Untitled - socium.ge

Networked sociability online, off-line 223means of social contact – and holistically evaluate the impact of the Interneton ties, on- and off-line. As the proportion of total Internet users increases,more recent studies may also paint a more reliable picture of Internet use ineveryday life. Just as the telephone could not be understood by observing thefirst few homes in town to purchase a phone, social uses of the Internet aredependent on the existence of a critical mass of users within one’s socialnetwork. Indeed, the majority of recent studies, including a follow-up to theHomenet study by Kraut et al. (2002), have concluded with more optimisticresults about the effects of Internet use on social ties.Consistent with the hypothesis that participants in the Kraut et al. (1998)study experienced a decrease in the size of their social networks, a reductionin the frequency of communication with family members, and reducedpsychological well-being as a result of being new Internet users, and notdirectly as a result of Internet use, a three-year follow-up study by Kraut et al.(2002) found that the negative effects originally attributed to Internet use dissipatedover time. Kraut et al. (2002) found that more frequent Internet usersincreased the size of their social networks, had greater face-to-face interactionwith friends and family, and became more involved in community activities(2002: 61). They also concluded that the Internet was particularly successfulin helping those with pre-existing low levels of social support make newfriendship ties (2002: 67).Recognizing the cross-cutting nature of social ties – principally that relationshipsthat start online do not necessarily remain online – the UCLAInternet Report (2000) found that roughly one-quarter of Internet users havemet someone online (averaging 12.9 new ties each), and a full 12 percent ofusers have taken new online relationships off-line (averaging 5.6 new inpersonfriendships). Katz and Rice (2002: 263) report a similar finding fromthe Syntopia Project: that over 10 percent of Internet users reported makingnew friendships online that extend to in-person meetings, and 85 percentreported that their off-line experiences with online friends resulted in positiveexperiences.Rejecting online social ties as insignificant can also exclude ties that wouldtraditionally be considered central in a person’s support network. In a randomtelephone survey, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found in 2000that 79 percent of American Internet users reported e-mailing members of theirimmediate and extended family (Horrigan and Rainie, 2002: 9). Following thesame sample over a period of one year, the percentage of Internet users whoused e-mail to contact kinship relations grew to 84 percent; 31 percent of thosewho e-mailed family members started communicating with relatives withwhom they previously had only limited contact (Howard et al., 2002: 68).Counter to the assumption that physical presence is required for sociability(see Nie et al., 2002), a large proportion of those who emailed family members