An additional hot take: online communities create weaker links than in-person communities. hear me out please

Not because the connections themselves are less strong, but because they don’t tie to any other connection. If I met someone in real life, chances are high they are going to meet my family and create connections with them too. On the other hand, if I met someone online, they would most likely not meet my partner and definitely not meet my broader family. What in real life could be a merging of social groups, and therefore a strengthening of everyone’s social nets becomes online the creation of a single link, that is therefore that much easier to break off.