Two weeks ago, I attended my 20th high school reunion at Menlo School in Atherton, CA.  Our graduating class was smaller than most – 86 students compared to the typical 100 – and I remember it being subdivided into the cliques that stereotypically characterize high school.  There certainly wasn’t “clique warfare,” at least that I remember, but it would probably be inaccurate to say that our class was that much tighter than others before us.

That being said, at the reunion, everyone remarked how high the attendance had been, and we all had a great time.  People had flown in from Southern California, Oregon, North Carolina, New York (me), Taiwan and Hong Kong.  Even a couple of classmates who hadn’t graduated with our class, attended.  Some surmised that the high attendance had occurred, because our class was unusually close.  Admittedly, I initially saw logic in this rationale, as our class was small enough that there had been ‘inter-clique mingling.’

But I realized that there might have been another, more probable reason for the high attendance: Facebook.

Jonathan D. Cohen

Some nine months before the reunion, I had started to reconnect with my classmates whom I lost touch with over the years. My close friends had already connected, but then, those one and two degrees removed started to “Facebook” each other. The network grew quickly, and a couple Menlo groups sprung up, including one related to the reunion. Many classmates became “friends” with each other, even those who weren’t close during high school.

Three aspects of this phenomenon seemed particularly powerful.

1. Reunited before the Reunion: The class had been effectively re-united before the reunion by virtue of various people in the network having connections to their close friends, which were represented by Facebook friendships. Quickly, the groups (initially 4 or 5 in total) melded into a single group, which was effectively commemorated and hastened by the Menlo School 20th Reunion Group.

2. Transitive Power of Friendship on Social Networks: I observed and participated in the following behavior: when a member of my primary clique was connected to a member of another clique, I felt permission to befriend that person in the other clique and later to the rest of the other clique through that connection; members of other cliques reciprocated this behavior. It could be argued that this phenomenon took hold so quickly, because members of the various cliques had already known each other; and therefore, if the cliques’ members had not had that initial familiarity, the dynamic might have occurred more slowly, if at all. However, I do occasionally get “Facebooked” by friends of friends whom I don’t know, just not at the same rate as with my classmates. (I generally accept these requests, which is quite interesting given that I have never met the person.)

3. Advance Warning: Perhaps most critically, by the time of the reunion, many of us effectively knew each other, albeit in an admixture of superficial and more profound ways. We knew what others looked liked (oh so critical), what they were doing (via Info and Status Updates), who their friends were (via Friends), their taste (Favorite Books and Music), their political proclivity (‘Hussein’ as a faux middle name indicated pro-Obama) and what their families looked like (if they had posted photos or links). Consequently, pre-reunion anxiety seemed to have diminished. I suppose it gave me comfort to know my classmates wouldn’t be shocked by my appearance (Imax-sized forehead surrounded by graying locks), nor I by theirs. Aging can be dramatic and cruel, particularly when you haven’t witnessed it on a regular basis. At least in this instance, we all knew what to expect.

I wonder if future Menlo reunions will have the same level of attendance. It would seem that Facebook and its networks effects are still growing, but might Generation Y be too accustomed – that is, bored or overwhelmed – by their ever-growing networks of friends, which are cultivated as they live their lives?

Only time will tell. In any case, I hope it is as kind to them as it was to my former classmates whom I now forever count amongst my “Facebook friends.”

Jonathan D. Cohen