http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/08/biztech/articles/30depression.html

Researchers Find Sad, Lonely World in Cyberspace

By AMY HARMON

In 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 contrary to expectations of the social scientists who public policy on the 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 relationships maintained over long distances without face-to-face Study Says 70 Million American Adults Use the contact ultimately do not provide the kind of support and 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 by The 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." http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/12/biztech/articles/11web.html Surging Number of Patents Engulfs Internet Commerce

By SAUL HANSELL ll over the Internet, from the most popular search engines to personal home pages, are buttons that offer to send users to an online store where they can buy books or music or other merchandise. Hundreds of thousands of sites have added these links because they earn commissions if any of their users click on them and then buy something.

This week, those sites suddenly found themselves at risk of violating a patent just granted to a New York company called LinkShare Corp. That patent gives LinkShare the right to block anyone from using such an arrangement for links between sites with commission payments.

The number of patents related to the Internet has been Related Articles skyrocketing. And Linkshare is just one of many companies now Amazon Wins Court Ruling in Patent Case receiving patents that cover not just narrow technological (December 3, 1999) improvements, but widespread techniques for doing business. Legal Squabbles in Path "This is the end of the wild, wild West on the Web," said Stephen of Internet Messer, LinkShare's founder and chief executive. "There are laws (December 9, 1999) that protect the pioneers from pirates who steal all of their good ideas. Everything you love to do on the Internet will have some Barnesandnoble.com Fac es Suit by Amazon Over sort of patent on it." Patent (October 23, 1999) Messer will not say how LinkShare will enforce its patent rights. But in recent months a number of other Internet companies have filed patent-related lawsuits on other matters.

Priceline.com, for example, has sued Microsoft and its travel service, Expedia, over Priceline's patented arrangement letting customers name their price for flights and hotels. Yahoo has been sued by an inventor who claims a patent on a shopping-cart feature on its site. And DoubleClick Inc., a big Internet advertising network, has sued two smaller companies over its patent on an ad-targeting technology.

Some suits are already changing the face of the Internet. Two weeks ago, for example, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction barring Barnesandnoble.com from letting customers buy goods with a single mouse click, a method Amazon has patented. (The court's remedy requires Barnesandnoble.com customers to place orders with two clicks rather than one.)

These cases, and other quiet demands for royalties, have instilled fear into many Web site operators who are surprised to learn that techniques that have become commonplace in the short history of the World Wide Web now appear to be one company's exclusive property.

"People are getting patents on things that are too general," said Jerry Yang, the co- founder of Yahoo. "It's not healthy for patents to be used to stop other people from doing business."

One reason for the surprise is that patent applications in the United States are secret until they are granted. And the U.S. Patent and Trademark office is only now approving applications filed two or three years ago in the formative stages of the Web. The office granted 1,390 patents related to the Internet in the first half of 1999, compared with only 648 in all of 1997. The backlog of applications is growing even faster, so the patent office has hired 500 examiners in its software and Internet section, nearly doubling its staff.

Moreover, the patent office is approving applications to patent not just specific technologies but broad concepts it calls "business methods." For example, Sightsound.com of Mount Lebanon, Pa., says it has a patent on the entire concept of selling music through digital downloads, one of the hottest trends on the Internet. Sightsound has demanded that anyone selling music in digital form online pay it a royalty of 1 percent. It is suing CDNow, the online music store being acquired by Time Warner and Sony, to assert that claim.

Most other countries do not allow such wide-ranging patents. But patent experts say the Clinton administration, seeking to bolster the technology industry in the United States, has been increasingly liberal in granting patents for both software and business methods. And earlier this year, the Supreme Court affirmed a strongly worded appeals court ruling that backed the administration's stand that even the most abstract business methods can be patented.

In an obscure section of the budget bill passed last month, Congress moved to reduce the risk that companies will discover that their business is violating someone's patent. Some patent applications will be made public after 18 months, as in the rest of the world. And companies will have a limited right to continue using business methods, without paying royalties, if they employed them before finding out that they had been patented.

Still, many patent experts predict a flurry of Internet-related patents over the next few years and a resulting flood of lawsuits.

"It's a land grab out there," said Gary Eichhorn, chief executive of Open Market Inc., an Internet software company that holds patents on several key building blocks of online stores. "It's not a surprise that these patents are being issued now. It's a wide-open field, and a lot of smart people have been looking to get patents as a strategic weapon or a strategic revenue opportunity."

