel connected | B.improve your social skills |
C.put you in a cheerful mood | D.provide you with inspiration |
53. According to the article, which of the following statements is true?
A.It’s important to regularly interact with all of our friends. |
B.It’s difficult to achieve a balance between strong- and weak-tie friendships. |
C.It’s unnecessary to spend a lot of time strengthening friendship with our strong ties. |
D.It’s a pity that people have had to shrink their social networks during lockdown. |