(Photo via LifeDev)
According to a recent PEW survey, Internet, mobile phones, Facebook and Twitter don’t actually increase loneliness at all. In fact, the survey finds that people using these things actually have more varied and interesting social circles (compared to your real life ones for some) — you might talk with people you’d never have bothered or had time to know in real life.
Social Isolation and New Technology | Pew Internet & American Life Project: “This Pew Internet Personal Networks and Community survey finds that Americans are not as isolated as has been previously reported. People’s use of the mobile phone and the internet is associated with larger and more diverse discussion networks. And, when we examine people’s full personal network – their strong and weak ties – internet use in general and use of social networking services such as Facebook in particular are associated with more diverse social networks.”
(Via Pew Internet & American Life Project.)
You can listen to the lead author of the PEW study Keith Hampton right here.
For me personally, online social media serves as a lifeline to the real world and to real people especially during extremely busy times (i.e. crazy grant writing or writing reports). What do you think about the results of this survey? Do you agree?
REFERENCES
Social Isolation and New Technology(download the full report right now)
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