Connections

In the social-media context, connections represent the digital links formed between people on a particular platform. These links can be thought of as some of the most rudimentary building blocks of what is often euphemistically referred to as the 'social graph. ' When we think about connections 'on' versus connections 'off' a social-media platform, we recognize that the latter tend to be more meaningful and personal but also less scalable.

And the basis of any off-platform connection—friendship, favorite pastime, or mutual acquaintance—is also the basis for a great deal of on-platform interaction. Connections can be made with a perceptible degree of ease. The hard part, we might say, is figuring out how to make them count (and also, perhaps, how to count them, given that we live in an age of metrics).