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The internet helps build social capital.

This report confronts one of the great debates about the internet: What is it doing to the
relationships and social capital that Americans have with friends, relatives, neighbors,
and workmates? Those on one side of the debate extol the internet’s ability to expand
relationships — socially and geographically. Those on the other side of the debate fear
that the internet will alienate people from their richer, more authentic relations.

Once upon a time, the internet was seen as something special, available only to wizards
and geeks. Now it has become part of everyday life. People routinely integrate it into the
ways in which they communicate with each other, moving between phone, computer, and
in-person encounters.

Our evidence calls into question fears that social relationships — and community — are
fading away in America. Instead of disappearing, people’s communities are transforming:
The traditional human orientation to neighborhood- and village-based groups is moving
towards communities that are oriented around geographically dispersed social networks.
People communicate and maneuver in these networks rather than being bound up in one
solidary community. Yet people’s networks continue to have substantial numbers of
relatives and neighbors — the traditional bases of community — as well as friends and
workmates.

The internet and email play an important role in maintaining these dispersed social
networks. Rather than conflicting with people’s community ties, we find that the internet
fits seamlessly with in-person and phone encounters. With the help of the internet, people
are able to maintain active contact with sizable social networks, even though many of the
people in those networks do not live nearby. Moreover, there is media multiplexity: The
more that people see each other in person and talk on the phone, the more they use the
internet. The connectedness that the internet and other media foster within social
networks has real payoffs: People use the internet to seek out others in their networks of
contacts when they need help.

Because individuals — rather than households — are separately connected, the internet
and the cell phone have transformed communication from house-to-house to person-to-person. This creates a new basis for community that author Barry Wellman has called
“networked individualism”: Rather than relying on a single community for social capital,
individuals often must actively seek out a variety of appropriate people and resources for
different situations.