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SOCIAL REVIEW Robinson et al. / MASS USE AND SOCIAL LIFE Mass Media Use and Social Life Among Users

JOHN P. ROBINSON MEYER KESTNBAUM ALAN NEUSTADTL ANTHONY ALVAREZ University of Maryland, College Park

The mass media use and social life of heavy, light, and nonusers of the Internet and personal are compared based on a fall 1998 survey of 3,993 nationally representative respondents age 18 and older. As in previous surveys, no significant or consistent evidence of time displacement of such media or social activities was found. Indeed, Internet users showed signs of more active social lives than non- users. These results reinforce the conclusion that /Internet use may have more in common with time-enhancing home appliances such as the than they do with the time- displacing of .

Keywords: Internet, personal computers, technology, social impacts, time displacement, mass media use

ince the commercialization of the telegraph in the mid-19th century, telecommunica- Stions technology has gone through a series of transformations. Before the last decade, however, only two fundamentally distinct formats had crystallized. In the first format, we find a mode of switched, point-to-point, two-way , with capacity to initiate as well as reply; similar to personal face-to-face communication, it is also relatively equally dispersed. This produces a communication network with the distinctive structure of potential between any pair of points, without any central control. Switched, point-to-point communication was characteristic of the telegraph itself but is perhaps most clearly exemplified by the telephone. In contrast, the second broadcast format involves a unidirectional form of communica- tion. Here, capacity to originate communication remains centralized, communication itself is not targeted to particular recipients, and capacity to receive communication is widely dis- persed. Insofar as components of this format are arranged into a network capable of two-way communication, it is in the form of a central backbone linking originators of broadcasts; recipients of the broadcast are linked to one another only by their common receipt of a single message. Such highly centralized broadcast communication is characteristic of and cinema, but more prominently today of television.

AUTHORS’ NOTE: Grateful acknowledgement is given to the National Science Foundation, Office of Science and Technology, for support through Grant NSF01523184. This is a revision of a paper presented at the 1999 annual meeting of the American Association of Research in St. Petersburg, Florida. Social Science Computer Review, Vol. 18 No. 4, Winter 2000 490-501 © 2000 Sage , Inc.

490 Robinson et al. / MASS MEDIA USE AND SOCIAL LIFE 491

The social impacts of switched, point-to-point formats have been notoriously hard to pin down. The telephone is used to maintain public order, participate in public life, enter into economic transactions, and of course, maintain friendships—nearly anything for which face-to-face communication might be used. On the other hand, centralized broadcast formats tend to do one thing especially well: They provide a forum for engaging in certain kinds of activities. By making receipt of the broadcast an end in itself, a new time-consuming activity was created and fostered. These activities had the potential to displace other activities, shift- ing the allocation of time across the course of a day or week. The represents a curious blending of the two historical formats that had crystallized by the end of the 20th century. It may engender a host of new relationships, potentially altering these and previous relationships; it may permit new ways of interacting or of reaching new partners. At the same time, e-mail and other Web messages are in effect broadcast, no less so than a sent out over the airways, once recipients tune in to a particular page or site. The question is, then, which of these two scenarios will character- ize people’s use of the Internet?

ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF THE INTERNET AND COMPUTERS Direct behavioral evidence to test hypotheses about the impact of the Internet and home computers is difficult to locate. of computer equipment and numbers of Internet sub- scribers tend to be reported at the aggregate level, making it impossible to know whether new equipment is sold to new users or represents upgrades or embellishments by old users. A new computer owner may be more likely to become actively involved in the online community, whereas experienced owners upgrading their systems are less likely to change their online usage pattern one way or the other. Hits on Internet sites may indicate what Web pages are more popular than others but not how much usage of other sites is made by those who use them. How many hits are made by heavy versus light users, for example? Similar problems arise in interpreting surveys of indi- vidual users done via computer or the Internet. Surveys of individuals contacted randomly across the population, then—either in person or by random digit-dial telephone—continue to provide the most feasible way of linking usage patterns and their consequences to individ- ual users in an unambiguous . One individual-level variable that is particularly useful in studying the impact of these new information is time, more specifically, the time that individuals devote to a new technology compared to previous technologies and other ways of spending time. Although time expenditure figures are not without their ambiguities and measurement prob- lems, the time variable has a number of attractive features (Robinson & Godbey, 1999). First, its measurement units are universally recognized and are regularly negotiated and used as benchmarks for daily living, particularly in Western countries. Second and relatedly, time has become recognized as an important societal resource that needs to be managed. Third, it is a resource that is equally distributed to all members of society, at least in the short run. Perhaps the most important measurement feature of time for social scientists, however, is its zero-sum property, a property that universally binds and connects societal activities. Thus, if more time is spent on some new activity or technology, it must necessarily displace time spent on some other technology or activity. What is missed by most surveys that ask respondents about how much time they spend on selected activities are all the daily activities that are affected. TV is an instructive technology because it may be the only modern technology that seems to be directly related to the time 492 SOCIAL SCIENCE COMPUTER REVIEW displacement model usually associated with new technology. Other technologies, such as the automobile and the washing machine, have been only minimally associated with displace- ments of time. Instead, people seem to use these technologies to increase outputs, in the form of more miles traveled or more clothes washed, keeping almost constant the time previously allocated to them. Even the oven seems to be following this pattern as the latest example of a popular technology (Robinson & Godbey, 1999).

PREVIOUS STUDIES OF COMPUTER IMPACT Existing studies of the impact of home computers have generally been limited to examin- ing ownership of the product or access to computer services. Thus, Dutton, Sweet, and Rog- ers (1989) noted the underrated impact of income in predicting 1983 home ownership of computers, in comparison to and income. Venkatraman (1991) described some important cognitive and sensory innovative tendencies on adoption. McQuarrie (1989) found social integration and product strength to be key determinants of computer use and sat- isfaction. Dickerson and Gentry (1983) found prior computer experience to be a key factor in an earlier period of computer diffusion. Haddon and Skinner (1991) note how the diffusion of computers could not simply be explained in utilitarian terms. None of these studies, however, directly addresses the full temporal impact of the com- puter or what happens to consumers once the computer is in the home. That is not a conclu- sion limited to computers because it is very difficult to find much research about the impact of any consumer product after it is purchased. Although there is a great deal of commercial research that goes into getting the product into the home and into finding out what consumers feel is lacking about available products, what happens after the product is in the home remains largely a black box. Thus, the present analysis examines many of the main activities that are expected to be affected by the home computer. Furthermore, it examines important differences within the population of Internet users and home computer owners, distinguishing heavier users from lighter users. Moreover, it is able to do so after controlling for such major demographic pre- dictors of computer use as gender, age, education, and income. Our major question is whether owners of personal computers and users of online services are reducing their participation in media and social activities. These activities include both home and away activities as well as both information and media content. The source makes it possible to identify which types of media are likely to have been affected and to suggest some possible ways they have been affected by the arrival of these new tech- nologies. The procedures and results differ markedly from those reported in previous well-publicized studies of Internet users (Erbring & Nie, 2000; Kraut, Scherlis, Patterson, Kiesler, & Mukhopadhyay, 1998; Nie & Erbring, 2000). Although this analysis of how the home computer and online services have affected Americans’ media and social activities does not use the complete time-diary approach that is needed to capture the full time impact of these technologies, it does involve a survey that incorporates enough of the microbehavioral features of a diary approach to provide a basis for appreciating and understanding some of its most likely effects or correlates. This survey is the 1998 new technology survey of the Pew Center. The 1998 survey was a continuation of time-series data on computer and Internet use col- lected by the same since 1994, when it was called the Time-Mirror Center. Four studies since 1994 have examined time spent on the mass media, with a 1995 survey that examined computer and Internet use in detail. Based on that 1995 survey, Robinson, Barth, and Kohut (1997) detected little evidence of the expected displacement of traditional media Robinson et al. / MASS MEDIA USE AND SOCIAL LIFE 493 by these new technologies. Indeed, users of the Internet and home computers reported signif- icantly higher use of print media and attendance at movies. These differences were reduced but were still significant after adjustment for new technology users’ higher levels of education and income. In the 1998 Pew study, considerably higher levels of Internet use were reported, and the question is whether the inclusion of “later adopters” of technology would mean that these earlier patterns would no longer hold. In other words, later adopters might be expected to be less distinctive in terms of their media and social behavior.

