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title, date, permalink, tags
| title | date | permalink | tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not a Loser, Thank You Very Much | 2006-01-30T21:07:00-05:00 | /not-a-loser-thank-you-very-much/ |
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Via unrequited narcissism, the affirmation I’ve been waiting for:
The cyberworld 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 whom they can 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 non-users — and they are more likely to receive help from someone within that social network.
A nice thing to read after a full day of meetings, a drink with a former advisor, and dinner with my sister. Except for the part about the telephone — don’t get me started on how much I hate the telephone — I’d say eat that, luddite naysayers.