Do you think that communication via email and other activities on the Internet are taking away from more direct interpersonal communication?
This new PEW Report on Family, Friends, & Community illustrates the ways Internet usage aids in major life decisions and maintains important relationships.
Some key points:
*email supplements, rather than replaces, the communication people have with others in their network.
*internet users are more likely than non-users to have been helped by those in their networks as they faced important events in their life.
* 45% of internet users - about 60 million Americans - say the internet has played an important or crucial role in helping them deal with at least one major life decision in the previous two years. That is a 33% increase from a similar survey in early 2002.
An article about the survey: Web skeptics, take note: The sky hasn't fallen.
Info posted to AoIR listserv by Barry Wellman (one of the PEW Report authors) and Alex Kuskis.
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