Honey, can I email my love to you? Or shall I fax it in?
Broadly put, this week’s readings center on changes in the shape of human relationships wrought by new media technologies—essentially television and the internet. First up, Putnam and the Mcpherson et al pieces build some historical context so that the character of social life in America can be understood. Putnam’s focus is upon social capital comprised by a broad array of (fairly) weak ties. The McPherson piece zeroes in more on strong ties that are marked by confidant-type relationships. In both articles, the story is the same: over time, social ties are declining in America. Basically, the big question is: why is social life changing in these ways? The other four pieces deal with one potential impetus for these changes: media, specifically internet, use. The findings are varied in this developing body of literature, but suggest that the explanations are not to be found in the technologies themselves but in how Americans use them.
It is tempting to look at changes in the media as the largest changes in American’s environment over that past century and, in following, attribute responsibility. Certainly, the decline in group membership highlighted by Putnam’s first table follows a pattern that clearly seems to relate to the adoption of TV and references the World Wars. While the influence of the World Wars is noted, Vietnam is never mentioned. Just as the World Wars brought wide cross-sections of American (men especially) together across lines of class and race, Vietnam bitterly divided Americans. The groups that Putnam follows were bolstered by relationships forged in tents along the western front—the animal groups, but also professional groups and others. For those that were returning from Vietnam, or those that did not participate, the context in America was simply not the same. This is one macro factor, but it seems like many others—like workforce mobility, national leadership and ideology, and the particular flows of immigration among others—must be considered and may explain as much or more of the changes noted by Putnam as TV does. In the McPherson article, both new media and structural changes to work and recreational lifestyles are mentioned in passing as reasons for the observed changes. Both of these articles make significant contributions to our knowledge of the world we live in; neither of them focus on explaining the phenomenon they describe.
The four pieces (two Pittsburgh, two Stanford) that describe the integration of the internet in Americans’ lives together paint an increasingly nuanced picture. After some fits and starts, the state of the literature currently suggests that the internet can be used to increase socializing and bolster feelings of well-being or may lead to isolation and depression. It comes down to who is using the technology, at what point in their life, and for what purpose. In the Stanford work, distinctions are drawn in both the kind of internet use and the kind of people using the internet. One trend stood out to me: the impact of the internet is centered on the youngest, most educated users. This has many implications. First, television use dominates the media life of older and less-educated respondents. Earlier work (like the Pittsburgh studies) may not have effectively controlled for some of these population differences. Second, those who are using the internet more are likely using it in large part for work—use that does not contribute positively to the social situation of the user. These slightly more nuanced findings suggest that internet use isn’t really the root variable. Instead, it is a proxy for macro-factors like a changing economic environment in which the population is increasingly stratified. Fitting these specific findings into the context created by Putnam and McPherson is challenging. If the overarching trends really are towards less social trust, less social capital, and less social support, and even if media use is only a small part of the story, can the productive elements of internet use be leveraged into reversing these trends?
1. Which macro-factors are most responsible for the changes in Americans’ social lives? How would these impacts be measured? Is explaining why important, or should our energies be focused on managing the situation at hand?
2. What can be taken from the Pittsburgh studies since the results are so contradictory? Should these differences be chalked up to variance in the samples or are they attributable to the timing of the studies?
3. Will there be productive civic outcomes of online social-networking? Are there already examples of this?