Studying the social effects of the Internet with a “magnifying glass”

Sorin Adam Matei
University of Kentucky / Purdue University (starting Fall 2003)
smatei@yahoo.com

This panel proposes that we should go beyond the “digital divide.” I take this to mean that while we should incorporate in our debate some of the concerns specific to this topic, we should try to elevate the discussion to a broader, more theoretically grounded explanatory framework. To facilitate this, I propose as a discussion theme the idea that the Internet has a “magnifying glass” effect. More specifically, I propose a “the more, the more” research framework, with two levels of meaning. At its simplest level it proposes that on-line and off-line ties are interconnected. Social ties on-line build on, rather than replace, social ties found in reality. As the Internet becomes part of mainstream culture and a tool of everyday interaction, social ties on-line tend to replicate and extend the off-line connections that pre-existed them.

At a deeper level, this framework allows to address thornier causal issues, such as: in what way, to what effect and under what conditions off-line ties shape on-line interactions? In the context of our current discussion, about the “digital divide”, does this mean that the “rich become richer”? However, for me richness has multiple meanings, referring not only to hardware access but also to the nature of the social relationships mediated by the Internet.

The “magnifying glass” idea, which I personally explored in a number of studies (Matei, 2001, , in press-a, , in press-b, ; Matei & Ball-Rokeach, 2001), is an increasingly popular one and I think there is enough critical mass in the field to start organizing and refining its propositions further.

Before advancing a number of more concrete questions for a future research agenda, a brief review of the existing literature might prove helpful for understanding where I am coming from and where I want to take this discussion to. Among the more recent articles relevant for the “magnifying glass” proposition one should mention DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman and Robinson (2001), which concludes that the Internet might “intensify already existing inclinations toward sociability or community involvement, rather than creating them ab initio” (DiMaggio et al., 2001, p. 31). The Syntopia research project (Katz, Rice, & Aspden, 2001) and the Pew Internet rolling polls (Howard, Rainie, & Jones, 2001) further emphasize the fact that on-line and off-line lives are inextricably united. Kraut and his colleagues, in their second “Internet paradox” study that looks at loneliness, depression and Internet connectivity, have also gleaned traces of “the more, the more” processes. Looking at individual characteristics, they have concluded that extroverted personalities are more likely to benefit, psychologically, from on-line social interactions (Kraut et al., 2002).

Data analysis of the GSS (2000 edition) Internet module, focusing on differences between users and non-users and between high and low social connectors on-line, shows that it is Internet users (Neustadtl & Robinson, 2002), and of these, those who have stronger friendships off-line (Matei, in press-b), that are more likely to use the Internet for social reasons. Neustadtl and Robinson’s findings reject, in principal, Nie’s (2001) claim that undifferentiated Internet use leads to lower social involvement. The results “provide little support for the conclusion that Internet users with the greatest hourly usage and electronic mail usage lead less active or more constricted social lives than non-users” (Neustadtl and Robinson, 2002, p. 94). Neustadtl and Robinson directly suggest a “Newtonian effect”—their name for what I call above “the magnification effect”—concluding that Internet users also have more frequent contacts with friends and neighbors.

In a previous study using a multi-ethnic, Los Angeles sample I have directly studied the Internet’s “magnifying glass effect” by comparing various ethno-demographic groups in terms of their likelihood of making friends on-line (Matei & Ball-Rokeach, 2001). The main finding is that the higher the level of “belonging” to one’s local community (which includes size of neighborhood social contacts and subjective assessment of neighborliness), the higher the likelihood of making friends on-line. The study also reports significant ethnic variations, with some Asian respondents having a higher tendency of making friends on-line.

The research agenda

These are tantalizing findings and they entice us to follow up on them at individual and group levels of analysis. Starting with the individual level—is the relationship between off and on-line ties linear? A hypothesis that was rarely tested is that when off-line interactions are very high, the intensity of on-line ties might start diminishing due to natural time budget constraints. A person might not be able maintain a large cybercircle of friends at the same time with performing their social obligations in real life. Thus, instead of on-line social interactions increasing linearly with density of social interaction in real life, we might discover that there is a “tipping off point” where each increment in time and energy spent off-line can lead to a decrease in time or energy spent on-line.

A variation on this question, in a vein closer to the main concern of our panel, the “digital divide”, is to follow the relationship between off and on-line ties over time. Here, the goal would be to see what happens when, starting with rich social relationships off-line, people build extensive and active social networks in cyberspace. What is the long term cost of this “magnification” effect? Will we discover a “tipping off” point, too, with the difference that after the weight of on-line social ties becomes sufficiently great it is the fabric of social relationships “in real life” that starts to suffer? Will the initial richness later become relative poverty? Is this a “perverse effect”, a way for technology to take its revenge on its most loyal worshipers? Does technology have, at this level and in this way, the capacity to correct itself?

