2017/08/15 by Eva Vriens, Erik van Ingen · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Social Media and Politics #Social Capital and Networks #Impact of Technology on Adolescents
paper · pdf · doi:10.1177/1461444817724169
openalex publication_date 2017/08/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
We derive hypotheses from popular accounts of how use of social media affects our strong ties. Several authors have suggested that social media use erodes our strong ties by increasing the volume of social interactions and decreasing their depth. Using two-wave panel data representative of the Dutch population between 15 and 45 years, we examine changes in the core discussion networks (CDNs) of 5312 respondents (with 10,896 relations). Contradicting an erosion of strong ties, we found positive effects of social media use on CDN size, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Social media use was positively related to talking to CDN members in our cross-sectional model. Finally, we found that the CDNs of frequent social media users were more dynamic than those of less frequent users: they are more likely to both lose old and gain new ties. This suggests that Internet use is associated with more, and more dynamic, social interaction.