The Mobile-izing Japanese:
Connecting to the Internet by PC and
Webphone in Yamanashi
Kakuko Miyata, Jeffrey Boase, Barry
Wellman and Ken’ichi Ikeda
March 6,
2004
The Mobile-izing Japanese:
Connecting to the Internet by Webphone and PC in Yamanashi
The Internet, Media and
Relationships
Engaging with Japanese
Internet Use: Is Internet communication in Japan different than in
America? Does the proliferation in Japan of mobile phones that can connect to
the Internet (we call them “webphones”) affect who talks with whom online? In
this chapter, we compare the social relations in everyday life of Japanese
users of mobile phones and PCs.
Our investigation into the unique
character of Japanese Internet relationships departs from the scholarly norm.
Most accounts of the Internet have been universalistic. They have suggested
that the global evolution of the Internet’s population and use is following the
course of American forbearers, with early non-American users being
predominantly young, well-educated men emailing with a wide range of strong and
weak ties (Chen, Boase and Wellman, 2002). Such accounts have assumed that the
users and uses of the Internet will eventually be the same around the world,
and that current variations in Internet use exist only because other countries
have not caught up to early-starting America or are too impoverished to do so.
Yet, societies often differ in
their interpersonal relationships, socioeconomic systems, norms and values, and
climate and geography. Not surprisingly, the users and the uses of the Internet
often varies between societies (Miller & Slater, 2000; Chen & Wellman,
2004). The Internet is not a system floating ethereally above societies. It is
embedded in the concrete realities of people, practices and power (Wellman and
Haythornthwaite, 2002). For example, although a recent study of Catalonia
described much less interpersonal email use than in America, it also showed
substantial use of the web for dealing with institutions: obtaining
information, booking theater tickets, finding plane schedules, and the like
(Castells, et al., 2003). East Asian use of the Internet is also different.
Heavily broadbanded Koreans are immersed in multiplayer online games
(Tkach-Kawaski, 2003), while mobile Japanese (and Scandinavians) often use both
webphones and PCs (Akiyoshi, 2004).
This
chapter is the first published report of our study of the users and uses of the
Internet in Japan. Survey data from 1320 adult respondents were collected in
late 2002 in the somewhat rural prefecture of Yamanashi, more than 100
kilometers west of Tokyo. The respondents were asked about their use of both
webphones and personal computers (PCs): how often they use them, what they use
them for, and what sorts of relationships they have contacted. The chapter
focuses on the social characteristics and the social relationships of the users
of Internet-connected webphones and PCs. We:
·
examine the Japanese context, so different from the canonical
American context;
·
compare the users of webphones and PCs;
·
compare communication via mobile phones and PCs;
·
analyze how webphones and PCs sustain strong and weak
ties in social networks;
·
analyze how webphones and PCs are related to the
provision of social support.
Our work addresses the ongoing
debate about the effects of Internet use on community and social support. We
conclude by discussing the implications of webphone use for the “mobile-ized”
nature of Japanese society. We believe that our results are informative about
the nature of Japanese communication and social networks, Japanese-American
differences in Internet use, and the turn towards “networked individualism”
that is happening in Japan as well as in North America (Meguro, 1992; Nozawa, 1996;
Otani, 1999; Wellman, 2001, 2002).
The Shift from Solidary to Networked Communities: For over a century, the developed world has been experiencing a shift
away from communities based on villages and neighborhoods and towards flexible
partial communities based on networked households and individuals. A
good deal of research is now showing that, rather than destroying community,
the Internet adds on to existing relationships with community members: friends,
acquaintances, relatives, and even neighbors (see the summary in Wellman &
Haythornthwaite 2002). This is not a static phenomenon. Communication through
the Internet appears to be facilitating the turn away from bounded, holistic
communities of kin and neighbors and towards far-flung, multiple and partial
communities.
Until now, thinking about the
Internet has focused on its ability to communicate across continents at nearly
the speed of light. At the same time, Internet users have been “glocalized”
(Wellman 2003): bound to their desktops by the wires connecting to the Internet
even as their interactions range widely in space. It is time to consider a new
era: how the peripatetic mobile users of the Internet communicate with the
members of their social networks and communities (also see Rheingold 2002).
The Japanese have been at the
forefront of this new era. Already experienced and active users of keitai --
lightweight, feature-laden mobile phones – many Japanese are now using new
models of mobile phones to communicate with social network members and to web
surf for information. We wonder who is doing this and with what consequences
for their social networks.
Accessing the Internet through
the use of mobile phones has already become integrated into daily life for a
significant proportion of the Japanese population (Barnes & Huff 2003). By
the end of May 2001, more than 40 million Japanese were able to access the
Internet through their mobile phones, with the number rising 55 percent to more
than 62 million by the end of March 2003 (MPMHAPT 2003). By contrast, only 4
million North Americans could use mobile phones to access the Internet in
August 2000 (Funk 2001).
