August 30, 1998

Researchers Find Sad, Lonely World in Cyberspace

By AMY HARMON

n the first concentrated study of the social and psychological effects of Internet use at
home, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found that people who spend
even a few hours a week online experience higher levels of depression and loneliness
than they would have if they used the computer network less frequently.

Those participants who were lonelier and more depressed at the start of the two-year
study, as determined by a standard questionnaire administered to all the subjects, were
not more likely to use the Internet. Instead, Internet use itself appeared to cause a
decline in psychological well-being, the researchers said. 

New questions on The results of the $1.5 million project ran completely
public policy on the contrary to expectations of the social scientists who
designed it and to many of the organizations that
Internet. financed the study. These included technology
companies like Intel Corp., Hewlett Packard, AT&T
Research and Apple Computer, as well as the National Science Foundation.

"We were shocked by the findings, because they are counterintuitive to what we know
about how socially the Internet is being used," said Robert Kraut, a social psychology
professor at Carnegie Mellon's Human Computer Interaction Institute. "We are not
talking here about the extremes. These were normal adults and their families, and on
average, for those who used the Internet most, things got worse."

The Internet has been praised as superior to television and other "passive" media
because it allows users to choose the kind of information they want to receive, and
often, to respond actively to it in the form of e-mail exchanges with other users, chat
rooms or electronic bulletin board postings.
Research on the effects of watching television indicates that it tends to reduce social
involvement. But the new study, titled " HomeNet," suggests that the interactive
medium may be no more socially healthy than older mass media. It also raises
troubling questions about the nature of "virtual" communication and the disembodied
relationships that are often formed in the vacuum of cyberspace.

Participants in the study used inherently social features like e-mail and Internet chat
more than they used passive information gathering like reading or watching videos.
But they reported a decline in interaction with family members and a reduction in
their circles of friends that directly corresponded to the amount of time they spent
online.

At the beginning and end of the two-year study, the subjects were asked to agree or
disagree with statements like "I felt everything I did was an effort," and "I enjoyed
life" and "I can find companionship when I want it." They were also asked to estimate
how many minutes each day they spent with each member of their family and to
quantify their social circle. Many of these are standard questions in tests used to
determine psychological health.

For the duration of the study, the subjects' use of the Internet was recorded. For the
purposes of this study, depression and loneliness were measured independently, and
each subject was rated on a subjective scale. In measuring depression, the responses
were plotted on a scale of 0 to 3, with 0 being the least depressed and 3 being the most
depressed. Loneliness was plotted on a scale of 1 to 5.

By the end of the study, the researchers found that one hour a week on the Internet
led, on average, to an increase of .03, or 1 percent, on the depression scale, a loss of
2.7 members of the subject's social circle, which averaged 66 people, and an increase
of .02, or four-tenths of 1 percent, on the loneliness scale.

The subjects exhibited wide variations in all three measured effects, and while the net
effects were not large, they were statistically significant in demonstrating
deterioration of social and psychological life, Kraut said.

Based on these data, the researchers hypothesize that Related Article

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face contact ultimately do not provide the kind of support and American Adults Use the
Internet
reciprocity that typically contribute to a sense of psychological (Aug. 26)
security and happiness, like being available to baby-sit in a
pinch for a friend, or to grab a cup of coffee.
"Our hypothesis is there are more cases where you're building shallow relationships,
leading to an overall decline in feeling of connection to other people," Kraut said.

The study tracked the behavior of 169 participants in the Pittsburgh area who were
selected from four schools and community groups. Half the group was measured
through two years of Internet use, and the other half for one year. The findings will be
published this week byThe American Psychologist, the peer-reviewed monthly journal
of the American Psychological Association.

Because the study participants were not randomly selected, it is unclear how the
findings apply to the general population. It is also conceivable that some unmeasured
factor caused simultaneous increases in use of the Internet and decline in normal
levels of social involvement. Moreover, the effect of Internet use varied depending on
an individual's life patterns and type of use. Researchers said that people who were
isolated because of their geography or work shifts might have benefited socially from
Internet use.

