A report from a global survey of Internet users and uses (Chen et al., 2002) revealed that e-mail has become a predominant means for preserving contact with friends beyond a distance of 50 kilometers, and it is used almost as much as the telephone for contacting kin beyond the same radius. Another survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project (Rainie et al., 2000) found that the Internet enables users to improve key social relations, expand social networks, improve bonds with relatives, and locate long-lost friends. In fact, more than half of the Internet users in the latter survey reported that e-mail had improved their connections with family and significant friends and had enabled them to communicate more often with them once they had started using e-mail for this purpose