Alone on the Internet? Hardly

[clarityat3am]

Alone on the Internet? Hardly
Study: Web expanding people's social contacts

NEW YORK (AP) -- The cyber-world expands people's social networks and even encourages people to talk by phone or meet others in person, a new study finds.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project also finds that U.S. Internet users are more apt to get help on health care, financial and other decisions because they have a larger set of people to which to turn.

Further rebuking early studies suggesting that the Internet promotes isolation, Pew found that it "was actually helping people maintain their communities," said Barry Wellman, a University of Toronto sociology professor and co-author of the Pew report.

The study found that e-mail is supplementing, not replacing, other means of contact. For example, people who e-mail most of their closest friends and relatives at least once a week are about 25 percent more likely to have weekly landline phone contact as well. The increase is even greater for cell phones.

"There's a certain seamlessness of how people maintain their social networks," said John Horrigan, Pew's associate director. "They shift between face-to-face, phone and Internet quite easily."

Meanwhile, Internet users tend to have a larger network of close and significant contacts -- a median of 37 compared with 30 for nonusers -- and they are more likely to receive help from someone within that social network.

The latest Pew report, issued Wednesday, was based on random telephone surveys conducted in February and March of 2004 and 2005.

Each year's survey involved about 2,200 adults and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 

[joyfulgirl]

This rings very true for me. I found that since I left NYC the people I keep in touch with are the regular email users, especially the ones who can email during work hours (especially if they have kids). We can send one-liners quickly to say things we'd never pick up the phone to make a long distance call for, yet the one-liners are often little day-to-day things that help you feel connected to each other's lives, and then we'll talk on the phone to follow up on the quick email exchanges. Some of my friendships with people back east who aren't online regularly just died--I know that's pathetic on one level but on another it makes sense.

 

[2numb2feel]

Interesting. It is imperative to note that this article misinterpretes the debate between isolation and integration in sociological studies of communication technology. This is likely because the author does not properly understand the definition of isolation, which is not limited to individualization. Increasing interaction within local communities is considered by many to be an example of isolation rather than integration precisely because it is WITHIN local communities and not BETWEEN them. Many theorists have argued that isolation can be communal and that we are seeing increasing trend towards it.

So, following quotes from the article can acutally be argued to support the isolation thesis, not reject it:

"Meanwhile, Internet users tend to have a larger network of close and significant contacts..."

"The study found that e-mail is supplementing, not replacing, other means of contact. For example, people who e-mail most of their closest friends and relatives at least once a week are about 25 percent more likely to have weekly landline phone contact as well. The increase is even greater for cell phones."

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I think it can also be unhealthy

I know that my Mother spends so much time every day e-mailing my brothers and I think that is strange and unhealthy, if she did that to me it would drive me crazy She is retired and bored I guess, but I think it also indicates an unhealthy obsession with being in constant contact with them. She talks to them on the phone several times a week too.