Even so, several social scientists familiar with the study vouched for its credibility and
predicted that the findings would probably touch off a national debate over how
public policy on the Internet should evolve and how the technology itself might be
shaped to yield more beneficial effects.

"They did an extremely careful scientific study, and it's not a result that's easily
ignored," said Tora Bikson, a senior scientist at Rand, the research institution. Based
in part on previous studies that focused on how local communities like Santa Monica,
Calif., used computer networks to enhance civic participation, Rand has
recommended that the federal government provide e-mail access to all Americans.

"It's not clear what the underlying psychological explanation is," Ms. Bikson said of
the study. "Is it because people give up day-to-day contact and then find themselves
depressed? Or are they exposed to the broader world of Internet and then wonder,
'What am I doing here in Pittsburgh?' Maybe your comparison standard changes. I'd
like to see this replicated on a larger scale. Then I'd really worry."

Christine Riley, a psychologist at Intel Corp., the giant chip manufacturer that was
among the sponsors of the study, said she was surprised by the results but did not
consider the research definitive.

"For us, the point is there was really no information on this before," Ms. Riley said.
"But it's important to remember this is not about the technology, per se; it's about how
it is used. It really points to the need for considering social factors in terms of how
you design applications and services for technology."
The Carnegie Mellon team -- which included Sara Kiesler, a social psychologist who
helped pioneer the study of human interaction over computer networks; Tridas
Mukophadhyay, a professor at the graduate business school who has examined
computer mediated communication in the workplace; and William Scherlis, a research
scientist in computer science -- stressed that the negative effects of Internet use that
they found were not inevitable.

For example, the main focus of Internet use in schools has been gathering information
and getting in touch with people from far-away places. But the research suggests that
maintaining social ties with people in close physical proximity could be more
psychologically healthy.

"More intense development and deployment of services that support pre-existing

communities and strong relationships should be encouraged," the researchers write in
their forthcoming article. "Government efforts to wire the nation's schools, for
example, should consider online homework sessions for students rather than just
online reference works."

At a time when Internet use is expanding rapidly -- nearly 70 million adult Americans
are on line, according to Nielsen Media Research -- social critics say the technology
could exacerbate the fragmentation of U.S. society or help to fuse it, depending on
how it is used.

"There are two things the Internet can turn out to be, and we don't know yet which it's
going to be," said Robert Putnam, a political scientist at Harvard University whose
forthcoming book, "Bowling Alone," which is to be published next year by Simon &
Schuster, chronicles the alienation of Americans from each other since the 1960s.
"The fact that I'm able to communicate daily with my collaborators in Germany and
Japan makes me more efficient, but there are a lot of things it can't do, like bring me
chicken soup."

Putnam added, "The question is how can you push computer mediated communication
in a direction that would make it more community friendly."

Perhaps paradoxically, several participants in the Internet study expressed surprise

when they were informed of the study's conclusions by a reporter.

"For me it's been the opposite of depression; it's been a way of being connected," said
Rabbi Alvin Berkun, who used the Internet for a few hours a week to read The
Jerusalem Post and communicate with other rabbis across the country.
But Berkun said his wife did not share his enthusiasm for the medium. "She does
sometimes resent when I go and hook up," he said, adding after a pause, "I guess I am
away from where my family is while I'm on the computer." Another possibility is that
the natural human preference for face-to-face communication may provide a self-
correcting mechanism to the technology that tries to cross it.

The rabbi's daughter, Rebecca, 17, said she had spent a fair amount of time in teen-age
chat rooms at the beginning of the survey in 1995.

"I can see how people would get depressed," Ms. Berkun said. "When we first got it, I
would be on for an hour a day or more. But I found it was the same type of people, the
same type of things being said. It got kind of old."

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