A 2006 study conducted by Sociologists Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin and Matthew Brashears suggested that the growth of mobile phone and internet usage would lead Americans to become more socially isolated, to develop fewer close ties to their neighbors and to being less involved in voluntary associations.

They predicted that connections formed by information and communication technologies are relatively weak and geographically dispersed, unlike locally-based ties that tend to be a part of peoples' core discussion network.

In 2009 Pew researchers found evidence that supported predictions that average size and diversity (non-kin outside blood or marriage) of close social networks would fall. Yet Pew concluded that mobile phone and internet users, particularly people using social networking sites (e.g. Facebook) have more numerous and diverse close social ties, not fewer as suggested in 2006.