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Connected, not just online: Media may be even more social than some think By John Timpane
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | (MCT)
Facebook. Twitter. Time thieves, all of them. Or at least that's how they've sometimes been portrayed in news media, common lore and even the occasional scholarly study. Not the real thing, not really human contact. Trivial, superficial connections that take up time we once spent with real friends, family, community. Americans are already isolated enough: We're the lonely crowd. We bowl alone. Social media just add to the Great American Isolation, right? Not so, says a study from the People who use social media have larger, more diverse "discussion networks" — groups of people with whom they share important issues — than those who don't. And social media users tend to be more, rather than less, involved in their communities. Lead researcher In an online Deloitte survey in the fall, 57 percent said they used a social networking site, with 26 percent consulting it daily or almost daily. So it's a burning issue: Do our communications gadgets — the boxes we hold to our ears as we walk down the street, the screens we stare into, the Web sites on which we post messages, photos, audio, video — isolate us more or connect us better?
The latter, the Pew study says. Researchers questioned a random sample of 2,512 people in the summer of 2008 about whether they used social media, how much, and how it affected their personal and communal lives. Just what do we mean by staying in touch? The Pew study let participants define it. Hampton describes the method: " 'Give us a list of names,' we said, 'of people you consider to be especially significant in your life,' and social-media users had bigger lists." Discussion networks were 12 percent larger among users of mobile phones and 9 percent larger for those who share photos online or use instant messaging. People's core networks — their closest and most significant confidants — tended to be 25 percent more diverse (contain both family and nonfamily) for mobile-phone users, 15 percent for basic-Internet users. Personal networks grew the more people used the Internet, instant messaging and other media. Those who uploaded photos were 61 percent more likely to have discussion partners across political lines. Maintaining a blog was linked with a 95 percent higher likelihood of having a cross-race discussion partner. And those who used the Internet a lot were 53 percent more likely than nonusers to have contacts across race lines. What do users themselves say? An unscientific survey for this story put the question out on Most commonly, Facebookers, Twitter tweeters and
T. Ilihia Gionson, also of
But even among social-media folks, there are mixed feelings and skepticism. On
Thane Tierney of If social media help us be more social, can they help us with the great American malady, loneliness? For at least 50 years, Americans increasingly have been saying in surveys that they feel lonely or isolated. A much-discussed 2006 study in the American Sociological Review, which compared general social surveys from 1985 and 2004, found Americans more isolated. The authors speculated — though this wasn't the main point of the study — that new media might be making things worse. The Pew study acknowledges the isolation, but suggests social media are not to blame. Hampton says, "To be honest, I don't think anyone has a sound grasp on the true cause." Some have blamed the isolating tendencies of suburbanization. Some point to changes in family structure — smaller families, two-job households, increasing mobility taking us further and further away from traditional kinship networks. One thing the Pew study asserts: People do not abandon real-time, real-face friends to go sit at the computer. Hampton says, "They're not excluding people because they're in touch on the Internet." That addresses the surprising finding that social-media users do get out there, to public spaces and community groups. "If you use social media," Hampton says, "you're not sacrificing social interaction and social tiers. You have more of them, are contributing more of them, and get more out of them. Traditional real-life settings for personal interactions always will continue to matter a lot. The Internet matters a little, but it's in a positive direction." How positive? Not much research exists yet; Hampton and colleagues are working on it. Preliminary indicators are heartening, he says. "Despite the hype about information overload," he says, "it appears that these media help you manage your time and relationships to allow for extra connectivity." E-mail and other media can help users do things quickly on a scale they could never do without a computer: say, send an instantaneous message to 100 people. And those updates on Twitter, That is echoed by a post from At least that's the hope. As Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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