METHODOLOGY OF THE 1998 PEW CENTER SURVEY The feature of the Pew Center surveys that makes them so valuable and insightful is their focus on a single day’s activities. Similar to the time diary, the single-day focus moves respondents from the almost impossible task of trying to estimate the complex effects of a new technology on their lives to the simpler task of merely reporting what they did yesterday. Unlike the diary, however, the estimate questions in this survey could only cover a few aspects of daily life, mainly the mass media of , radio, and TV. As noted above, however, these media information activities are seen as the activities most at risk from the new information technology; therefore, it is particularly appropriate to examine them in the close detail that the “yesterday” approach used in this survey makes possible. Basically, the Pew Center survey allows us to examine whether the people who use online services more than others also report lower levels of traditional media use on a particular day. It also allows us to examine whether the effects are direct and monotonic, that is, whether there is proportionately less media use as new are used progressively more. The 1-day reporting period means that the respondents are only minimally in the position of trying to make connections between the technology and their use of time, which is the task required of those participating in the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society (SIQSS) study (Nie & Erbring, 2000). They simply have to report their time and do not have to try to connect their time estimates to the presence of the technology. Indeed, the traditional media-use questions were asked before these technology issues were raised in the survey. The 1998 Pew Center technology survey was conducted by telephone with a national probability sample of 2,000 respondents age 18 and older during October and November 1998. Households were selected using the random digit-dial method, with the first eight dig- its of the number randomly selected from lists of working exchanges that were first stratified by state, country, and exchange within county; thus, the number of numbers was proportional to that exchange’s share of working banks of telephone households. At least six attempts were made to complete an interview at every selected , with calls staggered across different times of day and days of the week. Although not all days of the week are equally represented, at least 10% of the interviews were con- ducted on each day of the week, and these day-of-the-week differences are adjusted for in the analyses that follow. To adjust for the somewhat lower percentages of males, African Ameri- cans, younger people, and less-educated respondents, the data were weighted to Census Bureau characteristics on these factors. The survey was supplemented with a screened sam- ple of 1993 online users, which is combined into the analyses presented below for a total sample of 3,993 respondents. The combined data are weighted to be representative of the entire U.S. population. The survey questionnaire was developed in consultation with a wide range of specialists in new technology, consumer behavior, and survey design. It underwent an extensive set of pretests to improve the flow and comprehensibility of questions. Many of the questions were 494 SOCIAL SCIENCE COMPUTER REVIEW exact replicates of parallel 1994-1995 items, allowing certain trend comparisons, as described below. The questionnaire began with questions on usual and yesterday use of the media of televi- sion, , and radio, then moved on to news information topics and certain general political and social attitudes, and then moved to an extensive set of questions on various uses of the Internet. That was followed by questions on aspects of online use for those who had access to online services; the questionnaire ended with the usual background factors of gen- der, education, age, and so forth. For nonowners of computers, the survey usually took less than 15 minutes; for online users, 30 or more minutes were needed to complete the survey. For three questions on yesterday usage of traditional , the following eight cat- egories of extent of use were provided for respondents, and these were assigned the implicit mean values shown on the right to produce average daily minutes of exposure in the analyses presented below:

Did not use the medium 0 minutes a day Used 1 to 5 minutes 2 minutes 6 to 9 minutes 7 minutes 10 to 14 minutes 12 minutes 15 to 19 minutes 17 minutes 20 to 29 minutes 25 minutes 30 to 59 minutes 45 minutes 1 hour or more 75 minutes

Somewhat broader respondent categories were used to report extent of general television use, with similar allocations of estimated mean values. In the case of frequency or extent of Internet use over longer time periods, the six scale categories read to respondents were as follows, along with the implicit average value shown at the right:

Every day 7 days a week 3 to 5 days/week 4 days 1 to 2 days/week 1.5 days Once/few weeks 0.5 days Less often 0.1 days Never or don’t have 0 days

These were the values used in the correlational analyses that follow. Questions about extent of use of home computers and online services for yesterday employed categories similar to those for traditional news media noted above.

