Virtual pals 'soar in importance'

[stubacca68]

[Virtual communities are as important as their real-world counterparts, many members of online communities believe.
A survey found 43% of online networkers from the US felt "as strongly" about their web community as they did about their real-world friends.

It also revealed net-users had made an average of 4.6 virtual pals this year.

The survey, from the US-based Center for the Digital Future, of 2,000 individuals forms part of a six-year study into attitudes to the web.
Each year, the University of Southern California researchers publish data tracking the changing opinions of the same American households to the internet.

On the results of their sixth report, Jeffrey Cole, director of the centre, said: "More than a decade after the portals of the worldwide web opened to the public, we are now witnessing the true emergence of the internet as the powerful personal and social phenomenon we knew it would become."

Social interaction on the web has become a phenomenon in recent years, with the rise of sites like MySpace and Bebo, and the development of virtual worlds such as Second Life.

However, the report also discovered virtual friendship is not confined to the PC - those surveyed had met an average of 1.6 of the friends they had made online in person.

Keeping in touch

It also found 40% of net-users were using the web to stay in contact with people, and 37.7% believed the internet was enabling them to communicate more with friends and family.

The survey also revealed 7.4% of those surveyed kept a blog, double the figure in 2003; and in that period, the number of people posting pictures online grew from 11% to 23.6%.

Mr Cole added: "The internet has become an essential source of entertainment, information and communication... However, in 2006, we are beginning to measure real growth and discover new directions for the internet as a comprehensive tool that Americans are using to touch the world."

More than three-quarters of Americans are net users, spending an average of 8.9 hours online a week, according to the team. And, for the first time in 2006, the number of women logging on equalled the number of men.

Taken from the BBC website

so in our new age its more important to have virtual friends as opposed to real humans? are they saying that to improve your social skills you need a computer instead of doing it the way my generation did it by interacting with other kids?

[TGLucario]

well, so ppl may have agoraphiobia, so they can use the internet to talk to friends, like i do, & the good side is, ya wont have mug ppl in real life with "idiot" friends!

[Rocol]

The Internet is part of the problem with todays youths, they can hardly spell correctly, due to using ' Net Language ' and they don't get out into the big wide world out there .. they just sit at the comp