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..In The Era Of Computer Mediated Communication, Distance No Longer Matters

The social impact of the Internet has been under close scrutiny for many years. One issue that has generated a great deal of debate among researchers is the effect of Internet use on interpersonal connectivity (Sproull & Kiesler, 1991; Uslaner, 2000).

Three major conflicting findings have been reported:
Internet use decreases social ties,
Internet use increases social ties, and
Internet use neither decreases nor increases social ties (Wellman, Haase, Witte, & Hampton, 2001).

The current debate over the impact of Internet use on social ties can be traced back to the publication of Howard Rheingold's (1993) influential book on "virtual community," where the Internet was described as capable of bringing strangers together to form intimate online networks. Rheingold's positive assessment of the Internet conflicted with the negative views expressed by other scholars who regarded online social networks as "the illusion of community" or "categorical identities" that are inferior to the "dense, multiplex, or systematic web of interpersonal relationships" formed in corporeal copresence.

Internet use has been found to be detrimental to offline interpersonal relationships. The "greater use of the Internet was associated with subsequent declines in the size of both the local social circle and, marginally, the size of the distant social circle" (p. 1025). Kraut and his associates dubbed this finding an "Internet paradox" because use of the Internet, a technology for social contact, actually led to the reduction of offline social ties. This paradox argument received further support from Nie, Hillygus, and Erbring's (2002) time diary study that shows "on average, the more time spent on the Internet, the less time spent [offline] with friends, family, and colleagues"

The unique quality of being able to post messages to and from everyone with an electronic address without editorial control or the intervention from the government has the likely potential to...