Online and offline relationships

Abstract

Youth social circles used to be restricted to friends met in the neighbourhood, at school or through extracurricular activities. The rise of the Internet has made geographical proximity and social similarity less crucial in making friends, and digital means have facilitated youth broadening their social circles. However, the proliferation of online relationship formation has led to concerns that they replace higher quality” offline relationships. On the other hand, online means can expand and diversify children’s friendship networks and can empower disadvantaged groups by enhancing weak ties. Online ties supplement, rather than replace, face-to-face connection, and online communication can reinforce offline friendships. Furthermore, whether a friendship forms online or offline is less important than if these newly formed friendships move to communication modalities such as telephone and face-to-face contact with richer verbal and non-verbal cues.