Online Social Networks: Good For You

February 06th, 2007 | Category: We Media Miami,community,web 2.0
By Travis Smith

Communicating with each other online might turn out to be more than just a fun way to spend time — it may keep us sane, or even save our lives.

An article in the Archives of General Psychiatry says that lonely individuals may be twice as likely to develop the type of dementia linked to Alzheimer’s disease in late life as those who are not lonely. This is disturbing when you also realize that Americans are far more socially isolated today than they were two decades ago, according to an article in the Washington Post.

A sharply growing number of people say they have no one in whom they can confide, according to a comprehensive new evaluation of the decline of social ties in the United States. A quarter of Americans say they have no one with whom they can discuss personal troubles, more than double the number who were similarly isolated in 1985. Overall, the number of people Americans have in their closest circle of confidants has dropped from around three to about two.

Internet to the rescue: Online communities are in some ways helping to fill this lack of North American social networks. This growth of community can be seen in online gaming, in online media, in online dating and other emerging online communities. Certainly, communities online have been around since the days of dialup BBSes, but their accessibility and ubiquity continue to grow.

However, there will always be a need for local, physical community, which needs to be interwoven with the online.

“That image of people on roofs after Katrina resonates with me, because those people did not know someone with a car,” said Lynn Smith-Lovin, a Duke University sociologist who helped conduct the study. “There really is less of a safety net of close friends and confidants.”

tags: 3 comments

3 Comments so far

  1. tish grier February 6th, 2007 12:55 pm

    Hi Travis…I found a lot of what’s discussed here to have been very true in my life…

    When I was working on my undergrad thesis, there was, literally, no one that I could talk with about it. My topic–American Jesus films–was tough to get approved, but tougher to find any common ground among my peers. The girls I knew in the religion department didn’t want to hear it. And film studies community was non-existent.

    Now, I’d spent some “quality time” getting to know the folks on the New York Times Film Forum (from ’98-01) and it was a small group of late-night posters on that Forum who were the ones I received the most encouragement and constructive input.

    We “chatted” about the (dubious) merits of epic filmmaking, the genius of Scorsese, and why Jeff Chandler had no body hair in 1961′s King of Kings…

    It wasn’t just the information we shared, but the sense of friendship and community. Going to that Forum was like walking into that place “where everybody knows your name” (an apt analogy, considering the alpha male of the group was a New York nightclub owner…)

    While I’ve moved on from the Forums due to a change in my “real” life (and much trolling of the Forums caused many of the folks I knew to create their own gated online community) I still remain a constant chatter–now only through blogging and leaving comments. Yet it was taking the time to learn how community works online–through the axiom of “just do it”–that I experienced the difference online communities of affinity can make in one’s life.

  2. Travis Smith February 6th, 2007 4:18 pm

    It’s true — the bonds of online community can be as deep as any offline relationship. And I’ve also felt that on a personal level — and observed it in online communities like “The Well” and in flickr’s vandigicam group.

  3. Martin G. Smith February 6th, 2007 7:55 pm

    Two things have come up, both related, over the past 24 hours. The first is, and also the second, we went to a showing of George Clooney’s Edward R. Morrow film – ‘Good Night and Good luck’. What makes this relevant is the venue, a theatre at the Eric Martin Pavilion, absconded with each Monday for Movie Monday, [ http://www.moviemonday.ca/ ] ably tended lo these many years by Bruce Saunders.
    What is important in the first instance is Bruce’s success in building community through the use of Media, success recognized as Best Practice.
    What is important in the second instance is the story told by ‘Good Night and Good luck’, and in particular the final words of the film, from a speech made by Mr Morrow at the RTNDA Convention in Chicago, October 15, 1958 – ‘To those who say people wouldn’t look; they wouldn’t be interested; they’re too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter’s opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. Good night, and good luck.’
    While the context of the Media today is profoundly different than in Edward R. Morrow’s day, the message still rings true.

    Full text of the speech may be found at [ http://www.rtnda.org/resources/speeches/murrow.shtml ]

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