Media digitali e relazioni interpersonali

[Autom. eng. transl.] In addition to providing support for the exchange of information and content, the media digital since their inception have favored the establishment among their users of more or less extensive and strong social ties and networks that have changed over time together with the evolution of digital media themselves. The chapter aims to understand the main transformations of sociality in digital media by reconstructing the main theoretical approaches. As with the chapter on identity in network (chapter 3), given the breadth of the bibliography and reference theories, a selection was made of the most significant studies that scored the debate about social bonds in digital media, and particularly online, too depending on the tools used. The guidelines that were followed and that two are intertwined: the construction of interpersonal relationships and genesis of community. These are two closely connected aspects, because they couldn't community could be formed if there were no interpersonal relationships and at the same time these dynamics are linked, also from the point of view of the development of theoretical interpretation, to the theme of online identity. The chapter will follow an approach that takes into account both the development of tools and theories sociologists who have studied them, with a focus on the latest trends. We will then begin to understand how the internet has become a vehicle of sociality to then move on to forms of online communities and finally arrive at to the characteristics of social relationships in social media without forgetting the role of the mobile phone.