Impact on Time Use and Community: Social Isolation or Social Capital Formation(1)

"Initial enthusiasts anticipated that the Internet would boost efficiency, making people more productive and enabling them to avoid unnecessary transportation by accomplishing online tasks like banking, shopping, library research, even socializing online. The results (less stress, more time, new online contacts) would make individuals more fulfilled and build social capital for society at large. More recently, two studies have suggested that the Internet may induce anomie and erode social capital by enabling users to retreat into an artificial world." 

TIME DISPLACEMENT
Does the Internet enhance or erode human relationships?  The history of the introduction of other communication technologies suggest that the time users spend online may be taken from time spent previously on other activities.  The introduction of television led to a decline in the use of radios, movie theaters, and many magazines ceased publishing due to a decline in readership.  Declines in other activities were also documented--out-of-home socializing, in-home conversations, housework, and sleep.  However, research on the impact of the Internet has not supported the same level of displacement in terms of the use of other media.  In fact, it appears that Internet users--especially early adopters--are likely to read more print media, frequent movie theaters and artistic performances, and engage in other traditional recreational activities more so than non users.  Interestingly, for newer users this increase in time spent on traditional activities is not apparent, and this may be indicative of a pattern of change for the future.

Additionally, the research on the impact of Internet use on social interaction seems to indicate heavy users do experience depression and loneliness as they substitute online time for time formally spent in face-to-face interaction with families and friends.  Overtime, however, the negatives effects of such displacement decline as more and more of the users' family and friends went online. So, the transition to an online world may be somewhat disruptive, but as the percentage of the population interacting online increases the the likelihood is that social interaction will increase.

COMMUNITY
Many researchers are suggesting that Internet use is changing the very essence of society from a group-based to a networked based reality.  Users talk and visit with friends more than non-users, but they travel more and have fewer friends nearby.  The Internet allows users to transcend the barriers of space and time in developing and maintaining personal relationships.  Interpretation matters--does using email rather than the telephone indicate a loss of contact with the social environment or does it expand an individual's ability to stay connected and access vital social resources?

People with unusual identities or uncommon concerns can typically find communities of similar others  with whom they can interact.  However, the significance of this depends on the extent to which uses participate--much of the current research indicates that most users participate infrequently.  

There is a dark-side as well.  The Internet provides an inexpensive and effective means of organizing groups that represent threats to existing communities and governments.  Groups such as China's Falun Gong, as well as Al Qaeda have been able to use the Internet to create highly effective, yet de-centralized organizations even within the domains of authoritarian regimes or technologically sophisticated governments.  Will similar organizations develop and flourish?  That depends on monitoring and controlling such online activities, and that raises interesting questions of privacy and security for us all.

[ Communicating ]

Footnotes:

1. Social Implications of the Internet, Paul DiMaggio, Eszter Hargittai, W. Russell Neuman, and John P. Robinson, Annual Review of Sociology 2001. 27:307-336.

URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/meanderings/
Owner: Robert O. Keel
Last Updated: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 03:59 PM