. Who is using online social
networking sites? Some data points to adolescents who are already socially adept using the
Internet to maintain relationships and connect to new groups. This phenomenon is known
as the rich get richer hypothesis. Other research supports a social compensation thesis, in
which youth who are less socially adept use social networking websites to self‐disclose and
make new friends when they might be too shy to do so in real life. The second question
researchers pose asks what is the nature of the relationships adolescents are forming
online? Research provides evidence that young people use online social networking to
maintain already formed friendships and build communities. So are social networking
websites simply giving adolescents a new outlet for something they were traditionally
focused on in this stage of their life or is the distance the Internet provides detrimental to
the development of young people’s face‐to‐face social skills?