In fact, mobile phones that can access the Internet have been so rare in the
English-speaking world that we had to coin a new word, “webphone,” to refer to
them.
The four major Japanese webphone
access providers are: NTT DoCoMo, KDDI,
Vodafon, and Tsu-ka (in order of number of subscribers, January2004). Each uses a variety of
Internet protocols: DoCoMo’s I-mode is the most popular, followed by WAP
(Wireless Application Protocol) and WAP2. Although WAP2 is the least popular,
it is rapidly gaining a foothold in the market as it permits advanced “3G”
(third generation) services that provide GPS (global positioning system), video
clips, higher speed, and other advanced features (Kageyama, 2003).
Japanese webphones have
relatively large screens when compared to all but the most recent American mobile
phones. Sending email through Japanese webphones is similar to sending email
through PCs, although users have to cope with less user-friendly telephone
keypads. Users enter the email address of the recipient, a subject line, and
then the contents of their message. Moreover, webphones can send and receive
email to and from PCs, as well as to other webphones.
The percentage of young adults in
Japan who use webphones to email is much higher than in America and many parts
of Europe where webphone email has failed to attract a majority of people from
any age group. This difference is partly due to marketing strategies taken by
Japanese mobile phone providers that catered to the desires of youth and young
adults. Japanese providers initially sold webphones as entertainment devices
for the younger generation, rather than trying to sell them as practical tools
for older business people. By gearing webphones to the younger generation as
something fun and relatively inexpensive, they were able to capture this group
who were already the largest consumers of mobile phones. As Japanese youth were
the first adopters of webphones, it makes sense that webphone use has diffused
so quickly and become so ubiquitous among them. After gaining a foothold in the
youth market, webphone providers beefed up bandwidth and web interfaces, making
their services more attractive to a wider audience.
Cultural differences and
marketing tactics may have driven the quick and ubiquitous adoption of this new
technology by younger Japanese. They were probably predisposed to send email
through webphones by their extensive use of pagers in 1990s to contact friends
and organize social activities. (Parents who wanted to keep tabs on their
children’s activities also spurred the use of pagers.) This incorporation of
pagers into everyday routines set the stage for the adoption of webphones with
their advantage of smoothly integrating voice and message contact.
Only a few ethnographic studies
have investigated younger Japanese use of pagers and mobile phones. One study
reports that mobile phones afford Tokyo youth important advantages (Ito, 2001).
The ability to send short messages at any time allows users to keep in frequent
contact with friends, strengthening their social networks and providing a feeling
of “ultraconnectedness”. This sort of communication typically occurs frequently
but with only a small number of friends (between 2 and 5). At the same time,
typing quick messages gives a new kind of freedom, for it often can be done
somewhat covertly without alerting parents. Contacting friends can occur late
at night while parents are sleeping, something not easily done through wired
landline phones that rarely reside in Japanese children’s bedrooms.
Complementing this is a Japanese concern since the 1960s to develop more
communication between spouses and between parents and children (Matsuda 2004).
The result is a concentrated, active use of mobile phones use to expand and
enhance contact with close friends and immediate family.
The advantages that webphones offer Japanese youth
are probably similar to the advantages that ordinary mobile phones (those that
cannot be used to access the Internet) offer young people in other countries.
Youth adopt mobile phones, worldwide, to increase their autonomy and the
quality of their ties with friends. For example, European youth are more likely
than their parents to use mobile phones to build their social networks and to
tell parents their whereabouts (Ling 2001, 2004). Furthermore, mobile phones
have become incorporated into youth culture to such an extent that exchanges of
text messages, airtime, and even mobile phones themselves have become heavily
reciprocated, binding youth closely together. Text message exchanges are often
incorporated into face-to-face contact with peers during “hang-out time”. When
messages and phones are shared among the group, they add to the interaction of
the entire group rather than only of their owners (Weilenmann & Larsson,
2001; Taylor & Harper 2003).
Will young users continue to rely
on webphones as they grow older? On the one hand, the desire to be in constant
contact with friends may dissipate as young adults enter more instrumental
relationships at the workplace and save their recreational time for contact
with spouses and family at home. On the other hand, heavy habitual use of this
technology between friends and family may continue as people age and continue
to integrate webphones into their work and domestic relationships.
By contrast
to young adults and youth, older adults first encountered the Internet by using
personal computers (PCs) to email and use the web (Miyata 2002). The mobile
phones they first used were not able to access the Internet. Hence, it is
possible that older adults have not developed the habit of using mobile phones
to access the Internet even when their new webphones have this capability.
