News Finding: But the bottom line here is that having more close relationships in your life should be possible at any time, but it's going to mean putting in the work, which will probably come at the expense of losing some less intimate relationships.
Paper Finding: Since these technologies reduce the effective cost of maintaining some relationships, it should be easier for individuals to establish larger networks and this should promote the standard regime.
News Context: You could probably extrapolate this effect out to relationships within large or small companies for those of us whose social lives largely overlap with our careers. For example, people working in small startups might have a larger number of intense relationships than those in the wider corporate world. But the bottom line here is that having more close relationships in your life should be possible at any time, but it's going to mean putting in the work, which will probably come at the expense of losing some less intimate relationships.
Paper Context: More interestingly, perhaps, our model predicts how the increasing availability of online social networks may affect the way we handle our relationships. Since these technologies reduce the effective cost of maintaining some relationships, it should be easier for individuals to establish larger networks and this should promote the standard regime. However, if online relationships are cheaper to maintain because they obviate the costly business of physically meeting up with an alter , it follows that any increase in online network size will be associated with a reduction in average tie strength.