1. All of the juniors that I surveyed were either average online users or they were below average, with scores falling below 20 points on Young’s Internet addiction test. None of the participants achieved a score of 50 or more, so no one fell into the other two categories. Six out of the 20 respondents scored below average, comprising 30% of my sample, while 14 of the 20 users ranked within the average category, comprising 70%. Four of the 10 males (40%) reported being below average, as opposed to two out of 10 females (20%), indicating that males in my sample are more likely to rank below average on the internet addiction scale than females. Conversely, 6 out of the 10 males (60%) fell within the average category, while 8 out of 10 females (80%) fell within this category. I did not see a strong association between how long participants had been internet users and what category they fell within; however, the vast majority of users (14 out of 17) fell within 8 to 13 years of use. I did not include three scores because these respondents either did not complete the question of when they began using the internet, or they listed dates before the internet was available. Of these 14 users, only three scored as below average, perhaps indicating that participants who have used the internet longer are more likely to have average as opposed to below average scores on Young’s test. A possible explanation for this could be that newer internet users are less attached to the internet and thus are more inclined to score lower on Young’s test. I compared respondents’ perceptions of the quality of email and instant messaging with their scores on the test. Interestingly, 50% of those who ranked below average (3 people out of 6) rated email as a 1 score (distant), whereas only 1 person out of 14 in the average category ranked email as distant, perhaps indicating that email is perceived as lesser quality by below average people as opposed to average users. Similarly, half of below average users (3 of 6) ranked instant messaging as distant, whereas no average users ranked IMing as distant. Average users were more likely to have met someone online, with 8 out of the 14 users (57%) responding that they had met someone, whereas only 2 of the 6 (33%) below average users had. Time spent on the internet seems to be correlated with test category. 83% of below average users spent 3 or fewer hours online per day, versus only 21% of average users. Also, 36% of average users spent 5 or 6 hours online per day, as opposed to 0% of below average users who reported this much use.
I think that some of these findings may be explained somewhat by the college environment. College life revolves around communal living and shared facilities and fosters social interaction. None of my participants reported more than 6 hours of internet use per day and none of them scored higher than the average category range on Young’s test, showing that none of the people I surveyed have problems with the internet. This is perhaps explained by their collegiate situation, because face-to-face socializing is fundamental to college life and is facilitated by the living situation. Also, since all respondents were full-time students, none of them has a full-time job that requires them to use the internet for an extreme number of hours per day, which can also explain their primarily moderate internet use. This explanation relates to Baym et al’s study that showed that face-to-face interaction is the dominant means of interaction among college students, which they attribute to the group living situations of university students.
2. 50% of respondents met someone online that they did not know previously. Half of those who had met someone online had talked to one of these people on the phone and half had met with one of these people in person. However, only 20% of the respondents (2 of 10) reported being close to one of the people they had met online. Females were more likely (60%) to have met someone online, versus 40% of males. There did not seem to be any correlation between having met someone online and the amount of time spent online per day, as the respondents with similar daily use split between having met someone and not. 57% of average users had met someone online, compared with only 33% of below average users. There was not a correlation between perceived email quality and whether or not the user had met someone online. However, of the 13 people (65%) those who ranked gave Instant messaging a high quality ranking of 3 or 4, only 38% had met someone online, versus 62% of people who had not.
These findings relate to Rheingold’s discussion of internet interpersonal interaction. Rheingold states that people can get to know one another online and then choose to meet them in person. This observation correlates with my findings in that of the 10 respondents who had met someone online, only half chose to meet them in person, while the other half never met their online friends “on the physical plane”, as stated by Rheingold. The 50% of users who decided to meet online friends in person were able to choose whether they wanted to meet after they had already gotten to know them online, as described in Rheingold’s article. However, only 20% of those who met people online responded that they were close to one or more of these people, which correlates with the Kraut et al’s 1998 study in which they state that most new relationships developed online are weak. The argument that online ties are weaker seems to be a likely explanation for the fact that only half of those who had met someone online had ever met one of these online friends in person or talked to them on the phone and that only 20% of those who had met someone online considered themselves close to one of these people.
