Barry Wellman spoke last night at the University of Toronto about his ongoing research into the 'Internet in Everyday Life'. It was an interesting, but somehow dissatisfying presentation of some significant research into the role of communications technologies in maintaining social ties. If that doesn't sound like the 'Internet' to you, it's because it isn't.

Though Wellman casts his net widely, and talks about researching the Internet as a whole, his work focuses on e-mail (which when the first of these studies was conducted was the major source of traffic on the net). The most interesting set of statistics presented last night were about the inter-relationships between the use of fixed phones, mobile phones, email and SMS and how their use breaks down across type of social ties, and the distance between communicants. He found a group of people who are very heavy communicators, high users of all types of media. Communications technologies enable communication. Wow.

What still concerns me about this talk, though, was that the 'rest' of the Internet, including most of the things that i've been working on, weren't acknowledged, let alone studied in this broadly-named research exercise. What about changes in the relationships between people and institutions, people and publications, people and information-seeking. And what about all those other things people are doing on-line besides talking, synchronously, or a-synchronously. i'm reminded why i read danah boyd.

/jt

Sources 

The Strength of Internet Ties: The internet and email aid users in maintaining their social networks and provide pathways to help when people face big decisions,  Jeffrey Boase, John Horrigan, Barry Wellman, Lee Raini, Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/report_display.asp?r=172

Barry Wellman's web site: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman/