Category Archives: Local Online

Web trumps sex for one in five

Oh dear. From Belinda Goldsmith’s Reuters article yesterday…

The poll, released on Wednesday, found the use of cell phones and the Internet were becoming more and more an essential part of life with 48 percent of respondents agreeing they felt something important was missing without Internet access.

More than a quarter of respondents — or 28 percent — admitted spending less time socializing face-to-face with peers because of the amount of time they spend online.

It also found that 20 percent said they spend less time having sex because they are online.

Cell phones won out over television in a question asking which device people couldn’t go without but the Internet trumped all, regarded as the most necessary.

“It is taking away from offline activities, among them having sex, socializing face-to-face, watching TV and reading newspapers and magazines. It cuts into that share,” said Mack [Ann Mack of JWT who conducted the survey].

This is just the kind of thing Front Porch Forum is designed to counter. FPF members frequently report spending MORE face-to-face time with neighbors because of the service. FPF is an odd dot.com in that we want our members to shut down the computer and go outside. FPF postings are seeds planted in communities (real, not virtual). The harvest from this planting is usually offline, on the sidewalk, over the back fence, on the front porch.

On real friends, tools, networks and communities

MediaVidea offers an interesting take on social networking sites today…

Recent research done in England suggests that the number of close friends you have is mostly a result of your face-to-face interactions in the real world.

Researchers at the Sheffield Hallam University say that your online friendships on social networking sites such as Orkut, Facebook, Myspace, Hi5 and others are ‘shallow’ in nature.

Researchers got more than 200 people to fill in questionnaires and found that most of respondents had around 5 close friends and many (90%) said their close friends were results of face-to-face meetings.

So, it seems that soliciting and clicking friend request on social sites is nothing but an ego trip.

He also writes about the difference between online tools, networks and communities.

There has a been a lot of debate online about communities and networks and many, including startups riding the web 2.0 wave have run into the habit of claiming that their startup is a community. VCs are also prone to this community fever.

So, it is important to note what Joshua Schachter of del.icio.us said about the pioneering social bookmarking site, a site that I think has more value than social news sites such as Digg, for great archival and research uses.

Joshua has said, Del.icio.us is a tool, not a community.’

This is very important. Most online services are first tools and the community of people who got together while using the service, comes later on.

Joshua Porter of Bokardo advocates a focus on ‘personal value over anything else’.

Differencing between communities and networks, Chloe Stromberg from Forrester Research says that ‘while communities are bound by emotion and passion, networks are simply communication links between people who have something in common.’

Interesting to mull over. I think Front Porch Forum is used as a tool by some (receive and spread information), a network for others (e.g., need 20 people to sign a petition to get a stop sign installed), and a community of neighbors for most. Many report that their FPF neighborhood forum has helped created a neighborhood environment where they can more easily establish and maintain genuine friendships.