• E-mail this page
• |  Print this page
• | 
• | 
• | 

Do Online Social Networks Lead To More Real Friendships?

Not so, a recent study claims. According to Dr. Will Reader and a team of researchers at Sheffield Hallam University, most people who use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace only have, on average, five really close friends. Ironically enough, that's the same number most people have offline too.

While the average person on a social networking site can rack up 150 friends, most still only have five or so really close friends. Here is a look at the study's findings:

Despite this extraordinary flux of making and breaking friendships, the actual number of close friends "is approximately the same as in the face to face world," said Dr Reader.

There are "good evolutionary reasons" why this should be. Making friendships means investing time, even money, in another person. To ensure that investment is worthwhile, face to face contact is invaluable, he said. But "it is very easy to be deceptive on the internet."

Of all the sites, the majority - 90 per cent - of close friends have been met face to face. "Face to face contact is a requirement for intimate friendships."

Now the article doesn't define exactly what a "close" friend is, so this could be debatable. Based on my personal experience, however, it seems accurate.

And what about that 10 percent of friends who only know one another online?

As for the ten per cent of people who felt close friends with someone that they have never met in real life. "It could be that these people are friends of friends. If someone is a friend of someone who is close to you, that is a good indicator that that person is a decent individual."

Again, I have to confirm that these findings mesh with my own personal experience. The few close friendships that I maintain online were initially prompted by a face-to-face meeting, or were very quickly cemented by one. I have only made two friends strictly online, and in both cases, they were people who knew existing friends of mine.

The study, however, doesn't seem to address the phenomenon of returning friends. Thanks to Facebook and LinkedIn, I have regained contact with a few people that I have not heard from since my childhood. These people have, oddly enough, returned back into my life. Now without social networking, I would have lost these friendships, yet because of them I have these friends back in my life. I wonder if this phenomenon will, over time, affect these numbers.

How does this study apply to your own online experiences? Have you made many close friends with people you've only met online? Do you have more than five close online friends? Let us know.

« On The Eve Of Second Life's First Corporate Strike | Main | Use Your Illusion: Living And Working In A Virtual World »