Homophily and Quality of Online and Offline Social Relationships among Adolescents

Adolescents Abstract Studies on online social relationships have focused on how Internet use is associated with sociability, but have not compared the quality of online with offline relationships. On the other hand, studies on adolescent friendship formation have used school samples disregarding the Internet as a new social context for it. We took a different approach, studying the relationship between the social context of acquaintance (school, neighborhood, and online) and the structure and quality of friendships among adolescents. We relied on the proximity-similarity hypothesis that homophily between friends results from organized social activities wherein individuals sharing demographic characteristics are more likely to associate with each other. Despite the clear theoretical distinction between proximity and similarity, most studies on similarity in adolescent friendships have rested on school samples in which the effect of these two factors cannot be distinguished. The present study investigated friends' similarity and its effect on the strength of ties in dyads. In a representative sample of Israeli adolescents (n=980), similarities in age, gender, and place of residence were studied in respect of the social sphere in which each friend was met (neighborhood, school, and online communication). We found that when a friend was met at school the likelihood of homophily in age, gender, and place of residence was higher than when contact was made in the residential locality or online. Additionally, similarity in age and gender were not related to the strength of ties, but friends met in the same locality were usually closer than those living in another city. Friends met in the neighborhood and schools were usually closer than friends met online. However, social similarity mattered even for friends who were met online. The more similar an online friend was in residence and gender, the stronger was the social tie. The results imply that proximity and similarity still count, even with a global medium of communication such as the Internet where communication is based on shared interests. Adolescents Attraction to friendship, its formation, and its quality in adolescents are topics that have received much sociological attention Moody, 2001). Adolescence is a period in life characterized by rapid developmental changes, and as children enter their teenage years they interact less with their parents. relationship between the quality of an individual's friends and that individual well being Adolescents who lack attachment to peers are more likely to report psychological distress and to harbor thoughts of suicide (Beraman …