Frank Verner Grøn
Martin Smidt Kristensen
Peter Hejlesen
Toke Jeberg
The Internet has created new forums of social interaction and social relations including social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace and sites such as meetup.com and Couchsurfing which facilitate offline interaction. Though virtual communities were once thought to be composed of strictly virtual social ties, researchers often find that even those social ties formed in virtual spaces are often maintained both online and offline There are ongoing debates about the impact of the Internet on strong and weak ties, whether the internet is creating more or less social capital[5][6], the internet's role in trends towards social isolation, and whether it creates a more or less diverse social environment.