We derive hypotheses from popular accounts of how use of social media affects our strong ties. Several authors have suggested that social media use erodes our strong ties by increasing the volume of social interactions and decreasing their depth. Using two-wave panel data representative of the Dutch population between 15 and 45 years, we examine changes in the core discussion networks (CDNs) of 5312 respondents (with 10,896 relations). Contradicting an erosion of strong ties, we found positive effects of social media use on CDN size, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Social media use was positively related to talking to CDN members in our cross-sectional model. Finally, we found that the CDNs of frequent social media users were more dynamic than those of less frequent users: they are more likely to both lose old and gain new ties. This suggests that Internet use is associated with more, and more dynamic, social interaction.

Analysing survey data from the European Values Study, we investigate whether and how changes in church attendance bring about changes in people’s acceptance of abortion, homosexuality, divorce, and euthanasia. We argue that decreasing church attendance not only should enhance overall acceptance of these moral issues, but it should also lead to greater diversity in opinions on them. From our analyses, we can indeed conclude that declining levels of church attendance have been accompanied by greater permissiveness and increased diversity in attitudes towards abortion, divorce, and euthanasia. However, opinions about homosexuality hardly seem affected by developments in religiosity. Moreover, the trends in Western and Eastern Europe appear rather different. Eastern Europeans are far more conservative; in fact, no significant changes in church attendance levels (on average) were found there. The association between church attendance and moral views is in general weaker in Central and Eastern Europe than in Western Europe, and is even absent in some cases.

Volunteer role identity has long been of interest to social scientists seeking to understand volunteer commitment and the psychological consequences of volunteering. The study reported here tests the theory that predicts that people identify more strongly with the volunteer role as compensation for the absence of other productive roles. Using a sample (n = 572) of Dutch volunteers over the age of 50, we find a strong association between age and volunteer role identity. For older volunteers, the volunteer role is a more important part of who they are. We find that retirement plays an important role in this. The retirement effect, in turn, is accounted for by the extra time retirees invest in the role, signaling a compensation strategy. We find a similar substitution effect for the unemployed/disabled, but not for widowhood. The study makes a contribution by situating the explanation of volunteer role identity within a life-course framework.