Re: Sociable Internetters
By Sid Harth
May 19, 2000. Posted by Pesky Mo on soc.culture.indian at 05:01 AM
Mo's classic, one liner comment.
"But they do go mad early from rage induced by spamming soothsayers.."
Mo's supportive argument:
Internet users are social people, says new study ISLAMABAD (Internews) - Internet users are not sad and lonely social misfits but actually visit and contact relatives and friends more frequently than those who live their lives offline. Research carried out by Pew Internet and the American Life Project recently found that 72 percent of Internet users questioned had visited a relative or friend in the last day. Only 61 percent of those without an online account had done the same.
Over 3,500 adults were contacted for the survey. The results contradict other surveys which have found that using the Internet encourages social isolation.
But Dr Adam Joinson, a psychologist at the Open University, says that the results of the study backed up research he was carrying out into the social effects of Internet use.
Another recent survey conducted by Stanford University psychologists found that regular surfers neglect friends and family to spend time online. The study showed that the more hours people use the Internet, the less time they spend in contact with real human beings. But the results of the Pew Internet survey imply the opposite. It found that the more ways people have to communicate with friends and families, the more often they do so.
The survey found that Internet users do not just e-mail friends more, they also tend to phone or visit them more regularly. Lee Rainie, the Pew project’s director, said e-mail did not bring families and friends closer together because they already knew each other well. He said the important finding was the increase in contact that net use promoted.
Psychologist Adam Joinson said that rather than breaking friendships the Internet seems to promote them. Many people use the Internet to re-establish contact with friends they have lost touch with, he said.
Previous studies tended to take a dim view of those who spend a long time in front of a computer: “We have a tendency to see using computers as slightly negative or slightly dysfunctional. What is often missed it is what people are using the computers to do.” People who use e-mail or chat rooms regularly not only communicate more but the quality of that communication tends to be better too, said Dr Joinson.
He believes the communication that takes place via the web is more intimate and trusting than it would be face to face: “People tend to disclose four times as much information by email than they do face to face. It is a very strong foundation for friendships and relationships.
Yours Truly replies to Mo.
My dear Mo,
By George! I think you got it. Finally. Are you out of Pakistan baiting or are you out of Hindi movie DVDs? See what reading nice, substantially superior and reliable material does to you. Makes you a man, in your case, being a Jewish woman married to a Hindu doctor, a woman of some reputation. I am really amused at your forays in scientific jungle. To add to my joy of your metamorphosis, I have another study on Internet users, an American study.
Internet is going to be a powerful medium for social interaction, not the kind I have with my morally challenged maggots of Hindu, Brahmin Mafia, RSS morons. The initial hostility would vanish as it is utterly non productive. As more and more opinions are presented the heinous attempts to bury the truth would be rendered a death blow.
An opinion is not the truth, you ought to know. Your zeal to call Pakistan a nation of nincompoops is more or less a personal vendetta, good in parts but mostly an inane attempt to deny reality. People are good and people are bad, depending on who wants to interpret.
Those who have already made up their minds cannot be converted to reason. Muslims are as bad as Hindus for keeping this religious wars going. There is no need for such atavistic battle. Fundamentalism of Hindus is what created a monster called Pakistan. If minority Muslims in British India could not trust the majority Hindus for their safety they had to part the company. Having achieved their initial goal of bifurcation of British India, now that Bangladesh has decided to go their own way, things did not improve.
It is a time to talk, discuss and decide. You are not helping in this process, as a matter of fact, you are guilty of hindering this process.
Here is that American study I was talking about. Thanks to good buddy Wally Bock.
What are Internet Users Really Like?
From Wally Bock’s Briefing Memo
James Katz is Bellcore Director of Social Science Research. Phillip Aspden is the Executive Director of the Center for Research on Information Society. Together, the two social scientists have completed several studies on the characteristics of Net users.
One of the most interesting findings is that according to one of their studies, the amount of social interaction has a strong correlation with Internet use. Of the 2,500 people in their survey, 8% reported being Internet users while 8% were former Internet users. Those were supplemented for study purposes by 400 additional Internet users.
The paper they published on this "Cyberspace and Social Community Development: Internet Use and It's Community Correlates" includes the following statement: "Little evidence exists for the stereotype of an Internet user as a reclusive computer nerd eschewing social contact."
They actually found the opposite. Internet users were more likely, rather than less, to use traditional means of communication such as letters and telephone compared with non users.
In another study looking at political activity, the researchers found that Internet users were more likely to participate in traditional political activity than non users.
WALLY'S COMMENT ... Let's take a moment and look at how the adoption of Net and Web technology by individuals has gone.
The first users of this technology were people in technical disciplines who used it initially as part of their work. The social characteristics of those people matched more with their profession than with anything that the Internet might have caused.
The next great wave of adopters came from the group where most early adopters come from in U.S. society. They tended to be upscale economically and educationally compared to the general population. They were more likely to live in cities than in rural areas, and more likely to live on the coasts than in the center of the country.
But there was a twist here. Because of the nature of the Net itself and its connection with universities, the population of early adopters was skewed toward younger, less affluent people who also turned out to be students. Also, because accessing the Internet required familiarity with computers, were almost mandated to be comfortable with computers and therefore with technology in general.
In the third wave of adoption, we've seen the Net move toward the sociological mainstream. The demographics increasingly look like the demographics of society as a whole, though skewed toward the upper end of the economic and educational scales. For most people coming on the Net today, the Net is an information and communication medium. Within the next two years, the Internet as a separate topic for conversation, in fact, is likely to disappear. Instead, the Net and Web will be part of the basic way that people in most businesses and in a significant number of households live their lives. For those who are not connected, their non connection will be a problem.
Now let's go back to the social research studies. It shouldn't come as a surprise that Net users are more likely to be communicative and value relationships than non users. Those are characteristics we tend to find in successful people and they're fostered by the educational experiences that drive people toward the upper end of the economic and educational scales. In addition, studies consistently tell us that the most popular medium in the electronic world is electronic mail a simple, powerful, and far-reaching communications tool.
You've got a two-fold challenge at this stage of Net/Web development.
First, don't loose site of the power of electronic mail. I know that I say that again and again and you're probably tired of hearing it, but ease of use, power, and reach make electronic mail a great candidate for boosting your bottom line.
Second, recognize that the Net and Web are moving toward maturity as a technology and as a sociological force. Incorporate that thinking into the redesign of your Web sites, the way you structure your marketing communications, and the ways that you organize to achieve Net/Web results.
This material originally appeared in Wally Bock’s Briefing Memo Newsletter of 15 February 1998.
You can subscribe to Briefing Memo for just $15 per year at our Store
Sid Harth..."Bunch of Pakistani women, brave women visited India recently and met with people of India, including some high profile officials and discounted politicians of Pakistan, that was a reality."
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