Slashdot Mirror
Internet Users Are More Social Than Non-Users
FePe writes "The UCLA World Internet Project has concluded from a study that Internet users spend more time on social activites than non-users. Many other interesting facts can be seen on the page. For example, in the United States 73.1 percent of men use the Internet compared to 69 percent of woman." Also interesting is how net users watch less television than their offline counterparts. Update: 01/16 03:46 GMT by M : Yep, pretty much the same story as yesterday. To be fair, Cowboyneal did say it was news to him. :)
How delightfully ironic.
Buckethead
DUPE DUPE DUPE.
What are they thinking? That we just sit around and read /. all day?
...than non-internet users...
Of course there's more men on the internet than women. There's more male oriented porn than female oriented porn out there.
SR.
news-to-me dept.
holy double entendre batman.
Social != Taking showers
True story.
Like we come here for the articles?!?!
We all come here to socialize and share ideas.
Yes, even the trolls.
This is social.
Sure I go out with friends and family several times per week... but this is a form of socialization as well.
We all need a little geek "fix" every once in a while.
No shock here.
AC
i am an internet user and i am not social
so, that study is wrong
slashdot editors, please remove that misleading title. it might make people think this is a reliable source of info
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Online people may spend more overall time in "social activities" - but a lot of these social activities probably don't really count. Is someone who spends 6 hours a week in a chat room socially better off than someone who spends 5 hours a week hanging out with friends at a mall?
Another point to mention: I watch TV at least as many hours as I am on my computer. Why? All of the rooms that I have computers in also have TVs in them, and I always have a TV on in the background when I'm on the computer.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
If slashdot "subscribers" get to see the stuff before the fact, why not let them vote a story a dupe BEFORE it's posted to the site?
.02
I mean, it could just be a delay of 30 seconds for each vote until a certain threshold is reached, but christ! It's almost as bad as the trolls sometimes.
My
~ Eric
(geeks are internet users)=> (internet users are super social) => (geeks are the most internet savy) => (Geeks are Socialite GODS)
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
It is true... We have got so much more communication of course.. We can talk VoIP/IRC IM email to our hearts content. If anything computers / internet has made it cheaper to communicate with people we would not normaly communicate with. Only for the cost of ISP charges.. which usualy works out cheaper than dialing up some one on your home phone. Is this story a suprize. Not for those of us that are used to it.. Its the uneducated general public that have been misinformed that believe that computers cause you to be anti-social.. Well thats my 2 cents.. I am sure there will be people that dissagree
What, has some magician sawed this poor woman into pieces, and failed to reattach 31% of her? And, while he desperately Reads The FM on how to complete the trick, she surfs the 'net?
Remember, they're talking about the 73% of the population that sends email around, they're not talking about the hardcore geek population. I don't even think these people should be counted as "internet users" any more than you would call someone who pumps their own gas an auto mechanic.
I mean besides boring others and fragmenting discussion, thus depriving some of potentially critical insights. Other than that, there is nothing wrong with dupes! And even better, it gives us a second chance for First Post!
But seriously - I think this study is one of those self fufilling prophecies - some geek whose friends told him he spends too much time online was like, "I'll show THEM!" Then he designs a protocol and a study, and lo and behold, but frequent Internet Users are actually MORE social!
Or, it could be that Internet Users (on average):
1. Have more income than non-users.
2. Have a better education than non-users.
3. Have more leisure time than non-users.
All of these things contribute seriously to "being social." After all, if you're technologically illiterate, you probably aren't working in a white collar job that's all about networking. You're probably slinging hash at a Waffle House, hoping the truckers don't spit at you tonight.
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
It surely is.
For me, I maybe lucky to watch 1hour of TV at night, and that is *if* I am lucky whilst on the other hand I would much rather prefer surfing the net, looking for news that interests me and possibly chat to a few friends.