At the end of the day, Internet sites may be forced to pay royalties to use some of the most popular features. And in some cases, patent holders may keep some of the best ideas to themselves, the way Xerox, for example, blocked competitors from offering plain- paper copiers for years.

"We will see some Internet companies become industry giants because they can exclude others from doing what they do, just as Xerox did," said Kevin Rivette, the chairman of Aurigin Systems, an intellectual-property management firm.

One company that became a giant because of its intellectual property was the Gemstar International Group of Pasadena, Calif., which owns a series of patents related to electronic program guides. Indeed, TV Guide Inc. found its prospects of moving online so threatened by potential litigation that it agreed earlier this year to be acquired by Gemstar for $9.2 billion.

One of the more ambitious efforts to develop patentable ideas for electronic commerce was undertaken by Jay Walker, the owner of a magazine subscription company, who in 1992 set up a think tank of business executives and patent lawyers.

"We saw an opportunity to invent entirely new methods of doing business for the digital age and we could own them," Walker said. He invested $20 million in the lab, called Walker Digital. So far it has received 30 patents and has 300 pending. One of the ideas, now patented, turned into Priceline, in which Walker holds stock worth $2.8 billion.

Walker Digital is hoping to come up with ideas to license to a wide range of industries. Its most recent patent is for vending machines that sell things by subscription: For example, a soft-drink machine in an office building could have a Web site that would sell a dozen cans in advance; that way people would not need change when they wanted a drink.

Walker rejects criticism that ideas like Priceline are too broad to be subject to patents.

"The information revolution isn't some minor thing, it's a big deal," he said. "Our patents are no different than the patents granted after the invention of electricity caused a revolution in how industrial processes worked."

This thinking, however, is anathema to the pioneers of the Internet, many of whom emerged from academia, with a culture based on the free exchange of ideas and information. Even now, with much of the Net's cooperative culture drowned out by the value of stock options, many executives believe that speed rather than patents determine success.

"In my three years here, I don't think I've spent half an hour thinking about what I could patent," said Stuart Wolff, the chief executive of Homestore.com, the largest real estate Web site. Wolff, a physicist who worked for Bell Labs and IBM, received his own patent on an aspect of computer memory technology, but he says the Internet is different.

"Ideas are cheap," he said. "Execution is everything." Rivette argues that this sort of thinking has led companies to lose rights to some of the most valuable inventions on the Internet. The magazine Wired, he said, could probably have patented the idea of the banner advertisement, the now-ubiquitous graphical rectangles on Web pages that, when clicked, take a viewer to the advertiser's Web site.

Similarly, patent experts say, eBay, the online auction house, missed the opportunity to patent its method of combating fraud by having buyers and sellers post ratings of each other, opening its market to competition from the likes of Yahoo and Amazon.

Patent lawyers say Internet companies are now much more likely to file for patents than they were a few years ago, if for no other reason than to have weapons in reserve to fend off potential patent suits by others.

Some patent experts argue, however, that ultimately the courts will rule that the Patent Office has been too liberal, and that they will invalidate many of the broader Internet patents. A patent can be challenged in court with the argument that the invention is not actually new, or that it is a development so incremental that it was obvious.

"A number of these patents are vulnerable to a claim that applying a well-worn business technique to the Internet is not sufficiently novel," said James Pooley, a lawyer with Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich of Palo Alto, Calif., who defends companies against patent suits.

Nonetheless, the recent patent lawsuits have already had a chilling effect on some companies.

One of them is Escalate Inc., a new Silicon Valley company backed by James Barksdale, the former chief executive of Netscape, which is building computer systems to operate online stores on behalf of other companies. Keng Lim, the chief executive, said the company had developed its own one-click-buying software but decided not to offer it to customers for now because of the Amazon patent.

"There is some stuff, like one-click, that is so fundamental that I don't think it should be patentable," Lim said. "But we're a young company and we don't want to get into a lot of legal trouble."

Escalate has filed for a patent of its own, however, that would allow online stores using its system to display merchandise geared to what the customer has bought in the past.

But Lim said this application is more useful for marketing now than any potential intellectual-property rights later.

"Patents pending are a good way to convince potential partners they should work with us," he said. "But how you win is by gaining market share, not technology. We'll be a success or a failure long before the patent is issued."