The Internet Users of Yamanashi
Our
study of Internet users is based on our random sample survey of 1,320 adults in
Yamanashi prefecture, Japan. Yamanashi is a mixed rural and urban area, located
in the center of Japan. It is typical of Japan (outside of the Tokyo and Osaka
urban agglomerations) in the characteristics of its population and its Internet
users.
[Table 1 about here]
Within the Yamanashi prefecture,
40 neighborhoods were randomly selected by postal code, with a random selection
of 33 individuals within each of those neighborhoods. Potential respondents
were chosen from a voters list of people aged to 20-65
years old. Surveys
were in paper form, delivered in-person, and collected in-person three weeks
later. Three-quarters (76 percent) of the selected individuals completed
the survey, providing a total sample size of 1,002 respondents. Surveying took
place between
November 15 and December 5, 2002.
For our analysis, we have divided
respondents into three types: those who use both webphones and PCs, those who
use only webphones and those who use only PCs. Our rationale is that those
using only webphones or PCs may have different characteristics and patterns of
use than those who use both media.
Age: Age marks the largest
difference in use of email by mobile phone and PC. The percentage of people
using both webphones and PCs declines dramatically with age. A large majority
of young adults in their 20s access email through the use of webphones (Figure 1). More than two-thirds (69
percent) of the respondents in their 20’s use both the webphone and PC, while
24 percent only use webphones. In sum, 93 percent of all respondents in their
20s use webphones for email.
The use of webphones by those in their 20’s is so marked that they comprise 39
percent of all webphone users even though they are only 21 percent of the
sample. They are 1.9 times as likely to be webphone users than the average
respondents. Somewhat older adults in their 30s also are disproportionately
high webphone users, comprising 29 percent of all webphone users even though
they are only 20 percent of the sample. They are 1.4 times as likely to be
webphone users than the average respondents. The disproportionate use of
webphones by younger adults is so great that adults aged 20-39 own two-thirds
(68 percent) of all webphones even though they comprise only two-fifths (41
percent) of the sample.
[Figure 1 about
here.]
By contrast to low webphone email
use by adults over aged 40+, the percentage of respondents using only PCs to
exchange emails increases until the age of 60. Moreover, older adults are more
apt to use only PCs for email, while younger adults are more apt to use both
webphones and PCs. Not only do the ways of accessing the Internet vary by age,
so does the frequency of sending email. Older Japanese, aged 50+, are much less
likely to exchange email (or use the Internet) at all, by contrast to North
America where those aged 50+ frequently exchange emails and use the Internet
(UCLA, 2003).
Gender: Gender is also
related to the mode of accessing the Internet. For each age group, different
percentages of women and men use webphones, PCs, or both (Table 2). For example, more women (27 percent)
than men (20 percent) in their 20s use only webphones. Gender differences
change for older age groups. In general, men in the older age groups are
somewhat more likely to use a combination of webphones and PCs: 52 percent of
men in their 30s use both webphones and PCs to email, as compared to 46 percent
of women in their 30s. While 39 percent of men in their 40s use both media,
only 26 percent of women in their 40s use both. Many middle-aged men make heavy
use of their PCs at work and have less need for webphones. Moreover, Japanese
women have historically used PCs less than men (Ono & Zavodny, 2004).
[Table 2 about here.]
As we have seen, many younger
adults use both webphones and PCs to access the Internet. In addition, younger
adults are more likely to use only webphones to access the Internet. However,
age is not the sole predictor. Yamanashi respondents with lower levels of
technological skill and education are more likely to use only webphones to
access the Internet (Table 3). The
lower the respondents rated their ability to use various kinds of technology,
the more they tend to only use webphones. By contrast, those using PCs (either alone or in combination with
webphones) report themselves to be more skilled when using technology. This
accords with a nationwide Japanese survey that found that people using both
webphones and PCs had relatively higher levels of perceived skill using
keyboards (Ikeda 2002).
[Table 3 about here]
Respondents with only a high school degree are more
likely to use only webphones to access the Internet than are those with more
(or less) education. In part, these educational differences may reflect
differential access to the Internet at work, as people with only a high school
education are less likely to have access to PCs at work. Furthermore, those
respondents with a high school education are more likely to have webphones than
those with even lower levels of education who are less able to afford them. However,
the relatively low explained variance (R2) in the logistic
regression model suggests that there are other germane factors not measured in
our survey.
Do people
maintain different kinds of networks when they use webphones, PCs, or both to
email? The differences could be because of the kinds of people using these
different media or because of the nature of the media used. For example,
Japanese businessmen are reluctant to use the more intimate, less formal
webphones to send business-related email.
To address this question, we examine how much email is exchanged, and the
extent to which email is exchanged with local or distant ties, and with strong
and weak ties.
