Jeffrey Boase, John Horrigan, Barry Wellman and Lee Rainie created the recently available Pew Report, The Strength of Internet Ties. It is based on the findings of two surveys on Americans' use of the Internet done in the Spring of 2004 involving over 4,000 individuals.
Among other things, it looks at how email supplements, rather than replaces, the communication people have with others in their network. It also shows the internet has largely increased communication between friends and family and detracted from it. The survey finds that “internet users are more likely than non-users to have been helped by those in their networks as they faced important events in their life.” This makes sense to me. I have a number of family and friends networks. The people who do not have email are left out of a lot of communication. I also communicate much more with these people than prior to email.
Barry Wellman, one of the researchers called the rise of "networked individualism." He says that “users of modern technology are less tied to local groups and increasingly tied to looser and more geographically scattered networks.”
He goes on, "The internet and the cell phone have transformed communication: Instead of being based on house-to-house interactions, they are built on person-to-person exchanges.This creates a new basis for community. Rather than relying on a single community for social support, individuals often must actively seek out a variety of appropriate people and resources for different situations."
The report also indicates that 45% of internet users - about 60 million Americans - say that the internet has played an important role in helping them deal with at least one major life decision in the last two years, a 33% increase from a similar survey in early 2002.
The full report at can be obtained at the Pew Site.
Bill, just reminder to inform you that IBM's new Global Innovation Oitlook 2005 report has be posted at
http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/www_innovate.nsf/images/gio/$FILE/GIO_2005.pdf
You can also access to Irving's BLOG for summary at
http://irvingwb.typepad.com/blog/2006/03/the_global_inno.html
Posted by: Tomoaki Sawada | March 30, 2006 at 05:31 AM