New Media & Society Blog - y39

Ostensibly, our readings focus on children and new media this week—but the most interesting thread is the role of social context in dictating the use and influence of these technologies. In the Jackson et. al project, predominantly poor African Americans were given access to the internet in their homes and studied for sixteen months. In Japan, Ito and Okabe explored youth usage of mobile phones for text messaging. And, in Israel, Mesch and Talmud explore the nature and quality of social relationships online and off. Thus far, we have already explored the technologies at stake in these articles; what stands out this week are the different utilizations across cultures.

In the Jackson piece, the basic findings is that, even after providing access to the internet in the home, usage is low and the impact not pronounced. The researchers’ explanation for this is that, without context, the participants simply did not have use for the internet. If communication is the primary driver of use, the participants were from a segment of society that, by-and-large, was not online and, consequently, they had nobody to communicate with online. In addition, other common tasks—like online banking or shopping—may have been less attractive to the participants because they simply did not have the money. Other outcomes—social, psychological, and cognitive—were minimized by low-usage. (The researchers suggest that there were significant cognitive impacts—that high users had better GPAs than low users—but I got a little lost in the path model and couldn’t figure out whether GPA at outset was controlled for…) Kids in Israel, on the other hand, are steeped enough in internet use that Mesch & Talmud could effectively compare the strength of their online and offline relationships. (The most amazing part of this study was the response rate: just about 99%!) In a way, the findings kind of echo Jacksons: compared to offline interaction, online interaction is simply too new/limited to be an equal. Yet, it is simply a given that these children are online and are making new relationships in this space.

The Ito and Okabe article discusses the specifics of a technologies use in a particular culture. They explore the ways in which Japanese youth are able to escape parental/societal surveillance and interact via text messages. Many facets of the society itself drive the usage: the prevalence of small homes, the possibility of living at home during and even after college, and fairly regimented work, school, and public spaces. In addition, care not to disturb others is a cultural value expressed in many nuances of mobile phone usage in Japan. Respondents report texting instead of calling on public transit, texting friends to verify availability before calling, and even texting in the home as a way to mollify co-present parents. Essentially, all of the circumstances add up to a perfect environment for texting to flourish—and it clearly has. To a lesser extent, many of the same motivators exist in other societies—and it seems that texting is less common as well.

1. Was the academic finding in the Jackson et. al study real?

3. Back to the digital divide: will municipal wifi and $100 computers eventually breakdown the segmentation problem that Jackson et al ran into? Are there other forces at work besides affordability? (We discussed the presence of interesting content before…)