People Express Strong Ties to Their Virtual Communities

Some other valuable insights, which support research done by others:

Involvement in online communities leads to social activism—64.9% of online community members who participate in social causes through the Net say that they are involved in causes that were new to them when they began participating on the Internet, and more than 40% participate more in social action now that they are online.

A significant number (56.6%) of online community participants log into their communities are least once a day. And 70.4% of them say they sometimes or always interact with other members when they log into their communities.

There are indications in the report that the Internet is increasing the number of social links, too, with Internet users reporting that they are finding growing numbers of friends online, as well as meeting in-person with people they met first online. 

There are other valuable nuggets of information in this report. Free highlights and full report available for purchase here.

A separate survey comparing the media-usage habits of 1,490 American adults and 500 communications industry professionals (“Media Myths & Realities, 2006 Media Usage Survey”), reported:

“Social networking sites are just for kids. Reflecting growing interest toward personal relevance, the survey found that online social networking sites such as MySpace.com and Friendster.com attract people of all ages, not just the young. Overall, 17.1 percent of the survey respondents ranked them highest in usage among new media. While adults ages 18 to 24 (41.9 percent) and 25 to 34 (30.9 percent) use social networks the most, 15.1 percent of adults ages 35 to 44 and nearly 10 percent of those 45 to 54 also use them.” 

Here’s a release about this survey, which also revealed:

”…nearly three-in-four consumers (73.6 percent) rely on their local TV news while nearly 70 percent (68.9 percent) depend on their local newspaper, and this heavy reliance cuts across all generations. As for new media, just 13.4 percent of the general public use blogs while only 4.8 percent use podcasts and 4.5 percent get media via their cellphone.”

Of course, the news that virtual communities are important to people isn’t exactly new. Howard Rheingold wrote about how important The Well was to its members. The Well was one of the best-known, most-important pioneering virtual communities—and Rheingold wrote about it in The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Virtual Frontier, first published in 1993. Rheingold is credited with coining the term “virtual community.”