Social Connectivity in America: Changes in Adult Friendship Network Size From 2002 to 2007

There is some panic in the United States about a possible decline in social connectivity. The authors used two American national surveys to analyze how changes in the number of friends are related to changes in Internet use. The authors found that friendships continue to be abundant among adult Amer...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American behavioral scientist (Beverly Hills) Vol. 53; no. 8; pp. 1148 - 1169
Main Authors: Hua Wang, Wellman, Barry
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.04.2010
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects:
Adults
Americans
Communication
Computer mediated communication
Friendship
Information and communication technologies
Information users
Internet
interpersonal relationships
migratory behavior
national surveys
Polls & surveys
Social isolation
Social Networks
Surveys
U.S.A
United States
United States of America
United States
social isolation
social connectivity
friendship
Internet use
network size
ISSN:0002-7642, 1552-3381
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:There is some panic in the United States about a possible decline in social connectivity. The authors used two American national surveys to analyze how changes in the number of friends are related to changes in Internet use. The authors found that friendships continue to be abundant among adult Americans between the ages of 25 to 74 and that they grew from 2002 to 2007. This trend is similar among Internet nonusers, light users, moderate users, and heavy users and across communication contexts: offline, virtual only, and migratory from online to offline. Heavy users are particularly active, having the most friends both online and offline. Intracohort change consistently outweighs cohort replacement in explaining overall growth in friendship.
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ISSN:0002-7642
1552-3381
DOI:10.1177/0002764209356247