Does Internet Use Crowd Out FaceToFace Ties

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Does Internet Use Crowd Out Face-To-Face Ties?
Hun Myoung Park, Ph.D. University Information
Technology Services Indiana University
2009? 12? 11?
Association for Public Policy Analysis and
Management Research Conference in Washington D.C.
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Outline

• Television and Social Capital
• The Internet and Civic Engagement
• Internet Use and Face-To-Face Ties
• Data and Methods
• Dependent and Independent Variables
• Findings
• Conclusion

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Television and Social Capital

• Putnam (1995) TV erodes social capital
• Time displacement thesis
• Mean world thesis
• Norris (1996) types of media use
• Shah (1998), Moy et al. (1999)
• Uslaner (1998) optimism for the future
• Time for watching TV does not matter

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The Internet and Civic Engagement

• Putnam (2000) skeptical view
• Nie and Hillygus (2002) negative
• Shah et al. (2002) positive
• Robinson et al. (2002), Wellman et al. (2001)
  both negative and positive
• Kraut et al. (1998) and Kraut et al. (2002)
  conflicting conclusions
• What happened?

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The Internet and Civic Engagement

• Mobilization or transformation theory
• Reinforcement theory (Davis 1999 Norris 2001)
• Normalization theory (Bimber 1999 Deli Carpini
  and Keeter 2003 Margolis and Resnic 2000)
• Sources of mixed results
• Diversity of civic engagement Weissberg (2005)
• Measures of Internet use Bimber (2001), DiMaggio
  et al. (2001), Norris (2000), Wellman et al.
  (2001)
• Causality (reciprocal, virtuous circle?)
  DiMaggio et al. (2001), Norris (2000), Shah
  (1998), Uslaner (1998)

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Internet Use and Face-To-Face Ties

• Putnam (2000) Limitation of the Internet
• Digital inequality (digital divide)
• Less nonverbal and in-depth information
• Cyberbalkanization
• Wellman et al. (2001) supplemental role
• Stromer-Galley (2000) computer mediated human
  interaction and media interaction
• Weiser (2001) Socio-affective regulation and
  goods-and-information acquisition
• Zhao (2006) social and nonsocial use

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Research Questions?

• Internet use crowds out face-to-face ties?
• Any change in face-to-face ties over time?
• Types of Internet services matter?
• Time spent for email
• Time spent for WWW use
• Modes (purposes) of Internet use make any
  difference?
• Deliberation and information
• Entertainment (e.g., music, movies, games)

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Data and Methods

• General Social Survey
• Trend analyses (1972-2008)
• Statistical Modeling (2000-2004)
• Recoding problems in 2000 and 2002 data
• Ordinary Least Squares (OLS)
• Negative Binomial Regression Model for the number
  of memberships

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Dependent and Independent Variables

• Dependent Variables
• Spending social evenings
• People staying in contact with
• The number of memberships
• Independent Variables
• Types of Internet services
• Modes (purposes) of Internet use
• Covariates (education, family income, gender,
  race, marital status, etc.)

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Internet Penetration (Pew Internet)
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Finding No Change in Ties Over Time

• No change in spending social evenings with
  relatives, neighbors, friends
• No change in the number of friends and relatives
  staying in contact with
• No significant change in the number of
  organizations that a citizen gets involved
• No change in helpfulness, fairness, and
  trustworthiness as well
• No slash or jump before and after the end of the
  1990s. Then

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Helpfulness, Fairness, Trust
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Spending Social Evening
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Staying in Contact with
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The Number of Memberships
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Finding Spending Social Evening

• Types of Internet services not matter
• Modes of Internet use not matter
• Education
• Age
• Marital status
• Attendance at religious services

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Spending Social Evenings
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Finding Staying in Contact with

• Email use has a positive impact
• WWW has a negative effect
• Positive impact of deliberative purpose
• No effect of entertainment purposes
• Education and attendance at religious services
  are positively related
• Gender (female) and race (white) have positive
  effects

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Staying in Contact
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The Number of Membership
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Finding The Number of Memberships

• Email and overall WWW uses not matter
• Deliberative use of WWW has a positive impact
• Education and attendance at religious services
  are positively related.
• Many zeros issue (over-dispersion)
• Heavier deliberative use of WWW have less zeros
  than lighter use

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Conclusion

• Preliminary analysis
• No significant decline and increase in
  face-to-face ties over times
• Spending social evenings Internet use not matter
  much
• Staying in contact with friends and relatives
  email use and deliberative WWW use have positive
  effects as communication tools
• The number of memberships deliberative WWW use
  positively related
• Any dynamics in generations? Probably not
• Causality Issue

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