Slightly
more emails are sent by webphones than by PCs. Those who only use webphones
send an average of about 6 emails per day, while those who only use PCs send
two-thirds fewer, an average of about 2 emails per day. The greatest number of
emails are sent by those using both webphones and PCs, about 7 or 8 emails per
day through their webphone, plus about 2 emails per day through their PC, for a
total of 9 to 10 emails per day.
Those who only use webphones and
those who use both webphones and PCs send, on average, the same number of webphone
emails per day: about 6. Those who only use PCs and those who use both PCs
and webphones also send, on average, the same number of PC emails per
day: about 2. In short,
using both media, webphones and PCs, adds to the number of emails sent: one
medium does not replace the other. This finding, that using both a PC and a
webphone is associated with more frequent email use, is congruent with other
studies’ findings that the more media that are used, the greater the overall
amount of communication (Haythornthwaite & Wellman 1998; Quan-Haase, et al.
2002; Hogan, 2003). It further suggests that different sorts of email are being
sent by webphones and PCs.
Emails exchanged by webphones
tend to be more local than emails exchanged by PCs. People
who only use webphones are especially likely to use their webphones to send
email to people who live with them (Table 4). People who use
both PCs and webphones are more likely to use webphones to send messages to others
who live nearby (within one hour’s travel by car) and to use PCs to send
messages to those who live further away.
People who only use PCs are the most likely to communicate with others
who live further away.
[Table 4]
These findings are consistent with
the ethnographic research discussed above showing that young Japanese use
webphones to send quick emails to nearby friends. Their exchanges may simply be
about trivial matters, used to maintain a feeling of connectedness, or to
arrange things such as asking a spouse to pick up food on the way home from
work. The mobile nature of webphones makes them perfect for arranging meetings
or changing plans at the last second (Ling & Yttri 2002; Smith 2000). As
typing messages is more difficult through a webphone than a PC, we believe that
respondents reserve PC email for richer, in-depth contact.
Does the Internet help maintain social networks? To
address this question, we examine three properties of social networks: the number
of supportive ties, network diversity, and network size.
Supportive Ties: Does the immediacy of portable webphones or the
range of PCs facilitate the availability of social support? To measure the
number of supportive ties, respondents were asked to report the number of
network members that would give them words of encouragement (emotional
support), provide them with a small amount of money (financial support), or aid
them in tasks such as moving house, or providing others goods and services
(instrumental support). The number of network members in all three categories
was summed and divided by three.
The data show that users of both modes of Internet
access --- webphones and PCs -- have the highest number of supportive ties (2.6),
followed closely by users of PCs only (2.5), non-users of either PCs or
webphones (2.4), and users of webphones only (2.4; see Table 5). Are these
small differences in the supportiveness of networks due to the mode of
communication used – webphone or PC – or to some other factors? We used
regression analysis to take into account intercorrelations among key variables.
For example, respondents who use only PCs tend to be older than those who use
webphones (alone, or with PCs). Social networks grow in size with age, greater
time in the work force, and experience.
[Table 5]
Having more supportive ties is associated with older age,
being a member of an organization, and sending greater amounts of email by
webphones (Table 6).
Hence, the differing number of supportive ties for users of webphones and PCs
reflects disparities in the age of users of each mode rather than the mode
itself. People tend to add to their supportive ties as they grow older they.
People who are members of organizations tend to gather more supportive ties,
especially when they are active members.
Frequent communication also matters: Those who send more than 11 emails by
webphone have significantly larger supportive networks than those who did not
send any emails by webphone. It may be that communication leads to more
support; and it may be that those who need more support are in more
communication (for similar pre-Internet Canadian data, see Wellman, 1979;
Wellman & Wortley, 1990).
[Table 6]
Network Diversity: Diverse
networks provide access to new sources of information and resources: The more
different types of people you know, the more social milieus you are likely to
be connected with (Feld, 1982). Network diversity has many different facets,
such as occupational diversity, gender diversity, ethnic diversity, etc. We
focus on occupational diversity because people who work in different
occupations often come from different social backgrounds (Lin, 2001).
Respondents were asked to indicate if they have any relatives, friends, or
acquaintances in any of 15 categories of diverse occupations. A count of the
number of different occupation categories was made for each respondent,
yielding a score from 0 to 15, with a higher score indicating greater diversity
of contact.
Those who use only PCs for email score markedly higher
on network diversity (mean score = 5.5). There is less difference among the
other categories: users of both webphones and PCs (4.5), non-users (4.2), and
webphone-only users (4.2; Table 5). Similar to our analysis of supportive ties,
we used regression analysis to see if this difference is actually linked to the
mode of communication used. The data show that as is the situation for
supportive ties, organizational involvement and frequent communication are
positively associated with network diversity.
