Are Americans Becoming INTERNET SLAVES?

As Internet use grows, Americans report that they are spending less time with friends and family, shopping in stores, or watching television, and more time working for their employers at home--without cutting back their hours in the office. These are the major preliminary results of the first assessment of the social consequences of Internet use based on a large, representative sample of American households, including both Internet users and nonusers. The research, conducted by the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society (SIQSS), sampled 4,113 adults in 2,689 households.

A key finding is that "the more hours people use the Internet, the less time they spend with real human beings," according to Stanford (Calif.) University professor Norman Nie, director of SIQSS and the principal investigator of the study along with Lutz Erbring of the Free University of Berlin. "This is an early trend that, as a society, we really need to monitor carefully."

While a number of commentators have speculated about how the Internet might change people's daily lives and some studies have looked at the use patterns of nonrepresentative groups of Internet users, only a sample representative of households nationally allows analysts to make projections about Americans' future Internet usage and its likely consequences, the researchers say. They worked with InterSurvey of Menlo Park, Calif., to develop a unique Internet-based method for conducting surveys with a national probability sample of the general population, including both Internet users and nonusers.

Around two-thirds of those surveyed who have Internet access said they spend fewer than five hours a week on the Internet, and most of them did not report large changes in their day-to-day behavior. The other 36% who use the Internet five or more hours a week do report significant changes in their lives. The largest changes are reported by those who spend more than 10 hours a week on the Net--individuals who currently account for 15% of all Internet users, but are likely to be a much larger fraction in the future. "As of today, heavy Internet users are still a small fraction of the total population," Nie points out, "but that fraction is steadily growing."

Social isolation up. "Internet time is coming out of time viewing television, but also at the expense of time people spend on the phone gabbing with family and friends or having a conversation with people in the room with them," he indicates...