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If you’re worried that your employees or children are disengaging from the world by using the Web and cell phones, relax. A new study from the Pew World Wide Web and American Life Project found that these technologies have not increased social isolation in the U.S.

The Personal Networks and Community Survey is the first to examine that issue. It found that the amount of “severe isolation” has hardly changed since a previous study, which was conducted in 1985 before these technologies emerged. About six percent of adults, roughly the same as in 1985, report they have no one in their life that they consider “especially significant” and with whom they can discuss urgent issues in their lives.

Larger Discussion Networks

The study found that Internet-based activities and cell-phone ownership led to “larger and more diverse” discussion networks. And the use of social media is more likely to lead to discussion networks among citizens from different backgrounds,

such as those of another race or a member of another political party. Facebook and blog writing were specifically cited as helping a person have a more diverse social network.

In spite of worries that using a global Net would tend to limit people’s local activities, the study found little or no such impact. Net users, for instance, are as likely to visit neighbors as non-Internet users, and cell-phone users, folks who use the Web often at work, and bloggers are more likely to belong to a young group, a charitable organization, and the like.

Some kinds of social networking, such as MySpace or Facebook, have become a kind of neighborhood involvement, according to Pew. Any frequent Facebook user, for instance, can describe using the service to keep up with friends, even whether they live nearby. In fact, the World Wide Web is used as much for contact with folks in…

Original post by dhiram