Social consequence of Internet use (2002) by James E. Katz and Ronald E. Rice
Social Consequences of Internet Use
by James E. Katz and Ronald E. Rice
(2002 Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
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Our initial reports found that the
Internet did not increase social isolation
but was a source of civic organizational involvement and new personal friendships.
A subsequent study of users in Pittsburgh responded to our findings by suggesting that heavy Internet use might lead to depression and isolation (Kraut, Lundmark, Patterson, Kiesler, Mukophadhyay & Scherlis, 1998). Kraut et al. expressed numerous reservations about our findings. The media controversy surrounding these competing views helped highlight and call attention to our earlier work, but sharp questions were raised about which view was correct. The situation became even cloudier when Nie (2000) also concluded that the Internet harms social cohesion and interaction. However, in 2000 UCLA (Cole, 1999) and the Pew Internet and American Life Project (Howard, Rainie & Jones, 2001) seemed to confirm our 1995 findings. When in 2001 researchers at Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh were not able to find further evidence of the so-called Internet paradox (that is, a social technology that made people lonely), our original conclusions were sustained (Kraut et al., in press). Although science and knowledge are always subject to challenge and change, our national studies appear to have been borne out by our severest critics.
Conclusion
Although the Internet has not led to any political revolutions, it has supported and encouraged them. This finding is in keeping with our view that the Internet is a part of syntopia, a together place that allows people to pursue their interests but that is also a continuity with other aspects of their lives, including their technology of communication, such as the mobile phone. At the same time, the Internet is not only a political phenomenon but an expressive one as well. The same processes that draw people onto the Internet and into social relationships can, in many cases, create new intellectual and artistic terrain for themselves and others to enjoy. We have argued that syntopia includes both individual and collective levels and that by looking at the total communication picture, not just one modality called the Internet, we can understand more accurately the social processes involving and revolving around the Internet. Despite the heavy Internet focus of this book, we have included collateral communication technology and modes in our analysis and have compared users and nonusers, including former users. By considering what we term the ‘‘invisible mouse,’’ the ways in which social capital accumulates can be more accurately examined.
Our evidence has demonstrated that the Internet does not reduce social capital but rather contributes to social capital (1), innovative uses of the Internet build what is commonly thought of as social capital, and new forms of social capital are enabled by the Internet. However, we also point out that the Internet has not (yet) transformed politics or the nature of government. We argue that an integration of both individual-level and collective-level social-capital theories seems best suited for understanding the relation of Internet usage and social capital.
We also put forth the idea that the Internet draws people who are interested in advancing their personal interests and not necessarily in promoting community per se. This does not mean that community benefits will not be forthcoming, only that motives are individually centered. Thus the pursuit of individual interests leads to new and unexpected forms of social interaction and group activity. However, throughout our analyses, our view is not celebratory because we recognize both the limitations and fearsome abuses of the technology. Indeed, like the atomic bomb, automobiles, electricity, and antibiotics, the Internet contains catastrophic potentials for humankind. Finally, we argue that the interaction of social values and context, the nature of information (especially digitized information), and the features of the networked Internet all interact to foster the satisfaction of individual identity projects while also creating collective social capital. We can identify a cycle regarding individual use of the Internet, social interaction, and collective social capital. Individuals follow their selfinterest, which leads them to interact with others. This interaction leads to the creation of new information and forms of organization. This creativity in turn alters individuals’ views of themselves and their relationships with others. This then enlarges what Merton (1957) has called an ‘‘opportunity structure.’’ An expanding opportunity structure allows people to have what feels like (and is) increased personal freedom. This increased personal freedom allows individuals to remake themselves to fulfill their existing desires (Gergen, 1991). It also gives rise to previously unidentified ‘‘needs and desires’’ or, perhaps more accurately, allows them to be coconstructed within the person and between the ego and the other. These include psychological, social, biological or sexual, cultural, and material needs. Access, When these areas are intermixed, the process moves the individual into new areas. One person may be brought together with another due to their mutual interest in topic A and through that new relationship may be led to a new area of activity and interest and a new online community of participants. The Internet is not a substitute for ordinary life off the screen. Rather, it is part of a continuum that allows people to meet their individual needs and develop new interests, often while creating collective social capital—for good and for bad. Given the tools, which for the Internet we have symbolized by the ‘‘invisible mouse,’’ people use their natural inclinations to communicate to create self-organizing and self-serving social systems throughout the multimedia domain we call syntopia. Syntopia is a synergistic ‘‘together place’’ that integrates people’s ideas and actions. It can foster both virtue and sin even while it synthesizes dystopian and utopian impulses. Syntopia brings together the offline and online realms of action, local and global concerns, and individual and collective pursuits.
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(1) Social capital is a sociological concept, which refers to connections within and between social networks. Though there are a variety of related definitions, which have been described as “something of a cure-all” for the problems of modern society, they tend to share the core idea “that social networks have value. Just as a screwdriver (physical capital) or a college education (human capital) can increase productivity (both individual and collective), so do social contacts affect the productivity of individuals and groups”.
(Portes, A. (1998). Social Capital: its origins and applications in modern sociology Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 1-24.
Putnam, Robert. (2000), “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community” (Simon and Schuster).)
