Virtual Transnationalism: Technologically Supported Social Network Phenomenon

INTRODUCTION In a world of digital connections that seem to span the globe with ease, social network sites, similar to instant messaging and email before them, have radically reduced the costs of relational upkeep regardless of where in the developed world people may be. Social relationships rely on communication to survive and physical distance remained a difficult barrier to surmount prior to the broad adoption of the Internet [18]. Phone and physical mail required too much investment of time or resources to be of use with all but the most important of connections. With the burgeoning collection of communication possibilities via the Internet, however, scholars have celebrated people’s ability to keep social connections alive through lifes’ upheavals. Though distance still mattered where close coordination and collaboration were concerned [14], in the area of personal relationships, effects of distance were reduced, enabling people to maintain these relationships even across larger distances and national borders.