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Some argue that social media use displaces time that adolescents spend with friends and family and is therefore associated with lower psychological well-being. They reason that young people who experience "disconnection," because their parents actively restrict media use, or they have limited material access to the Internet, are better protected from psychological harm. Prior research has misspecified and exaggerated the magnitude of the relationship between screen time and adolescent psychological well-being. If the harm associated with heavy (excessive) or even average use of new media has been overstated, then the recommendation of disconnection may also be problematic. New media use is heavily integrated into youth culture and sociality, restrictive media parenting practices or digital inequalities may rob adolescents of experiences that would otherwise be protective of self-esteem. We conducted a survey of rural adolescents, who are more likely to experience disconnection at home because of a lack of physical availability of broadband, not simply affordability. Based on that survey, we find that a negative relationship between screen time and lower self-esteem is eclipsed by a more substantive, negative relationship to inequalities in material access to the Internet and restrictive mediation of media by parents. Findings show that new media use does not substantively displace time spent socializing with family and friends and in other social activities (e.g., volunteering). Omitting the supportive, indirect relationship between time on social media and self-esteem, through time spent socializing, exaggerates the negative relationship between social media use and adolescent well-being for girls, and for boys, misspecified the direction of the relationship. Adolescents, who experience heavy restrictive mediation of media by parents or have limited Internet access at home, tend to report substantively lower self-esteem than heavy users of any new media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether there has been a recent decline in helping behavior in the United States. In a lost letter experiment, 7,466 letters were 'lost' in 63 urban areas in the United States and Canada in 2001 and 2011. There has been a 10 percent decline in helping behavior in the United States, but not in Canada. Two arguments anticipate change in the level of help provided to strangers: the rise of new technologies, and neighborhood racial and ethnic diversity. Findings exclude increased privatism as a source for the decline in helping. In 2001 there was no variation in altruistic behavior based on neighborhood diversity. However, areas of the United States where the proportion of noncitizens increased since 2001 experienced reduced helping; the opposite was found in Canada. Possible explanations include changing attitudes toward noncitizens, and differences in public policy related to economic inequality, social inclusion, and the acceptance of multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two affordances of digital communication technologies, persistent contact and pervasive awareness, are ushering in fundamental change to the structure of community. These affordances break from the mobility narrative that has described community since the rise of urban industrialism, including accounts of networked individualism and a postindustrial or a network society. In contrast to images of late modernity, which suggest that mobility will be maximized to the point where people are nearly free from the constraints of time, space, and social bonds, persistent–pervasive community renews the constraints and opportunities of premodern community structure. As a result of persistence—a counterforce to mobility—relationships and the social contexts where they are formed are less transitory than at any time in modern history. Through the ambient, lean, asynchronous nature of social media, awareness supplements surveillance with the informal watchfulness typified in preindustrial community. It provides for closeness and information exchange unlike what can be communicated through other channels. Social media and the algorithms behind them generate not only context collapse but an audience problem that, when managed through a dynamic balance between broadcasting and monitoring content, enhances indicators of awareness and availability of social ties. Persistent–pervasive community represents a period of metamodernity. It is a hybrid of preindustrial and urban-industrial community structures that will affect the availability of social capital, the success of collective action, the cost of caring, deliberation around important issues, and how lives are linked over the life course and across generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including classic street ethnography; impact of community-level features on family decisions about adopting broadband Internet; and evolution of Chicago School's focus within scholarship on media.

This article argues that the literature on digital inequality—in its focus on individual characteristics, behaviors, and outcomes—has overlooked change within the context of where social and civic inequalities are reproduced. This omission is the result of a failure to explore the role of ecological context within the study of the digital divide and the role of communication within the study of collective efficacy. Social cohesion, and an expectation for informal social control at the neighborhood level, is a function of both ecological context and media context. Those embedded within settings where prior media, including the telephone and face-to-face contact, could not overcome contextual barriers to collective action, namely within areas of concentrated disadvantage; may now, as a result of local Internet use, experience reduced social and civic inequality. This article is based on the results of a 3-year naturalistic experiment that examined the use of the Internet for communication at the neighborhood level. It proposes a new measure of collective efficacy — in place of network measures or perceived cohesion — based on the direct observation of communication practices. The analysis includes a model of the ecological characteristics associated with neighborhoods that adopted the Internet as a means of local information exchange, and it provides a comparison of the content of electronic messages exchanged within areas of advantage and those of extreme poverty, unemployment, and racial segregation. Findings suggest that as much as the Internet supports social and civic engagement in areas where it is already likely to be high, it also affords engagement within contexts of extreme disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers studying personal networks often collect network data using name generators and name interpreters. We argue that when studying social support, multiple name generators ensure that researchers sample from a multidimensional definition of support. However, because administering multiple name generators is time consuming and strains respondent motivation, researchers often use single name generators. We compared network measures obtained from single generators to measures obtained from a six-item multiple-name generator. Although some single generators provided passable estimates of some measures, no single generator provided reliable estimates across a broad spectrum of network measures. We then evaluated two alternative methods of reducing respondent burden: (1) the MMG a multiple generator using the two most robust name generators and (2) the MGRI, a six-item name generator with name interpreters administered for a random subset of alters. Both the MMG and the MGRI were more reliable than single generators when measuring size, density, and mean measures of network composition or activity, though some single name generators were more reliable for measures consisting of sums or counts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-1850s, scholars have debated how technological innovation would affect community. The debate continues as the Internet makes it increasingly possible for people to socialize, shop, work, learn, and participate in leisure activities all from within their home. Will the movement of these previously public activities into the private realm lead to reduced participation in public activities? What will be the fate of community and social relations as a result of the growth of computer-mediated communication ? Netville is a suburban Toronto development equipped with a high-speed network as part of its design. The clustering of homes within this area allowed us to study the social networks, civic involvement, Internet use, and attitudes of residents. This article explores the research approach of the Netville project and describes its main sources of data collection: surveys collected using computer-assisted interviewing and ethnographic fieldwork. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between mode of Internet access, variety of online activities, and the potential for the Internet to contribute to local social capital in distressed, urban communities. Based on a sample of 525 telephone surveys in Detroit, findings show that breadth of access predicts participation in a larger variety of online activities, which is associated with higher levels of local social capital. Neither public Internet access, home broadband, nor Internet access through a mobile phone data plan alone affords participation in a full range of social capital-enhancing activities. The findings highlight the potential problems of initiatives that assume equivalent social outcomes through nonequivalent modes of access, such as providing Internet access through mobile phones in place of home broadband. Efforts to enhance a city's social infrastructure by providing Internet access are best served when individuals have multiple points of access available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]