A87. Rice, R. E.,
Sheperd, A., Dutton, W. H. & Katz, J. E. (2007). Social interaction
and the
Internet: A comparative analysis of surveys in the US
and Britain.
In A. N. Joinson, K.Y.A. McKenna, T. Postmes, & U. R. Reips (Eds.),
Oxford
handbook of Internet psychology (pp. 7-30). Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
The
Internet has been a major social and technical innovation, ranging from
household use of the Web for electronic messaging to accessing
information and operating
one’s financial affairs. This worldwide multi-media computer and
transmission network
of networks is altering access to important intellectual resoruces and
dramatically
changing lives and social arrangements in many places around the world.
In the decade since the Internet became available to both public and
commercial
interests, and was made much more accessible through the Web and
browsers, nearly
two-thirds of the adult population in the US and over half the adult
population
in Britain has used the Internet to seek and receive information, and
communicate with others both known and unknown (Rice & Katz, 2003).
This chapter
examines a central question raised by this growth in Internet use: is
Internet
use associated with increased or decreased social interaction?
First,
the chapter reviews relevant prior literature and research on the
digital
divide in general, and the relationships of Internet use with social
interaction. This overview grounds four
research questions, namely what can be learned by: comparing users and
nonusers, comparing users with more and less offline interpersonal and
mediated
social interaction, assessing changes in social networks, and comparing
US and
British Internet users. Results from analyses of these questions come
from
national surveys in the US
in 1995 and 2000 and Britain
in 2003.
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