Social Consequences of Internet Use: Access, Involvement and Interaction

Citation

Katz, J.E. and Rice, R.E. (2003), "Social Consequences of Internet Use: Access, Involvement and Interaction", info, Vol. 5 No. 4, pp. 46-46. https://doi.org/10.1108/14636690310495274

Drawing on results of several national telephone surveys conducted from 1995 to 2000 to provide a picture of Internet use in the USA, the authors provide what may well be the first national random sample‐based study of the Internet’s impact on social interaction. Both Katz and Rice serve as professors of communication at Rutgers University and have dubbed their work the “Syntopia Project” to define their overall finding that the Internet is but one among many technologies that help to create a synergy between people’s on‐line and real‐life activities.

Chapters appear in four main parts. “Access” includes discussion of basic issues and prior evidence, the digital divide, Internet drop‐outs, and examples of both access and digital divide concerns. “Civic and community involvement” reviews issues and prior evidence, survey results, and evidence for what the authors term an “invisible mouse” or involvement in various kinds of community and Internet activities. Part three on “social interaction and expression” turns to questions of self, identity and home pages, based both on prior evidence and the telephone surveys. Here, too, a number of examples are cited. And the final part providing “integration and a conclusion,” pulls all of this together in a final chapter of assessment. Appendices provided methodological details of the surveys and numerous tables supplement the basic text.

This is an important study, virtually a benchmark of the early years of Internet expansion and use, and some sense of its cultural impact.