The
Internet in Everyday Life: An Introduction
Caroline Haythornthwaite
and Barry Wellman
Draft of chapter to appear in,The Internet in Everyday Life, edited by
Barry Wellman & Caroline Haythornthwaite, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Forthcoming,
Fall 2002.
Abstract
The changing presence of the Internet from a medium for elites to one in common
use in our everyday lives raises important questions about its impact on access
to resources, social interaction, and commitment to local community. This book
brings together studies that cover the impact of "the Internet" in everyday life
in the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, India, Japan and globally. These
studies show the Internet as a complex landscape of applications, purposes and
users. This introduction begins by summarizing results from studies in this book
and other recent research to provide an overview of the Internet population and
its activities - statistics that help define and articulate the nature of the
digital divide. We move from there to consideration of the social consequences
of adding Internet activity to our daily lives, exploring how use of the Internet
affects traditional social and communal behaviors such as communication with local
family and commitment to geographical communities. We conclude with a look at
how these studies also reveal the integration of the Internet in our everyday
lives.