Subtitle: Changes in Adult Friendship Network Size from 2002 to 2007 New paper by Hua (Helen) Wang and Barry Wellman. Forthcoming in American Behavioral Scientist (2009 or 2010). http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman/publications/social-connectivity/socia... or just go to my website http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman

Publications > Cyber Society > Other Cyber Society Research Papers

Abstract: There is some panic in the United States about a possible decline in social connectivity. We use two American national surveys (from the Center for the Digital Future, World Internet Project) to analyze how changes in the number of friends are related to changes in Internet use. We find that friendships continue to be abundant among adult Americans between the ages of 25 to 74 and to have grown from 2002 to 2007. This trend is similar among Internet non-users, light users, moderate users, and heavy users – and across communication contexts: offline, virtual only, and migrating from online to offline. Heavy users are particularly active, having the most friends both on- and off-line. Intracohort change consistently outweighs cohort replacement in overall growth in friendship. 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 _______________________________________________________________________