RESULTS Table 1 shows the simple average time (in minutes per day) reported for yesterday usage in the Pew surveys of the various media since 1994. In general, little change can be seen in use of those media over that time span. Newspaper time is down in 1998, but by less than a minute per day since 1994. TV news is down, but only by about 2 minutes per day. Time spent on radio news, and on and , has remained virtually unchanged. Thus, whereas usage time of the Internet more than tripled from 1995 to 1999, Robinson et al. / MASS MEDIA USE AND SOCIAL LIFE 495

TABLE 1 Minutes Per Day Using Various Media: 1994-1998

Difference from 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1998 to (n = 1,200) (n = 1,500) (n = 1,600) (n = 1,700) (n = 3993) 1994/1995

Internet 4 12 (+8) Home computer 13 17 (+3) Newspaper 21 22 20 19 21 (–1) Radio news 17 16 16 18 18 (+2) TV news 41 35 33 37 39 (–2) TV entertainment 126 95 NA 85 116 (–10) Books 18 17 NA 19 NA (+1) Magazines 13 13 NA 13 NA (0)

and use of home computers rose by more than 25%, use of these traditional news and enter- tainment media hardly changed over the last 5 years of the explosion of Internet use. Analyses of differences in the 1998 Pew survey between Internet users and nonusers were conducted separately for the cross-section sample (n = 2,000) and for the Internet user sam- ple (n = 1,993). The conclusions from the two samples are remarkably similar, showing slightly lower times for newspaper reading among heaviest Internet users (18.4 minutes in both samples) but no consistent declines in radio news use, TV news viewing, or TV enter- tainment viewing with increased Internet use. Table 2 breaks out these differences by extent of Internet and computer use on that report- ing day for the combined sample. It can be seen again that although there is some evidence for lower media use for Internet users, few of the relations can be seen to be monotonic, that is, progressively less as Internet use increases. For example, lower newspaper reading is found for those using the Internet more than an hour (or less than 15 minutes), but the decline is only about 3 minutes per day, and reading is above average for those using the Internet between 15 and 59 minutes. For TV entertainment, it is also those using the Internet for less than half an hour on the designated day who report lowest TV usage. Much the same pattern of noncorrelation in Table 2 appears for the extent of home computer use yesterday. One exception here, however, is the significant positive correlation with TV news use, which tends to be higher among heavier home computer users. The figures at the bottom of Table 2 examine the respondents’ longer range use of the Internet, rather than just for yesterday. Here again, one finds no correlation between extent of Internet use and newspaper reading time or TV news viewing time. However, a significant positive correlation with radio news listening time can be seen. But there is a significantly lower amount of TV entertainment viewing among heavier Web users. Here we encounter the first evidence in any of the analyses that we have examined of the expected displacement of media use by the Internet. However, that is only a bivariate finding. The multivariate relations examined in Table 3 show the same relation as Table 2 except after Multiple Classificatory Analysis (MCA) (Andrews, Morgan, & Souquist, 1973) con- trols for gender, age, education, income, and day of the week are put in place. In the top part of Table 4, it is again apparent that there is no consistent relation between yesterday Internet use and any of the yesterday media usage variables. Much the same is found in the middle section of Table 3 for extent of home computer use (except for the somewhat higher media 496

TABLE 2 Yesterday NoneUse Minutes Minutes Minutes Minutes Minutes Minutes Minutes Pearson’s Yesterday Use of Mass Media as a Function of Yesterday and General Internet Use (in minutes per day)

0 to 14 15 to 29 30 to 44 45 to 59 60 to 119 120 to 179 180+ r

Internet use n = 2,763 n = 343 n = 219 n = 291 n = 100 n = 152 n = 45 n = 80 n = 3,993 Newspaper 21.3 17.6 24.4 25.5 23.0 17.3 18.5 18.3 .00 ns Radio news 17.7 19.4 23.1 21.5 20.1 18.4 16.1 22.4 .04 ns TV news 38.5 35.0 38.4 37.4 36.7 37.3 43.0 33.2 .03 ns TV entertainment 110 88 82 110 72 118 96 116 –.01 Home computer use n = 2,750 n = 258 n = 187 n = 349 n = 108 n = 167 n = 83 n = 91 n = 3,993 Newspaper 21 21 21 24 23 19 23 20 .00 ns Radio news 18 20 18 19 16 19 37 18 .03 ns TVGeneral news NeverUse often month times/week times/week 38 Everyday 35 34 38 45 34 50 39 .06* TV entertainment 110 83 86 110 97 107 137 87 –.01 ns

