Time Well Spent?
First posted 2006-07-23 00:00:00.000006+00:00
As part of my course last term I did some direct research, focusing on the relationship between the internet and subjective well being. Here is an overview and a summary of the results.
This piece is the work of an undergraduate student and has not been subject to peer review in the same way that a full academic publication would be. All results here may as a result be completely wrong. Please bear this in mind when reading, and do not quote the results in any future work, discussion, or argument down the pub. This study was principally inspired by one performed by Kraut et al. They gave families computers with internet access and looked at the effect this had on them. They initially found that greater internet usage seemed to lead to greated loneliness and depression (1998), but in a follow up study found there didn't seem to be any effect (2002). Other research has also given mixed results, for example DiMaggio et al. (2001) found internet users tend to have wider social networks, but Cummings, Butler and Kraut (2002) found online friendships were less valuable than offline ones. My working hypothesis for this study was that people benefit more from the internet when they have more online friends.
My results don't seem to support this. The results suggest that people who spend more time online are typically lonelier, however the quality and quantity of online friendships doesn't seem to have any effect. This is in constrast to the quality and quantity of real life friendships, whch had a significant impact on how lonely people are. People's online and real life friendships did not seem related at all.
If you want more details the full piece is available here.