The Internet has mostly been a positive force in peoples' social lives, according to a survey of technology stakeholders and pundits by Pew Research Center and Elon University.
Social benefits of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Apps will outweigh the negatives over the next decade because e-mail, social networks, and other Web services offer low friction ways to forge and rediscover social ties that make a difference in people's lives.
There’s been a lot of media coverage about how social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn impact productivity in the enterprise. But this survey focused exclusively on how how the social Internet effects people’s social lives.
The study showed that 85% of respondents agree that the social benefits of Internet use will far outstrip the negatives over the next decade because e-mail, social networks and other Web services offer low-friction ways to forge and rediscover social ties that make a difference in people's lives.
In addition, social networks lower the communications constraints of cost, geography and time while allowing people to share tremendous amounts of data.
Critics argue that people spend too much time on the Web which decreases opportunity for face-to-face relationships, limits exposure to new ideas and threatens privacy.
However, thought leaders expect technological advances will continue to change social relations online.
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