ITR: E-neighbors: Social Networks and Neighborhood Social Capital in the Internet Age

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Proposal Abstract Proposal 0219538 ITR: E-neighbors: Social Networks and Neighborhood Social Capital in the Internet Age Keith Hampton, MIT This research addresses concerns about the impact of Internet and computer use on community and family life. Through an empirical analysis of four case studies, this research project examines the current relationship between Internet use and the size and composition of people's social networks, and ii) explores the potential for new information and communication technologies to expand social networks, social capital and community involvement at the local level. This project is motivated by recent concerns that Americans have became more cynical; are spending less time with friends, relatives and neighbors; and have become less involved in clubs and organizations. Past research has concluded with mixed results as to whether the Internet further dissociates people from those around them, or if it holds the potential to reconnect the disaffiliated. The adult residents of four Boston area neighborhoods have been asked to complete detailed surveys on the composition, structure, and supportive content of their personal and neighborhood social networks. This project will analyze the results of those surveys and compare residents based on their level of technology use and the structure of their social networks. Following the first wave of surveying three of the four neighborhoods will be given access to a series of Internet services designed to facilitate communication and the sharing of information at the neighborhood level. A second and third waves of surveying will compare the three experimental neighborhoods with a control group, examining the impact of the provided Internet services on residents' social networks and their involvement in neighborhood and community activities. It is vital to address concerns about declining of social capital in America, and any role that the Internet and home computing might have in continuing or reversing this decline. While the existing trend of reduced community participation originates to early to be associated with new information and communication technologies, the fear is that home computing will further accelerate this trend. The project investigators expect that this is not the case. Previous research in this area often privileges the Internet as a social system removed from the other ways people communicate. Peering into cyberspace and ignoring the network of social relations that extended to other social settings, fails to consider the crosscutting nature of community, including the many ways and the many places people interact. By embracing a social network perspective this project will demonstrate that Internet users have larger, more diverse social networks, and that they are more active communicators both on and off line. This research will also demonstrate that the growth of home computing and Internet use has the potential to reverse the existing trend of community noninvolvement. This study will show that the introduction of Internet services designed for use at the neighborhood level can increase the size and diversity of local social networks. Previous research points to the role of this type of social capital in facilitating a number of positive community outcomes, including; increased housing values and the prevention of neighborhood decline; helping youth find job contacts and avoiding social problems including, drugs, crime and teen pregnancy; increased neighborhood safety and reducing crime; and increases overall health.