Does the Internet Helpr or Hinder Your Social Life?

Recently there have been many articles, books, and blog posts discussing the issue of the internet, and whether it increases or decreases people's ability to be social; though many have sided with the latter argument, I recently read an article that supported the first. ‘Social Isolation and New Technology,' a project created by the Pew Internet and American Life, have found that people who use technology are more social and have a larger and more diverse friend group. Many have stated that the internet is to blame for social isolation, but a telephone survey, conducted by Princeton Survey Research International earlier this year, have found that social isolation has not increased since 1985 (that year that it said to mark the beginning of the internet's harmful effects). On average, the size of people's discussion networks is 12% bigger among cell-phone users than non cell-phone users, 9% bigger for those who share photos online, and 9% bigger for people who use instant messaging. It was concluded from this survey that the internet does not harmfully effect the soical networks of cyberusers. I thought this was really interesting, but I'm not sure I agree with with either argument. I don't think there is any survey or questionaire that can really answer a question with so many variables and expections. Overall, I think that, as true of most things, there can definitely be too much of a good thing. The internet can help people, but when used incorrectly, or harmfully, or even too much, it can become chaos.