We have abandoned the idea, still popular in the 1990s, that – to put it in a somewhat sketchy way –Internet users spend their nights chatting with strangers over the Web, and thus they are automatically neglect their friends and loved ones. This was known as the displacement hypothesis. Since the beginning of the 2000s we know that the actual social consequence of the Web isn’t social isolation, but rather a dramatic reconfiguration of the balance between strong and weak ties, between bonding and bridging.
— Antonio A. Casilli. Communication delivered at the McLuhan100 Then Now Next conference, University of Toronto, Nov. 10th, 2011.