I completely agree with the UCLA, the people I find that are the *least* socially active are those who are couch potatoes where as for me, I'm able to surf for the information I want, get it straight away then go off and do something else where as if I watch TV, I would have to sit through ads, a couple of feel good news stories just to get to the news story that I could be interested in.
With that being said, however, yes, there are people on the internet who hide behind their computer screen, too scared to face the world so instead they create a whole new persona specifically for "online communication".
Now sure, Internet is great for communication, however, like any form of communication, one has to take it in moderation. Simply restricting yourself to online friendships is neither healthy or longterm.
Now, if we all lived in isolated vacuums then I am sure it wouldn't be so bad but unfortunately these people take their anti-social leanings into work, the net result? you end up with a handful of possibly talented employees but can't work together with others to solve problems.
In IT we spend WAAY to much time worrying about skills when what the concerntration an universities and other training institutions ensuring that balanced people are graduated who not only know their "stuff" but also have the soft skills required for work that requires close colaboration.
I stay home on Thursday night, in spite of the legion of sophisticated bisexual women clawing at the door to my Manhattan apartment, putting aside a rich evening of culinary, cultural and sexual exploration of the kind that all geeks regularly enjoy, in order to selflessly devote myself to keeping slashdot running smoothly.
I e-mail the on-duty editor with a problem - as I am instructed to do.
I do so with at least ten minutes to spare before the story actually goes live.
What does the editor do? Absolutely nothing!
What is the point of even *having* an on-duty editor if they can't filter out duplicate stories! Jeez!
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
How social can it be I have read this in eight different online news sources already!!
***I GOT NUTHIN***
Hi, where's the computer dept
Assistant:
Third floor, on your right
Geek:
Oh, do you know if they sell Netgear LN-234STs over there?
Assistant:
Sorry, you should ask the computer dept. people about that
Geek looks at assistant's t-shirt:
Do you know that thinkgeek sell a t-shirt just like this one, with "all your base are belong to us" written on it
Assistant looks at Geek and walks away as fast as possible.
Geek goes to the computer dept. and immediately finds other geeks talking about the new iPod, joins in in their conversation, and together they flood the assistant with questions about the technical specs of all the mp3 players around, and keep trying to persuade him that the iRivers are better because they are firmware upgradeable to support OGG/Vorbis.
A few days later, assistant fill in poll about computer users, and in the Comments section fills in:
A few days later slashdot story appears, claiming that geeks are more communicative than other people.
Hostes alienigieni me abduxerunt. Qui annus est?
I agree with the study -- but you do have to consider chat rooms, discussion boards, etc. to be socializing. And I do think they are, but it's a new type of socializing.
I am an introvert. I'm happy to be an introvert. I hate going places with lots of people, and I tend to be the quiet one if I'm ever in a group of people. But I do a lot of discussion boards. The amazing thing is that online socializing does not mess with my introversion. I'm comfortable submitting comments to discussion boards where I wouldn't be comfortable speaking out at a get-together.
So maybe the stereotype is right AND the study's results are right. Maybe it is our definition of being social that is being put under the microscope.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
I used to be an anti-social geek until I discovered the internet. Upon discovering how easy it is to communicate with people when not face to face, I learned to like people and interact with them. I was able to hide any apprehension, and by subverting this I gained real confidence in myself. This of course translated over well to the real world, and now I consider myself a people person. And no one thinks I am a geek. So this article comes as no surprise to me, and I'm sure that I'm not the only person in this boat.
Quite a few high school guidence counclers actually believe wemen can't make a successful carrer in technical fields and will actively discurage intrest in those fields.
When the guidence councilers ultimately desides what classes the students get to take that bies will effect the class attendence of the technical classes. Reasurence from the teachers that it's not a problem dose not help.
Equally famaly members will also discurage girls from getting involved in computers becouse "It's too complex".
This is less and less over time. Each generation has less interfearence as we learn just how important computers really are in the world today.
We can thank peoples addatudes twords wemen in the 1970s and 80's for the limited representation of wemen on the Internet today.
I don't actually exist.