Just answering for myself there is no relationship. Facebook I try to limit to "people I know" meaning I know you face to face. F2f = Online minus some who are not online. E-mail list friends in health support really if they send friendly e-mails they are online friends(?). This does not seem to be quantifiable other than by some time limit based on my time behind my home computer. Peter Timusk B.Math statistics. BA legal studies Legal studies of the Information Age Vice President Computers for Communites School work blog http://notebook.webpagex.org Some papers www.webpagex.org -----Original Message----- From: citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org [mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org] On Behalf Of Barry Wellman Sent: October-16-11 7:06 PM To: communication and information technology section asa; aoir list Subject: [CITASA] How many Friends online = one offline? Academic riend asks "how many internet friends = one f2f friend". He's getting grief f2f and naches with his internet relationships. Reliable answers, anyone? Either ethnographic, quant. I told him that it is hard to disentangle becuase most online relationships are also in-person. But like many of us, he is involved in organizing conferences etc online with people he rarely sees. Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ CITASA mailing list CITASA@list.citasa.org http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org