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Tech tools may help pull people together
Nov 04, 2009 (San Jose Mercury News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
For years, the premise has been widely accepted as some great truth handed down from the mountain of academia, etched on a silicon tablet: Our modern tools of technology are isolating us from one another.
Think: the guy in his basement in boxer shorts hanging out online with other strangers passing in the cyber-night.
Now, in yet another salvo in the long-raging debate over how we may be re-engineering our social identities with our use of the Internet and other technology, a new study released Wednesday suggests that rather than push us apart, these tech tools may actually help pull us together.
The millions of Americans who have embraced social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter might not be surprised by the new findings from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, showing Internet and cell-phone users tend to have larger and more diverse networks of close confidantes than those who do not use the Web or cell phones.
"Cell phones and the Internet help you connect to your tribe," says Bay Area entrepreneur Randy Hlavin. "Like-minded people can connect quickly through email, then build relationships that deepen once they're face-to-face out in the community."
In what's billed as a ground-breaking attempt to explore how people use the Internet and mobile phones to interact with key family and friends, the Pew survey results could spawn a subtle shift in the way Americans view technology in their lives: from foe
-- at least at its most superficial level -- to friend.
"All the evidence points in one direction," said lead author Keith Hampton with the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. "People's social worlds are enhanced by new communication technologies. It is a mistake to believe that Internet use and mobile phones plunge people into a spiral of isolation."
Suzette Cavanaugh, an instructor in social-media marketing at the UCSC Extension in Silicon Valley, agreed. "Earlier research made the false assumption that if you were not communicating face-to-face, you were socially isolated." New technologies, however, "have changed the definition of social interaction," she said. "The reality is that the technology allows, and even encourages, more communication with more people."
The Pew report, in many ways, is both a challenge to and an extension of a 2006 study that showed a dramatic increase in Americans' social isolation since 1985 and suggested that the Internet may have played a role in shrinking their so-called "core discussion networks" of the people closest to them. Reporters at the time, says that report's co-author Lynn Smith-Lovin of Duke University, may have overplayed the tech angle, largely ignoring other factors also raised as possible alienating forces.
"I think the Pew report's data support the pattern we found that core-discussion networks have decreased over time," said Smith-Lovin. "But while we studied change, theirs was a one-shot survey. We raised the idea that the Internet may have played a part in this pattern. They explored that and found that that was not the case, so now we have to look for other possible sources of the decline."
In announcing their findings, Hampton and his colleagues explained how the 2006 study prompted them to look more deeply into the technology-isolation connection, pointing out how it "depicted the rise of Internet and mobile phones as one of the major trends that pulls people away from traditional social settings, neighborhoods, voluntary associations, and public spaces."
Pew's key findings suggest otherwise:
--On average, the size of people's core networks is 12 percent larger among mobile phone users, 9 percent larger for those who share photos online, and 9 percent bigger for those who use instant messaging compared to people who do not use these tools. The diversity of the groups is greater, as well.
--Rather than keep people isolated and away from public places, Internet use is actually associated with engagement in places such as parks, cafes and restaurants, thus leading to increased exposure to a more diverse group of people and points of view.
--At the same time, Internet use has increasingly become part of the public experience, as 38 percent of Americans who have been in a library within the past month logged onto the internet while they were there, while 18 percent have done so in a cafe or coffee shop.
--While cell phones trump land-line phones as a primary method of staying in touch with close family and friends, face-to-face contact still rules supreme. On average in a typical year, people have in-person contact with their core network members on about 210 days, while they connect by cell-phone on 195 days and by text-messaging 125 days.
Despite the spirited debate, published works suggest that more and more researchers see technology as a social adhesive rather than something driving us apart. Industry analysts like Josh Bernoff with Forrester Research says "a lot of people have difficulty forming friendships. But these new social channels are so diverse and so non-threatening that they open people up and are likely to increase social interaction."
But not everyone buys that. Linda Kahn of San Jose, a 50-year-old graphic artist currently looking for work, said she feels as if "cell phone and IM use do isolate us as a culture. It seems people are more comfortable isolating themselves in front of a computer to 'speak to others' than to get out there and speak to them in person."
Ultimately, Krishna Upadhya's views on the subject may be most representative. The 55-year-old biotech researcher from Union City said "certainly these tech tools help with connectivity, but at the same time they can isolate people as well."
He points to his relationship with his own teenage son.
"My son comes downstairs to eat dinner and then disappears, back to chatting with his friends on the internet, even while he's doing homework," he said. "Sure I can connect with my friends overseas now with Internet and the cell. But at the same time I feel like the internet has robbed me and my son of our time together."
Contact Patrick May at 408-920-5689.
To see more of the San Jose Mercury News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go
to http://www.mercurynews.com. Copyright (c) 2009, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.
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