Less Once/ 1 to 32 to 5

Internet frequency n = 1,210 n = 172 n = 327 n = 593 n = 814 n = 864 n = 3,980 Newspaper 21.4 21.4 17.3 18.5 22.7 22.4 .00 ns Radio news 16.4 19.1 15.6 18.5 17.8 23.3 .10* TV news 40.9 37.2 37.1 35.8 35.3 37.5 –.01 ns TV entertainment 120 120 109 96 94 100 –.07*

* Significant at <.05 level. Robinson et al. / MASS MEDIA USE AND SOCIAL LIFE 497 use among that small group of users for 2 to 3 hours on the reference day. In terms of longer term Internet use, at the bottom of Table 3, one does find higher newspaper reading times for Internet users (vs. nonusers) but not significant or monotonic differences by extent of Internet use. Radio news usage is highest among most active Internet users, but these differ- ences also are neither significant nor monotonic. The TV news relation is similarly insignificant. The most interesting comparison in Table 2 is on the last line of the table, and in Table 3 it can be seen that the original negative relation generally fails to survive after control for demographic predictors. First, the non-Internet-using group shows a decline in viewing after MCA adjustment, and second, the most heavily using Internet group shows an increase, which puts them above average in TV entertainment use. It is true that the second and third most heavily using groups report 13 to 17 minutes less viewing than the non-Internet users, but their decline tends to be offset by the heaviest users as well as by the higher TV viewing figures of the lightliest using two groups (138 and 118 minutes). Thus, we again find no sustainable evidence of the Internet or com- puter use leading to the expected decrease in news or other media use.

OTHER INTERNET USE FACTORS The 1998 Pew Center survey included questions on a wide variety of aspects of Internet and computer use. Two that are examined here are length of use and purpose of use. Table 4 shows differences by length of Internet use, both before and after MCA adjustment. For TV usage for either news or entertainment, it can be seen that there is no apparent association with how long one has been an online user. For radio news, we see some gradual increase with length of usage. A stronger association is found for newspaper use, especially for those who have been online the longest, namely, 4 or more years. This may explain our earlier find- ings, then, in terms of Internet users being more likely to read newspapers and other print media than nonusers. Newer Internet users are not as active in terms of their usage, and hence, our later results show essentially no association rather than the more-more pattern. At the same time, it can be seen at the bottom of Table 4 that length of use is strongly asso- ciated with far higher levels of Web use per day. Table 5 examines media usage as a function of the stated purpose of Internet use, whether it be for work or pleasure or a mixture of these purposes. In general, there are few notable pat- terns in the table but one group that stands out is those who use it strictly for work. They tend to spend slightly more time reading newspapers and listening to radio news but slightly less time using TV for either news or entertainment. The most interesting and consistent pattern comes at the bottom of Table 5 in the lower use of the Internet by those using it only for work purposes—either yesterday or longer term. In this respect, they resemble the user group at the opposite end of the spectrum—those who use the Internet only for pleasure. In other words, it is those who use the Internet for both pur- poses who are most active. It may seem obvious that users for multiple purposes use a tech- nology more than single-purpose users, but it also goes counter to the popular of pleasure users becoming addicted and losing themselves for hours on the Web. Note that it is those who claim to use the Web for mainly work purposes who are most active users of the medium.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS In contrast to the lower participation in most media activities by users of new computer technologies based on the simple time-displacement model that flows from the zero-sum 498

Yesterday Noneuse Minutes Minutes Minutes Minutes Minutes Minutes Minutes TABLE 3 Use of News Media as a Function of Internet Use: Multiple Classificatory Analysis (MCA) Adjusted (minutes per day)

