:: Netwoman ::

:: Thursday, August 10, 2006 ::

CITASA Mini Conference at the ASA

I'm in Montreal right now for the American Sociology Association Conference. I've been a bad blogger, but so much has been going - and i hope to catch up with readers soon. Gloria Steinem is scheduled to appear on the plenary session program - I am excited about this, I have to say...

Tomorrow - before the ASA conference starts, there is a separate mini-conference for the Communication & Information Technologies of the ASA. You can check out what's going on with it, as we're having an online discussion as well for those people who aren't able to attend the conference, so go have a look at the citasa website.

I'm helping out with Roundtable #1 - Social implications of ubiquitous
computing - and decided to post some thoughts about the recent Statistics Canada media release. I'm posting the comments I made on the citasa site here, and feedback is welcome.

You might have already read about the recent media release from Statistics Canada "The Internet and the way we spend our time". If you haven't, here is a link to Statistics Canada's - The Daily media release.

Here's also a link to a media article at canoe.ca "Heavy Internet users spend less time with family, friends: Statistics Canada" By Michelle Mcquigge.

In a nutshell, the stats can data show that heavy internet users spend less
time on domestic chores, child care and social activities. A few things came
to mind when reading these articles, and some of these were mentioned on the
AoIR list as well. If we're going to talk about social implications, then we
need to identify the problem, and to identify the problem we have to be able
to measure it and its effects. With the pervasiveness of the internet in our
daily lives - for work, education, leisure and social - many of us use the
internet frequently, if not 'all the time' and 'always on'. If you've looked
at the articles, you'll notice the usage of 'heavy' user. They define heavy
user as 'those who spent more than an hour on the Internet during the day'.
Is this an adequate number given the time people spend online for various
tasks? How can we measure what a heavy user really is?

Also, you'll notice the canoe article spins the data in a somewhat negative
light: "Canadians who spend more time online are more likely to neglect
family and real-life friends". In some ways, I'm not surprised by the
initial headline, particularly people spending less time on household chores
(I believe there are dishes in my sink, and yet here I am online.), but can
we really argue that the internet is 'causing' people to neglect friends,
family, home & household? In my own research I've found that the internet
helps people manage and negotiate the hectic routines and daily demands of
work, education, leisure and social. Without email for example, some people
wouldn't be able to schedule the church social, weekly hockey night at the
pub, or the Tuesday Tennis match as easily if at all- these things often
happen between the cracks and crevices of the day/night chaos. One of the
questions on the GSS asks "Compared to five years ago, do you feel more
rushed, about the same or less rushed?". It would be interesting to see
these responses, in addition to the question "on which main activity would
you choose to spend more time if you could?" (with a list that follows).

Is the internet truly responsible for the decline in domestic
responsibilities and f2f contact? Or, is it helping people manage and
schedule their lives, and complimenting their social relationships? What a
minute, haven't we had this discussion? Yes, we have and numerous
researchers have shown previously that the internet doesn't replace f2f but
enhances it. Is this still the case? Is this something that sociologists
need to revisit? Here's some food for thought - a snipit from The Daily:
"Although Internet users spent less time with others generally, they
identified having about the same number of close relationships with people
outside the household as non-users." All is not lost apparently for
relationships outside the home. So what's really happening in the home and
household? Only research will tell.

It seems to me that we often examine and explain data in a way that situates
something as either good or bad, an affordance or constraint. Can we move to
a framework that perhaps moves beyond these dichotomies and looks at the
context and experiences of people's lives - particularly in the
home/household? There seems to be an interchanging of tasks, tools and media
that compliment and work with each other. Again, in my own research I see
that people do spend time online by themselves, but they also spend time
'showing and sharing' things they find online with their family members,
whether it be classic cars, a news headline in India, local real estate,
travel getaways to exotic places or catching the latest update of The
Amazing Race. It's not always solitary and it's not always
'selfish-surfing'.

Much can be said about the social implications of ubiquitous computing, but
we can't forget the 'social' - the context and the things around us (the
sociology?) of our experiences with technology, and we can't forget the
'social' interaction both between people and between people and technology.
I am sure that we will have much to talk about, as CITASA often brings
different tenets of sociological research (and often other disciplines)
together for rich discussion.

I look forward to hearing about other people's research interests and data
in this area. I hope others will be open to posting papers to the wiki and
citasa site.
See some of you Thursday!

:: Netwoman 1:16 AM [+] ::
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