3. There is not much variation among how users rated the quality of face-to-face interactions, with 75% rating it a 5, meaning intimate. 15% rated face-to-face as a 4, while 10% rated it as a 3. There was much more variation in the quality rating of phone interactions, with at least one respondent choosing each of the five categories. A rating of 4 received the most users, with 45% choosing this rank and 30% ranked phone as a 3. 10% ranked phone as a 5, 10% ranked phone as a 1, and 5% ranked phone as a 2, demonstrating the great variety among responses. Email had less variation, with all respondents ranking it either 1, 2 or 3 and no users choosing a rating of 4 or 5. The majority of people scored Email as a 2 (55%), whereas 25% ranked it as a 3 and 20% ranked email as a 1 (distant). The perceived quality of Instant messaging ranged between 1 and 4, with 45% of users ranking IMing as a 3. The remaining users were nearly evenly split between 1 (15%), 2 (20%) and 4 (30%). Postal mail had much variance, with 1 to 4 and Does not Apply each receiving at least one user’s vote. The vast majority of users rated postal mail either a 1 or 2 (70%), whereas 15% ranked it a 3 and 10% ranked it a 4. There is some variation by sex in how participants rated the quality of interactions with different media. Males and females were the most similar on their ratings of face-to-face, with 80% of females rating face-to-face a score of 5, whereas 70% of males rated it a 5. However, 20% of males ranked face-to-face a 3, whereas no females gave this medium less than a 4, perhaps indicating that females perceive this interaction slightly more intimate than males. Quality of phone interactions also varied across the sexes. Though 60% of each sex ranked phone either a 4 or 5, 20% of males ranked phone interactions as a 1 or 2 whereas female respondents did not rank phone interaction as lower than a 3. This indicates that females perhaps perceive phone interaction as higher quality than males. There was little variation between males and females regarding quality of email, as both sexes were almost equally matched across the rankings of 1, 2 or 3. For Instant messaging, males were almost evenly split between 1, 2, 3 and 4, versus the majority (60%) of females rated IM a 3. There was much variation by sex for the quality rating of postal mail, with 80% of men giving it the lowest scores of 1 or 2, versus only 50% of women giving it a 1 or 2. 40% of females rated postal mail a 3 or 4 versus only 20% of males, perhaps suggesting that females view postal mail as higher quality than males. There was not much variation by Internet use regarding quality ratings of interactions by different medium, and I could not determine any clear patterns. There was some variation by score on Young’s test among quality rankings of different mediums. 90% of those who were average users rated face-to-face a 5, versus only 50% of below average users. Average users were more likely to give phone interactions a low ranking of 1 or 2, whereas 0% of below average users who gave phone this low rank. 50% of below average users gave email a score of 1, versus only 7% of average users who ranked email a 1. This indicates that below average users deem interactions by email of lesser quality than average internet users, who perceive it to be higher quality. Also, 50% of below average users gave Instant messaging a quality rank of 1, whereas no average users (0%) ranked Instant messaging lower than 2. This again might imply that below average users view IMing as lower quality than average users. There were not any discernable patterns regarding quality ranking of postal mail among the different scores on Young’s test.
My survey data somewhat relates to Nie et al’s study, which found that internet use negatively impacts time spent on face-to-face interactions. These authors imply that face-to-face interactions are much more important than any interaction online, as they view time online as an “asocial” activity that does not have many or any social benefits. Their view is extreme and does not take into account that the internet is often used for social interaction; however, their view does correlate somewhat with my findings, in that the majority of users (75%) ranked face-to-face communication and intimate and beneficial, whereas none of the respondents ranked either Instant messaging or email this highly. However, many of my survey participants did think that IMing and email were high quality interactions, but none of them ranked these on par with face-to-face. The majority of my respondents perhaps feel that online communication is more impersonal than face-to-face, which would explain these findings and is an implication in Nie et al’s research.
4. I do think that the Internet is a social media, yet does probably take away some time that would be spent on other social activities to some extent. A few studies state that the internet is most often used for communication, as in Kraut et al’s 2002 paper, which says that interpersonal communication is the internet’s most frequent use. According to the Pew Internet Report, 90% of online users in 2000 sent or received email, which supports this assertion. Correspondingly, this research by Kraut et al also found that Internet users experienced positive effects, demonstrated by the fact that their research showed that those who used the internet more had larger increases in their local and distant social circle, along with increased face-to-face interaction with family and friends. These findings indicate that the internet is a social medium, which is capable of increasing social activity and relationships. The study by Robinson et al found that internet users did not spend notably smaller amounts of time in social contact, and in fact, they were more active in family/home communication by a small margin. Though these findings may indicate that the internet does impact other social interactions to some extent, the margin of impact is so small in this study that it does not signify great social impact. Also, according to my survey data, 50% of respondents actually met someone online that they did not know before, which supports the notion that the internet is a social medium, as half of the participants used the internet to broaden their social circles.