Online and Physical communities: The issues.

Now that we have established that online communities are a powerful force in the formation of social reality, we will examine how online and physical communities work together. Many people currently insist that the Internet, new media, and online communities are negatively impacting society and creating a social rift in physical communities . While this view may, at first glance, seem valid and logical, there is little or no evidence that provides credence to this claim (Nip, 2004).

People that take this negative and oppositional attitude towards online communities have several loosely-based beliefs which they credit to online communities. People who cling to this oppositional view believe that new communities are called away from their physical communities to the internet (Lockard, 1997). This supposed abandoning of physical communities is referred to some as “virtualization of everyday life” (Doheny-Farina, 1996). Again, while on the surface this seems to make sense, there has been little substantial evidence of such claims. Critics of online communities also claim that the “solitary nature” of the Internet and online communities create a state of selfishness which further causes the abandonment of the physical community (Nip, 2004). With these claims, people who are resistant to online communities try to convey that participation in online communities cause a dilution of face-to-face communication in physical communities.

Though there have been cases of online gaming addicts who remove themselves from an online community due to an unhealthy addiction, national studies have revealed “…no statistical differences in participation rates in [physical] communit[ies]…” (2004). other reports show that some people have chosen online relationships over offline relationships (Nip, 2004), but surveys in the U.S. have shown no evidence of any reduced involvement in family or social realms (Nie and Erbring, 2000). Other surveys which study specific types of communication in relation to online communities show a correlation to a decrease in letter writing and telephone calls among online community members (Nip, 2004). While this may seem to evince a negative effect of online communities, more intimate means of communication such as “face-to-face communication, public addresses, [and] small group meetings” remained unaffected (2004) showing that online communities act as a substitute for some forms of communication but not a replacement or displacement of other forms.

Other studies, such as the follow up of the HomeNet project which was performed by Kraut et al., show that “greater use of the internet was associated with positive psychological outcomes” (Bargh and McKenna, 2004). Even more surveys have shown that members of online communities are “no less likely to call or visit friends”, and this gives further credence to Kraut and his colleagues’ findings (2004). Other studies have shown that members of online communities and frequent Internet users actually have larger social networks (DiMaggio et al. 2001).
While it is hard to find the true effects of the use of online communities due to the diverse findings of the different studies, there has been little or no concrete evidence to show that online communities are the evil which critics make them out to be. As the internet and online communities develop further, studies will continue to be conducted and we all can hope to better understand the true effect online communities have on physical communities.

Refrences:
Bargh, J and K. McKenna (2004). The Internet and Social Life. Annual Review of Psychology,55, 573-590.

DiMaggio P, Hargittai E, Neuman WR, Robinson Jp. 2001. Social implications of the internet.Annu. Rev. Sociol. 27:307-36 Economist. 2003a. Mar 29:58 Economist. 2003b. Apr. 5:58 Economist 2003c. Apr 26:58

Doheny-Farina, S. (1996) The Wired Neighborhood. New Haven, CT:Yale
University Press.

Lockard, J. (1997) ‘Progressive Politics, Electronic Individualism and the Myth of

Virtual Community’, pp. 219–32 in D. Porter (ed.) Internet Culture. New York:Routledge.

Nie, N. and L. Erbring (2000) Internet and Society: A Preliminary Report. Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society.

Nip J. (2004). The relationship between online and offlinecommunities: the case of the Queer
Sisters. Media, Culture & Society, 26, 3, 409-428. Retrieved Oct. 25, 2006 from
Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Communication Studies: A SAGE Full-Text Collection
database.