0-14 15-29 30-44 45-59 60-119 120-179 180+

Internet use n = 2,763 n = 343 n = 219 n = 291 n = 100 n = 152 n = 45 n = 80 Newspaper 21 19 27 28 24 16 18 20 Radio news 18 20 24 18 19 17 9 21 TV news 39 39 37 40 37 42 53 38 TV entertainment 115 106 75 128 63 123 111 150 Home computer use n = 2,750 n = 258 n = 187 n = 349 n = 108 n = 167 n = 83 n = 91 Newspaper 22 22 22 22 19 21 24 22 Radio news 18 20 17 16 15 15 27 18 GeneralTV news NeverUse often month times/week times/week 39 Everyday 41 36 40 40 36 57 37 TV entertainment 114 93 104 122 109 123 164 104

Less Once/ 1-23-5

Internet frequency n = 1,210 n = 172 n = 327 n = 593 n = 814 n = 864 Newspaper 20 24 23 22 26 22 Radio news 17 18 17 17 18 24 TV news 40 42 44 37 40 41 TV entertainment 115 138 118 102 98 120 Robinson et al. / MASS MEDIA USE AND SOCIAL LIFE 499

TABLE 4 Yesterday Use of News Media as a Function of Time of Internet Use

Never Been Online Online Online Online Online < ½ Year ½ to 1 Year 2 to 3 Years 4+ Years (n = 1,210) (n = 528) (n = 706) (n = 981) (n = 556)

Newspaper 21 (18) 20 (22) 18 (20) 22 (23) 24 (35) Radio news 16 (16) 16 (17) 18 (18) 20 (20) 23 (23) TV news 41 (37) 38 (39) 36 (37) 37 (39) 36 (38) TV entertainment 120 (109) 109 (111) 94 (92) 101 (107) 98 (107) Internet time (days) General sample 0 17 (2.8) 23 (3.1) 39 (4.3) 65 (4.8) Online user sample 0 16 (2.8) 21 (3.1) 35 (4.0) 70 (5.1)

NOTE: N = 3,981. Multiple Classificatory Analysis (MCA) adjusted figures are in parentheses in first four rows.

TABLE 5 Yesterday Media Use as a Function of Internet Use Purpose

Mainly Work = Mainly Don’t Work Work Pleasure Pleasure Pleasure Use (n = 343) (n = 463) (n = 765) (n = 43) (n = 746) (n = 1,210)

Newspaper 24 (25) 20 (20) 22 (24) 17 (19) 21 (20) 21 (20) Radio news 21 (22) 22 (21) 20 (21) 19 (19) 16 (16) 16 (16) TV news 33 (34) 37 (39) 38 (40) 34 (36) 38 (37) 41 (38) TV entertainment 97 (101) 92 (101) 98 (103) 100 (105) 108 (111) 120 (107) Online time 24 52 39 37 25 NA Online frequency (days) 3.1 4.4 4.1 4.0 3.1 NA

NOTE: Multiple Classificatory Analysis (MCA) adjusted figures are in parentheses in first four rows. property of time, the data from the 1998 Pew Center survey suggest a more reinforcing or supplemental process. In general, there are few signs that their news media use is adversely affected by Internet or other computer use. (That is not an unfamiliar finding among researchers in leisure behavior in which activities follow a Newtonian or “rich get richer” pattern, through which those already active become more active [Meyersohn, 1968; Robin- son & Godbey, 1999].) The multivariate MCAs reinforce the conclusion that computer users and heavier com- puter users are at least as active, if not more active, than nonusers in most media activity. The practically complete picture of more-more or no effect relations in Tables 3 and 4 does raise the question about the plausibility of these behavioral patterns and whether the results are simply a function of social desirability or other response-set reporting on the part of Pew Center respondents. Could these results be simply a function of some such response set, because not all activities can rise simultaneously given the 168-hour constraint? Or does it reflect the multitasking of computer users who browse the Web while having the TV or radio on as background? Although that is always a possibility, it is also important to remember that there are many other free-time activities not covered in Tables 2-5. These include visiting and socializing 500 SOCIAL SCIENCE COMPUTER REVIEW

