Well Duh: People Who Use Social Networking Tend To Have Larger Social Circles

from the we-needed-research-for-that? dept

Thu, Nov 5th 2009 5:08pm — Mike Masnick

While I guess there are still some people who think that sitting around on your computer isn't "interacting" with other people, I would have thought that the myth that computer users are loners died off a long time ago. However, apparently we still need studies to debunk that. The latest, from Annenberg and Pew found that people who use social networks have a larger social circle than those who don't. And, no, the study didn't just count how many friends you have on Facebook, but found out from people the number of people with whom they felt comfortable talking over important issues. That number was noticeably higher for those who used modern technology more frequently. So again, even though I had thought the stereotype died off ages ago, here's a bit more evidence that being an internet geek doesn't mean you're a loner.

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Filed Under: social circles, social networks

12 Comments

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wnyght (profile), 5 Nov 2009 @ 6:11pm

ah, another scientific observation of the obvious
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Robert Ring (profile), 5 Nov 2009 @ 6:35pm

Thank goodness they have validated my lifestyle. I can now accept myself.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2009 @ 6:35pm

In a related story, water has been proven to be wet.
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- Pjerky, 5 Nov 2009 @ 10:48pm
  
  Re:
  I recently heard that sky has been proven blue. But there are still naysayers out there.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2009 @ 6:49pm

Maybe the same guys can put together another study. Here's an idea:

"Majority of people in McDonald's Drive-thru line are hungry"
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2009 @ 6:55pm

In other news
The Onion is reporting that a 17 year old honor student that was in an accident wasn't Glenn Beck.. So sad.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/victim_in_fatal_car_accident
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Mark, 5 Nov 2009 @ 8:05pm

It's important how to turn the online activities to real world. After all, what the screen shows is far from enough for a happy life~
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Nov 2009 @ 7:06am

People who use social networks have a larger social circle than those who don't (use social networks).

People who (actively) use Facebook and other social networking sites are more likely to be social people to begin with.

People who don't actively use social networking sites have smaller or equal social circles compared to some point in the past.

The study also says that social circles are about 1/3 smaller than they were in 1985 (four years after the first IBM PC, the year after the Mac). So the social circles of Facebookers, while larger than those of non-Facebookers, are still smaller than comparable circles 25 years ago.
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Matt Fredric, 6 Nov 2009 @ 10:25am

A Real Research Question
How many people are involved in social networking primarily to be social, or primarily to drive business?

Of those people, HOW MANY DARN SOCIAL NETWORKS do they belong to?

I am really interested in your thoughts. What is YOUR reason for being social online and how many networks do you belong to?

Matt Fredric
Discovering my Social Identity 2.0 (Whatever that means.)
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Justin, 17 Nov 2009 @ 3:33pm

"FB User" != "Internet Geek"
I can see where this study may prove that internet users aren't necessarily loners but it doesn't really say anything about the geek population. It does identify a painfully obvious observation (people on SOCIAL networks tend to be SOCIAL) but using that to extrapolate any conclusions regarding "Internet Geeks" doesn't really make much sense. I guess that's really just the geek in me arguing the semantics of the term though.
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Planetwebfoot, 2 Dec 2009 @ 1:01pm

Social Networking Research
Yes, this article states the obvious, but sometimes what we think to be common sense or obvious is not necessarily true until a proper study has been conducted.
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- Logon, 26 Mar 2010 @ 9:50am
  
  Re: Social Networking Research
  Exactly! There are lots of "I believe", "I've been told" etc.. But studies like this show the "truth". Sometimes they work fine and sometimes people think that they show more that they really do..
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