New technologies strengthen, not weaken, connections, survey finds

Ever since they became widespread, the same people who worried about weakening community ties in America also worried that cell phones and online social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace only intensified Americans' social isolation. They need worry no longer, according to the results of a new research survey: Online social networks produce better-connected, more engaged citizens.

A survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that not only are Americans not as socially isolated as many fear, but those who maintain active online social networks actually have larger and more diverse social connections across the board than those who do not.

According to the survey, only six percent of American adults -- the same percentage as 25 years ago -- can be considered severely isolated, with no one they consider "significant" or with whom they can discuss major issues in their lives. But while the survey did confirm that most Americans' discussion networks -- the people with whom they talk about various matters -- have shrunk by a third and gotten less diverse in that same time span, those who own cell phones and participate in Internet social networks have larger and more diverse ones.

Online social network participants are also more likely to confide in someone of another race, and also more likely to discuss important subjects with someone of a different political persuasion, than Americans are in general.

And they are more likely to be engaged in their real-world communities. Cell phone users, people who use the Internet frequently at work, and bloggers are more likely to belong to voluntary organizations in their communities than is the general public, though the survey found that online social networks such as Facebook and MySpace substitute for some civic involvement.

"Our survey results suggest that people’s lives are likely to be enhanced by participation with new communication technologies, rather than by fearing that their use of new technology will send them into a spiral of isolation," wrote the report's authors, University of Pennsylvania researchers Keith N. Hampton, Laura F. Sessions, and Eun Ja Her, and Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet Project. The report is based on a survey of a nationally representative sample of 2,512 adult Americans conducted between July 9 and August 10, 2008.

Despite this encouraging news, not everyone is enamored of the power of Internet social networking. Read this article to find out how some people are choosing to vanish completely from the Internet.

Written by Sandy Smith
Exclusive to HULIQ.com

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