Figure 1: Percentage Who Are Prosocial as a Function of Internet Usage

(both in person and by telephone), educational activities, church attendance, walking for pleasure, nonvolunteer organizational activity, and playing cards and other games. These average about 15 hours a week for most respondents in time-diary studies (Robinson & Godbey, 1999). The 1998 Pew study did include four questions about social life, but not in as much quan- titative detail as the media questions in Tables 1 through 5. Two of the questions were behav- ioral (calling someone to chat and having a personal yesterday) and two were more attitudinal or perceptual (general trust in people and perceived number of close friends). The behavioral questions were simple yes-no items and the other two had only three response categories. The proportional variation in these four questions are shown in Figure 1 as a function of longer term Internet use. Once again, one finds no decline in prosocial responses among more active Internet users. If anything, the more active Internet users tend to be progressively more prosocial in their responses, and in the case of the trust question, the correlation is statistically significant. So if the increased Internet time does not come from these nonmedia free-time activities, is it possible that the time for all these activities comes from nonfree-time activities? Here the potential hours involved come closer to 100 hours of the available 168 hours each week. A prime candidate here is sleep, and it is important to remember that declines in sleep time were one of the major differences found among early adopters of television (Robinson, 1972). Other personal-care activities that could be affected by computer use are eating and groom- ing. There are also the nearly 25 hours a week spent on shopping, child care, house cleaning, and other family care that could be sacrificed to accommodate life with the Internet or a per- sonal computer. Perhaps the travel time of PC users is also being curtailed. These are questions that only a complete time-diary investigation of PC owners can address adequately, so that one looks forward to such studies being conducted in the future. In the meantime, the present patterns seem rather robust and plausible, and they reaffirm findings and patterns from earlier surveys of computer usage that employ more direct ques- tions and shorter (and tighter) time frames (Robinson et al., 1997). It is clear, then, that at least Robinson et al. / MASS MEDIA USE AND SOCIAL LIFE 501

in its early adoption phase, the Internet is not to displace parallel activities, as TV had at a parallel diffusion point.

REFERENCES

Andrews, F. M., Morgan, J. M., & Souquist, J. A. (1973). Multiple classification analysis. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research Press. Dickerson, M. D., & Gentry, J. W. (1983). Characteristics of adopters and non-adopters of home computers. Journal of Consumer Research, 10, 225-235. Dutton, W. H., Sweet, P. L., & Rogers, E. M. (1989). Socioeconomic status and the early diffusion of personal com- puting in the United States. Social Science Computer Review, 7, 235-271. Erbring, L., & Nie, N. (2000, May/June). Our shrinking social universe. Public Perspective, pp. 44-45. Haddon, L., & Skinner, D. (1991). The enigma of the micro: Lessons from the British home computer boom. Social Science Computer Review, 9, 435-449. Kraut, R. E., Scherlis, W., Patterson, M., Kiesler, S., & Mukhopadhyay, T. (1998). Social impact of the Internet. What does it mean? Communications of the ACM, 41(12), 21-22. McQuarrie, E. F. (1989). The impact of a discontinuous : Outcomes experienced by owners of home computers. Computers in Human Behavior, 5, 227-240. Meyersohn, R. (1968). Television and the rest of leisure. Public Opinion Quarterly, 32, 102-112. Nie, N., & Erbring, L. (2000). Internet use. [Online, Retrieved April 22, 2000] Available: www.stanford.edu/ group/siqss/press-release. Pew Research Center Biennial News Consumption Survey. (1998). Event-driven news : Internet news takes off. [Online] Available: http://www.people-press.org/med98rpt.htm. Robinson, J. (1972). Television’s impact on : Some cross-national evidence. In E. Rubinstein, G. Comstock, & J. Murray (Eds.), Television and social behavior [Report of the Surgeon General’s Committee] (Vol. 4, pp. 410-431). Washington, DC: Government Office. Robinson, J., Barth, K., & Kohut, A. (1997, Spring). Personal computers, mass media, and use of time. Social Sci- ence Computer Review, 15, 65-82. Robinson, J., & Godbey, G. (1999). Time for life (2nd ed.). State College: Pennsylvania State Press. Venkatraman, M. P. (1991). The impact of innovativeness and innovation type on adoption. Journal of Retailing, 7, 51-67.

John P.Robinson is a professor of sociology and director of the American’s Use of Time Project at the Uni- versity of Maryland, College Park.

Meyer Kestnbaum and Alan Neustadtl are professors of sociology at the University of Maryland and are interested in the history and impact of the Internet.

Anthony Alvarez is a graduate student at the University of Maryland examining the issue of minority access to the Internet.