In fact, involvements with formal and informal associations are the two
strongest predictors to having occupationally diverse networks (Table 6). Not
surprisingly, the more groups joined and actively involved with, the more
varied are the occupations encountered. The data show that PC-based email
facilitates political participation, while webphone-based email does not (for
more details, see Ikeda, Kobayashi & Miyata, 2003).
Weak Ties: As we have
hypothesized that webphones (like other cellphones) are especially important
for maintaining strong ties (close friends and family) and PCs maintain weak as
well as strong ties, we have tried to discern the size of weak tie networks.
Yet, this is hard to do in a short, closed-ended survey. To estimate the size
of weak tie networks, we asked respondents about how many New Year’s greeting
cards they had sent in the past year.
As the great majority of ties in a network are relatively weak (Bernard, et
al., 1990; Watts, 2002), this is a crude estimate of the number of weak ties
respondents have.
By contrast to our hypothesis, those who send emails only by PC sent a
significantly larger number of greeting cards in the past year, a mean of 92
(Table 5). Users of both webphone and PC trail substantially, sending a mean of
54 cards. However, they send somewhat more than non-users (47) and
webphone-only users (43), although the differences between these latter three
groups are not statistically significant.
Regression analysis shows that older age is positively
associated with sending New Year’s cards, as is organizational involvement,
being married, and having at least a university education (Table 6). All of the
variables provide contexts for meeting other people. Sending PC-based email is
also positively associated, supporting our hypothesis that sending more
PC-based email is associated with having larger networks and a larger number of
weak ties.
As these associations between variables are similar to those found for the
number of supportive ties and for the diversity of networks, it is not
surprising that all three network variables are related: Larger numbers of weak
ties are associated with more network support and more diverse networks. In
general, those who use only PCs and those who use both PCs and webphones have
more diverse networks and larger numbers of weak and strong ties than those who
use only webphones and those who do not use either media. Their social networks
lack richness in comparison to those who use PCs, whether in combination with
webphones or not.
The Networks of Dual Webphone and PC Email Users
The results above suggest that the nature of webphone
and PC email are different: the media are not fully substitutable, with the
handiest one being used. For example, as PC email is entered by keyboard and is
read on bigger screens, it should contain longer messages than webphones that
use cumbersome thumbpads to write messages and small screens to read them. As
weak ties are usually contacted less frequently, they may be likely contacted with
longer, PC-based emails that explain their purpose in more detail than the
common webphone messages: “I love you,” “Meet me in 10 minutes” and “Please
bring home a bottle of beer”. In this way, the medium affects not only the
message, but also the kind of person to whom the message is intended.
Network Characteristics and Modes of Communication: To investigate this, we focused on
those respondents who use both webphones and PCs to send emails. We have already shown that such dual users have a higher
number of strong ties and weaker ties. Regression analysis shows that dual webphone-PC users
who sent more than 6 webphone messages yesterday have a greater number of
supportive ties than those who did not send any (Table 7). Conversely, those
dual users who sent at least one PC message yesterday have slightly fewer
supportive ties than those who did not send any. These findings are
statistically significant, but not strong.
[Table 7 about here]
By
contrast, sending PC-email is more strongly associated with having diverse
networks than is webphone-email. However, sending both webphone and PC email
are positively associated with network diversity (Table 7). The more emails sent, the greater the
statistical association, with the strongest association being among people who
sent PC email at least 6 times yesterday. Moreover, moderate PC-email users
(those who sent 1-5 messages yesterday) sent more New Year’s cards, indicating
having a larger number of weak ties in their networks. There is no association
between sending webphone email and sending New Year’s cards. Indeed, although
it is not statistically significant, the data show that the more webphone
messages sent, the smaller the greeting card network (Table 7).
As
another indicator of the size of networks, respondents were asked to report the
number of email addresses kept in their webphones or PCs. Those using both
webphones and PCs keep an average of 35 addresses in their webphones and 19 in
their PCs. Even if the addresses they kept in both devices overlap completely,
we know there are still at least an average of 35 people with whom they have
sent or received email. This number is much higher than the 23 addresses of
those who only use a webphone and the 17 addresses of those who only use a PC.
Most of the ties in PC address
books are weaker ties of acquaintanceship rather than stronger ties with close
friends and family. This is because respondents report that they only exchange
supportive email between 1 and 3 network members, presumably those with whom
they have strong ties. This may be a low estimate, as both earlier Japanese
(Otani 1999) and Canadian data (Wellman 1979; Wellman & Wortley 1999) shows
a mean of 5 strong ties.
The inference is clear: only a few of the names in the PC and webphone address
books are strong, supportive ties. Most are weaker, but still significant
enough to be entered into address books. Moreover, many weak ties are not in
these address books. They are answered when they contact the respondents, or
their infrequently used addresses are found in other ways.
