I think encouragement and all-else-being-equal preference for in-person vs. online is pretty much a non-factor, short of extreme cases. As mentioned above, the

I think encouragement and all-else-being-equal preference for in-person vs. online is pretty much a non-factor, short of extreme cases. As mentioned above, there's just no comparison any more. I grew up in the city and had very, very few restrictions[1] on where/when I was out from around age 15, and we still preferred online. Going out in person is expensive, not everyone had equal transit access (and no one had a consistently available car), etc. Yes, there were people who didn't join up online, who I would've loved to see more of. Meeting up with them more often would have been great, but doing it regularly just wasn't feasible - we'd see everyone at school and maybe after for 15-30 minutes while people cleared out, but that was the only regular thing. [1] Mostly of the 'tell us where and when' variety - if my parents knew roughly how to find me if needed, that was good enough.