Baym, Nancy, Zhang Yan Bing, Lin Mei-Chen

The Internet in College Social Life

Abstract

The ever-increasing use of the internet for social interaction has given rise to an inordinate amount of speculation about how this medium will affect the well being of its users. All arguments about the effect of the internet on social life rest on assumptions regarding the quality of online interactions in comparison to other forms of interaction, yet very few empirically compare interaction quality across media. This paper directly compares internet-based interpersonal communications to face-to-face conversation and telephone calls and examines the relation of internet use in interpersonal social circles to social well being.

The method combines a questionnaire administered to approximately 500 students and in-depth interviews with a subset of those respondents. The survey assesses internet use and history, social well being (operationalized as: size and emotional closeness of social circle, social support, loneliness, and self-esteem), asks respondents to describe and evaluate in some detail the most recent specific interaction in an assigned relationship and medium (e.g. a telephone conversation with a family member, an internet conversation with a friend, a face to face conversation with an acquaintance, etc.), and ends with a series of open-ended questions asking respondents to reflect on how their interactions vary across media and the place of the internet in their social lives. Interviews are used to follow up on themes emergent in the survey data. The results provide insight into the ways in which the internet does or does not differ from interpersonal communication in other forms and offers new empirical grounds on which to make arguments about the role of the internet in social life and social well being.