The
number of strong ties maintained through the use of email is greatest for those
using both a webphone and a PC. Those using both a webphone and PC reported an
average of 2.9 supportive people in their social networks, those using
only a webphone reported 2.4, but those using only a PC reported a
much lower total of 1.2 supportive people (F=10.463, p<.05). Thus, not only do
people who use both webphones and PCs have larger networks and more contact
with network members, they also have a larger number of supportive ties in
their networks. Here too, using multiple media to communicate with network
members is associated with being in larger, more communicative, and more
supportive social networks.
The use of webphones and PCs
varies by age and gender. Those who only use webphones tend to be in their 20s
and 30s, have only a high school degree, and rate themselves low in their
ability to use technology. In addition to webphones, people in their 20s and
30s are also heavy users of PCs. Many are dual users of both webphones and PCs.
Between the ages of 30 and 59 there is an increase in the proportion of
respondents who exchange email through the use of PC only.
Although gender differences are
not so great among those in their 20s, they become more pronounced among older
respondents in their 30s and 40’s. In these latter age groups, a greater
percentage of men combine media, possibly because they are more likely to use
PCs at work.
There is significant variation in
the amount and kinds of contact with social networks by media. People use
webphones more than PCs to send emails, even when they have both webphones and
PCs available. Yet webphone email tends to be with people who are nearby, while
PC email tends to be with people who are further away as well as nearby.
Webphones are most often used to send short quick messages with close friends
and family, allowing them to keep emotionally connected and organize meetings,
or with those who are nearby, facilitating arrangement of everyday activities.
Those who send many webphone emails have more supportive ties. By contrast,
PC-based email messages are apt to be to weak as well as strong ties, and are
not as likely to be linked to imminent physical get-togethers. Those who send
many emails have larger and more diverse networks.
Using
two modes of communication supports larger social networks. To a certain
extent, the two modes are complementary, with webphone mail used differently than PC mail for
maintaining ties. Webphone email is more closely associated with strong,
supportive ties. PC email is used to contact weak as well as strong ties.
Webphones support intensive relationships with loved ones and other strong
ties. They are interfaces for intimate contact, and enable intimates to be
accessible anywhere and anytime. By contrast, PCs support more extensive
networks. They are interfaces with the rest of the world – as well as with
intimates – and allow users to be selective in whom they are in contact with and
when this contact takes place.
It is probable that within a
short time, the great majority of Yamanashi residents will use both webphones
and PCs to send messages. Hence, those respondents who mix media by using both
webphones and PCs are a harbinger of this future. Not only do such dual-mode
users have more strong and weak ties with whom they can exchange email, they
are in more frequent contact with them. Moreover, those who exchange higher
numbers of emails tend to have a greater number of strong ties.
A Mobile-ized Society: The
proliferation of the Internet is facilitating social changes that have been
developing for decades in the ways that people contact, interact, and obtain
resources with each other. Now the emphasis of connectivity in the developed
world appears to be moving from transportation to communication: from airport
terminals and road networks to computer terminals and networks. In this technologically changing world, the
Yamanashi study indicates the interplay between communication modes and social
networks in a society that is increasingly emphasizing computer-mediated
communication. The study also shows that the North American Internet experience
is not necessarily the norm for other developed societies.
There are important similarities,
too. The Yamanashi evidence, taken together with research done in North America
and Europe, shows that the Internet is not a self-contained transcendental
world but is immanent in everyday life (Wellman & Hogan, 2004). Thus, these
Japanese data are consistent with North American data that shows that people
who use multiple media tend to have stronger and more frequently contacted ties
(Wellman 1988, 1992; Haythornthwaite & Wellman, 1988; Wellman, Boase &
Chen, 2002; Quan-Haase, et al., 2002; Castells, et al. 2003). Rather than operating at the expense of the
“real” face-to-face world, the Internet is an extension, with people using all
means of communication to connect with friends and relatives. The Internet is
another means of communication that is being integrated into the regular
patterns of social life. Other research by our NetLab suggests that this
integration of online and offline life is also true for communities of practice
at work (Haythornthwaite & Wellman 1998; Koku, Nazer & Wellman 2001;
Koku & Wellman 2004).
The Yamanashi study highlights how
different forms of computer-mediated communication are used for different
purposes. Webphones are most often used to send short, quick messages with
those who are physically near-by. They are less often used to access the
Internet, and they are rarely used to gather information about social issues or
to participate in online communities. It appears that webphones are useful to
maintain strong ties with people who are socially or physically close (see also
Rivière & Licoppe’s French data, 2003). However, webphones are not used
much to contact weaker ties or to develop more diverse networks. This may be because webphones are not well
suited to afford connections to sites where weak tie relationships may be
formed, such as chat rooms and issue-oriented sites. Then again, there may be a
population cohort effect because webphone-only users are younger adults who may
not be as interested in discussing issues as are middle-aged and older Japanese
adults.
