Social networks brought by computer networks

According to Wellman, computer networks are inherently social networks since they link people, organizations, and knowledge. The advent and expansion of emails and Internet has made HCI socialized and requested to deal with the following questions: how two people relate to each other online, how small groups interact, and how large unbounded systems operate. Wellman suggests two issues that the interaction of computer networks with the emerging networked societies has shaped: first, community networks on- and offline worlds, and second, knowledge access in a networked society.  The first subject has invoked many controversies on whether online communities are the real communities, and whether the Internet has transformed the definition of communities. Wellman uses some survey results to support the claim that spending more time on online communities does not harm the life in the real world. The survey says that people who are frequently on line also participate more in their offline communities. However, I think there are some faults in this argument.  To make the argument persuasive, the study should have shown how one individual changes his or her behaviors after he or she spends more time on online communities not the correlation between the collection of time spent on online and the collection of time spent on offline community activities.  My guess is the time an individual is willing to spend for leisure is fixed. So as a person spends more time on online activities, he or she has less time for the other things including community participation.  I want to see the how the activities of an individual in online communities affect his or her offline world. Wellman also discusses how to locate retrieve the information by social network analysis. He also suggests the fast advance of Internet requests development of social networks concepts and invention of tools to deal with the coming challenges.