It also might be that no curvilinear relationship will be discovered soon. In this situation, possible media displacement effects should be considered. If people keep adding to their social portfolio Internet-mediated relationships, maintaining their social ties off-line intact, they need to find somewhere the extra time for this increasingly busy social life. Can this time be found in downscaling or eliminating various types of media and communicative practices (watching tv, using he phone, reading, reducing interpersonal contact with certain types of people—e.g. family, etc)? If this is the case, will these communicative infrastructures be affected due to a decline in audience? And will those that rely on the more traditional channels, usually in the poorer sectors of society, have to suffer from the “rolling back” of old media? In other words, will we witness a process similar to that created by the emergence of cellular telephony, which has made payphones obsolete, and which has also inordinately affected the poorer members of society?

Another question that we can ask at the individual level is if the reverse of the “the more, the more” paradigm is true. In other words, is “the less, the more” also true? Are those that are very, very low on the “real life” social interaction scale more likely to prefer mediated communication?

Finally, at the same individual level, another question should address possible “interaction” effects. Can certain personal characteristics (propensity for sociability, marital status, race, SES, gender, age, etc.) shape (potentiate or diminish) the relationship between social ties on and off-line? Do specific ethnicities take advantage more than others of communication technoloy? My own research suggests that Asian-Americans, for example, are far more likely to make friends on-line, especially with individuals of similar ethnic background, but this proposition should be tested in a variety of environments. Other important questions that should be more carefully investigated in the context of the digital divide, are those related to socio-economic status and race.

When shifting the focus from an individual to a group level of analysis of particular interest is to find out if groups, seen as wholes, are affected by the same “magnification effect” we advanced for individual interactions. The question about the relationship between on and off-line social ties should be reframed as: do the social environments created on-line overlap those found off-line? In this context of particular importance is to explore the role played by social capital in structuring social action in the two arenas. Social capital, a term invented by Coleman (1988) and popularized by Putnam (2000), covers the social networks and their companion values and behaviors that lead to efficacious civic action. Do “real life” social environments characterized by high level of social capital lead to on-line social networks and social capital? But, more important, and directly relevant to the digital divide question is to study the proposition that introducing communication technology in a community has the capacity to rejuvenate its social fabric. My hunch is that without a strong social fabric to prepare the terrain for technology, the investment will have a far lower social payoff than expected. More importantly, because at group level we usually witness multiplicative effects, here the magnification will be the strongest. Digital divides can become the widest at group level because stronger communities do become stronger when adding communication technology to their mix of communication channels, regardless of amount, since time budget constraints do not apply to this level of analysis. More communication with members of the group/community through a multiplicity of means usually has positive outcomes. In contrast, in poor social capital communities, communication technology adoption will be slower and more frustrating, especially when the tools do not seem to perform their magic. This can lead to disenchantment with technology and a general suspicion that technology is not a miracle cure. Although a true perception, this might, however, hide from sight the fact that it wasn’t the technology that failed the community but poor understanding of the preconditions of technological adoption. Personally, I have done some forays in this arena, which indicate that when using the states of the Union as units of analysis the magnification effect still holds (Matei, 2002), but far more needs to be done in this direction before ascertaining a generalizable effect.

These are, I believe, provocative questions that can significantly advance our discussion about the role communication technology plays in our social lives.

References

Coleman, J. S. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94(Supplement), S95-S120.

DiMaggio, P., Hargittai, E., Neuman, W. R., & Robinson, J. P. (2001). Social implications of the Internet. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 307-336.

Howard, P., Rainie, L., & Jones, S. (2001). Days and nights on the Internet: The impact of a diffusing technology. American Behavioral Scientist, 45(3), 383-404.

Katz, J., Rice, R. E., & Aspden, P. (2001). The Internet, 1995-2000: Access, civic involvement, and social interaction. American Behavioral Scientist, 45(3), 405-420.

Kraut, R., Kiesler, S., Boneva, B., Cummings, J., Helgeson, V., & Crawford, A. (2002). Internet paradox revisited. Journal of Social Issues, 58(1), 49-74.

Matei, S. (2001). The magnifying glass effect. Negotiating individualism and community on the Internet. Unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

Matei, S. (2002, October 13-16). Geography and on-line community: The socio-spatial anchoring of Yahoo! Clubs. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers, Maastricht, NL.

Matei, S. (in press-a). The Internet as magnifying glass: marital status and on-line social ties. The Public, 10(1).

Matei, S. (in press-b). The Internet's "magnifying glass" effect on off-line ties in the General Social Survey. Association of Internet Researchers Annual, I(1).

Matei, S., & Ball-Rokeach, S. (2001). Real and virtual social ties: Connections in the everyday lives of seven ethnic neighborhoods. American Behavioral Scientist, 45(3), 550-564.

Neustadtl, A., & Robinson, J. P. (2002). Social contact differences between Internet users and nonusers in the General Social Survey. IT & Society, 1(1), 73-102.

Nie, N. H. (2001). Sociability, interpersonal relations, and the Internet: reconciling conflicting findings. American Behavioral Scientist, 45(3), 420-435.

Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.