Our results call into question the
traditional stereotype of Japan as a closed, bounded society (see also Meguro
1992; Nozawa 1996; Otani 1999, White 2002). People are on the move, getting
information, making arrangements, and contacting friends and relatives through
wireless webphones and wired PCs. Young adults in their twenties are especially
heavy users of webphones. Yet, the fact that those in their thirties also use
webphones heavily suggest that this is not a twenty-something phase. Rather, it
is a trend towards mobile connectivity – which we call mobile-ization – that is
becoming increasingly prevalent throughout Japanese society. As those in their
twenties and thirties grow into middle-age, we expect their mobile communication
to continue, although tempered by a heavier reliance on faster and more
informative big-screen PCs at work and at home.
Towards Networked
Individualism: The Yamanshi results support our NetLab’s working
assumption that developed societies, worldwide, are becoming less bound up in
neighborhood and kinship solidarities and more constituted as networked
individualism. The traditional criterion of “community" is of a neighborhood or village in which many of the
residents know each other (Wellman & Leighton 1979). Yet, communities have
become far-flung and privatized, shifting from groups interacting
face-to-face in visible public spaces to individuals communicating privately
over much larger distances. Communities and societies have been shifting towards
networked societies where boundaries are more permeable, interactions are with
diverse others, and linkages switch between multiple networks, (Wellman, 1997,
1999, 2001; Castells, 2000). Hence, many people communicate with others in ways
that spread out across group boundaries. Rather than relating to one group,
they cycle through interactions with a variety of others, at work or in the
community. Their work and community networks are diffused, sparsely knit, with
vague, overlapping, social and spatial boundaries.
Changes
in the nature of computer-mediated communication both reflect and foster the
development of networked individualism in networked societies. Internet and
mobile phone connectivity is to persons and not, by contrast, to wired
telephones that ring in a fixed place for anyone in the room or house to
answer. The developing personalization, wireless portability, and ubiquitous
connectivity of the Internet all facilitate networked individualism as the
basis of community. The person has become the primary unit of connectivity,
rather than the household, work unit, voluntary organization, or social group.
Because connections are to people and not to places, the technology affords
shifting of work and community ties from linking people-in-places to linking
people anywhere. It is I‑alone who is reachable wherever I am: at home,
office, highway, shopping center, hotel, or airport. Computer-supported
communication is everywhere but is situated nowhere. The person
has become the portal.
This shift facilitates personal communities
that supply the essentials of community separately to each individual: support,
sociability, information, social identities, and a sense of belonging. The
person, rather than the household or group, is the primary unit of connectivity.
Just as 24/7/365 Internet computing means the high availability of people
sitting in place at their desktop PCs, the proliferation of webphones and
wireless computing is bringing an even higher availability of people without
regard to place. Supportive convoys travel ethereally with each person (Ling
& Ytrri, 2002; Katz, 2002). Webphones allow instant access to intimates and
imminent gatherings. PCs allow more leisurely messages to intimates as well as
more formed messages to a much larger of set of ties. By contrast to the
one-to-one nature of webphones, PCs are more easily portals to chats and
message-exchanges with large sets of people.
The technological development of computer
networks and the societal flourishing of social networks are affording the rise
of networked individualism in a positive feedback loop. Just as the flexibility
of less-bounded, spatially dispersed, social networks creates demand for
collaborative communication and information sharing, the rapid development of
computer-communications networks nourishes societal transitions from
group-based societies to network-based societies (Castells, 1996, 2000;
Wellman, 2002). Moreover, networked societies are themselves changing
in character. Until quite
recently, transportation and communication have fostered place-to-place
community, with expressways and airplanes speeding people from one location to
another (without much regard to what is in between). Telephone and postal communication have been delivered to
specific, fixed locations. At present, communication is taking over many of the
functions of transportation for the exchange of messages. Communication itself
is becoming more mobile, with mobile phones and wireless computers
proliferating.
In networked
societies, each person is a switchboard, between ties and networks. People
remain connected, but as individuals, rather than being rooted in the home
bases of work unit and household. Each person operates a separate personal
community network and switches rapidly among multiple sub-networks. The
inherently personal and individualistic webphone makes this even more
convenient. In effect, the Internet and other new communication technology are
helping individuals to personalize their own communities. This is neither a prima
facie loss nor gain in community, but rather a complex, fundamental
transformation in the nature of community. For as Ito and Okabe point out
(2004), even as the boundaries of physical co-presence weaken, new boundaries
of online availability and shared attitudes may develop.
