The quality of online, offline, and mixed-mode friendships among users of a social networking site.

abstract: The first aim of this study was to compare the quality of online, offline, and mixed-mode friendships (i.e., friendships that originate online and extend to offline settings) among users of a social networking site. The second aim was to investigate the relative contribution of proximity, perceived similarity, and social attraction to the quality of each of the three types of friendships. We surveyed 2,188 members of a Dutch social networking site. Results showed that the quality of all three types of friendships increased over time. The differences in quality between online and offline friendships remained significant over time, but those between mixed-mode and offline friendships disappeared. Proximity did not affect the quality of any of the three types of friendships. Perceived similarity was the most important predictor of online friendships, whereas social attraction was the most important predictor of mixed-mode and offline friendships. Our results are discussed in the light of both interpersonal and computer-mediated communication theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Source:Cyberpsychology. 2012, Vol. 6 Issue 3, p1-11. 11p.

This Abstract was interesting as it looks into the comparison of online and offline relationships and how they develop through time. This abstract states the online relationships were more successful, this may be because the internet and social networking is so readily available to use, anybody can use it, it is easy to communicate with family/ friends who may have moved away, time differences don't cause complications- as they will get the message regardless of time and can reply when they want to.


Posted by Christie