Professor Barry Wellman of the University of Toronto in Canada has come up with a new

term to describe the way a lot of us North Americans interact these days. And now a big

research study confirms it. The term is “networked individualism”. This concept is not easy to

understand because the words seem to have opposite meanings. How can we be individuals and

be networked at the same time? You need other people for networks.

What Professor Wellman means is that before the invention of the Internet and e-mail, our

social networks involved live interactions with relatives, neighbors, and colleagues at work.

Some of the interactions was by phone, but it was still voice to voice, person to person, in real

time.

A recent research study by Pew Internet and American Life Project showed that for a lot of

people, electronic interaction through the computer has replaced a great deal of social

interchange. In the past, many people were worried that Internet isolated us and caused us to

spend too much time in the imaginary world of the computer. But the Pew study discovered that

the opposite is true. The Internet has put us in touch with more real people than expected. We’re

turning to an ever-growing list of cyber friends for advice on careers, medical problems, raising

children, and choosing a school or college. About 60 million Americans told Pew that the

Internet plays an important role in helping them deal with major life decisions.

(Adapted from a News Story by Ted Landphair – Voice of America News, April 2006.)