Not only has the
volume of communication increased, we believe that the velocity of
communication has also increased in Japan and elsewhere in the Internet-using
world. Although email is asynchronous and does not necessitate instantaneous response,
in practice many people respond quickly. Moreover, distant network members who
did not have much contact when limited to face-to-face, telephone, or postal
communication are now in frequent Internet contact. Telephone costs are
plummeting and mobile phones mean availability is increasing even when people
are away from home or workplace. Internet communication essentially ignores
distance and minimizes per message costs. The further the distance between
network members, the more important is the Internet in maintaining ties
(Quan-Haase et al. 2002; Chen, Boase & Wellman 2002).
Thus, the impact of computer-mediated communication will be that people
have larger-scale social networks: more people, more communication, and more
rapid communication. Witness how those Yamanshi residents who use both
webphones and PCs to communicate have larger social networks and more frequent
communication with these networks. Large social networks with high frequencies
and velocities of communication allow information – and perhaps knowledge – to
diffuse more rapidly.
It is not clear if the high use of
computer-mediated communication will foster more densely knit communities –
good for conserving resources -- or more sparsely knit communities – good for
obtaining new information and other resources. On the one hand, some
characteristics of the Internet foster denser networks: the ability of Internet
users to communicate simultaneously with multiple others, and the ease of
copying and forward messages to others. In such cases, it is more likely for
the friend of my friend to become my friend. On the other hand, as social
networks become larger it is often more difficult for them to maintain their
density. As the size of the network increases arithmetically, the number of
ties must increase geometrically to maintain the same level of density.
The Yamanashi results suggest
that webphone use may foster a complex digital divide. Social scientists have
been discussing the digital divide at least for a decade: the gap between users
and non-users of the Internet. More recently, they have highlighted the gap
between those who merely have marginal access to the Internet and those who are
active, informed users: what Manuel Castells (1996) calls “the interactors” and
“the interacted” (see also Chen and Wellman 2004). Yamanashi shows us that even
the “interactors” may themselves have limited use of the power of the Internet
when they only use webphones. Limited screen size and access speed restrict the
use of websites, keyboard limitations constrain the length and complexity of
messages, and in Yamanashi at least, a more limited range of people are
contacted. Moreover, webphone messages are overwhelmingly segregated exchanges
between two persons, while PC-based email involves bringing multiple others
into conversations (Geser 2003). The result is a mixture of segregated,
bilateral web conversations integrated with group-based chats with physically
present friends (Ito & Okabe 2004).
The turn towards
networked individualism before and during the age of the Internet suggests more
people maneuvering through multiple communities of choice (where kinship and
neighboring contacts become more of a choice than a requirement Wellman, 1999;
Greer, 1962). This phenomenon started in Japan before the advent of the
Internet (Nozawa, 1996, Otani, 1999), but webphones and PCs are probably
accelerating it. Webphone users have the possibility of contacting whom they
want, whenever they want, and wherever they are located. This suggests a
fragmentation of community, with people increasingly operating in a number of
specialized communities that rarely grab their entire, impassioned or sustained
attention. The multiplicity of communities should reduce informal social
control and increase autonomy. It is easier for people to leave unpleasantly
controlling communities and increase their involvement in other, more accepting
ones.
Networked
individualism should have profound effects on social cohesion. Rather than
people being a part of a hierarchy of encompassing polities like nesting
Russian dolls, they belong to multiple, partial communities and polities. Some
communities may be widely dispersed, such as those found in electronic
diasporas linking far-flung members of emigrant ethnic groups (Mitra, 2003). Some
may be traditional, local groups of neighbors with connectivity enhanced by
listservs and other forms of computer mediated communication (Hampton, 2001).
In a “glocalized” world, local involvements fit together with far-flung
communities (Wellman, 2003) for the McLuhanesque “global village” (1962)
complements traditional communities rather than replaces them. This is
especially true today when almost all computers are physically wired into the
Internet, rooting people into their desk chairs. Even as the world goes
wireless, the persistence of tangible interests, such as neighborly
get-togethers or local intruders, keep the local important (Hampton &
Wellman, 2003). Local and long-distance – webphone and PC – it is all one fluid
and complex social network.
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Population
(February
2003)
|
|
Activities
on Internet (percent of users)*
|
|
|
Internet
Users*
|
Exchange
Information
|
Send
Information
|
Gather
Information
|
Others
|
|
|
127,450,000
|
46.4
|
39.5
|
5.6
|
32.4
|
14.0
|
|
Yamanashi
|
888,210
|
44.5
|
37.8
|
5.7
|
30.4
|
13.4
|
|
*Based on
Survey of Time Use and Leisure Activities in 2001
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