Social Connectivity in America

After reading Wellman's article, I wanted to comment on the section arguing that connections through the media has actually increased communication between friends and family. I would first like to point out that I think it is unfair to put communication through the telephone and communication through the internet in the same class. The telephone is a significantly more personal form of communication than the internet as you are lively conversing with another person. The panic is based around the idea that we will no longer be able to have face to face communication and the lack of connections we make will decrease. I believe telephone communication is not an issue but making connections through the internet is. The article also gives us five bullets explaining the positive effects of media communication. These arguments state that people using the internet to communicate are spending just as much time with their friends and are actually making more connections by using the internet. I have no doubt that they may be still spending time with their friends, but these new "connections" they are making are fake. I know that the internet is necessary for long distance business at times, but people are becoming more and more reliant on the internet for communication and thus we are headed in a direction where face to face contact will become less and less relevant. Before I took this class I was already very interested in this debate, and I am excited to hear the opinions of others on the subject matter.