Americans' love affairs with mobile phones and the Internet are not contributing factors to an increase in social isolation in the United States, according to a new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Despite the fact that more and more of us are spending time glued to screens large and small, in its study, Social Isolation and New Technology, Pew found that the contacts and connections made by using those tools don't come at the expense of real-life relationships.

It also said that use of social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace provides an outlet for "discussion networks that are more likely to contain people from different backgrounds," a plus for diversity.

Face-to-face contact still "trumps" phone use for contacting family and friends, Pew said, although mobiles are eclipsing landline phones for such conversations.

"On average in a typical year, people have in-person contact with their core network ties (close family and friends) on about 210 days," the report said. "They have mobile-phone contact on 195 days of the year; landline phone contact on 125 days; text-messaging contact on the mobile phone 125 days; e-mail contact 72 days; instant messaging contact 55 days; contact via social networking Web sites 39 days; and contact via letters or cards on 8 days."

The findings also show that "on average," the size of Americans' discussion networks - those with whom people discuss important matters - is "12 percent larger among mobile phone users," and 9 percent larger for those who share photos online as well as those who use instant messaging, according to the Pew report.

"The diversity of people's core networks - their closest and most significant confidants - tends to be 25 percent larger for mobile phone users, 15 percent larger for basic Internet users and even larger for frequent Internet users, those who use instant messaging and those who share digital photos online," the report said.