Slashdot Mirror
Internet Not the Social Hinder it Was
imjustatomato writes "A 1998 study showed that the Internet causes declines in social relationships and isolation, similarly to how television causes social disengagement and bad moods. This is the 'Internet Paradox' because while the internet is heavily used for communication, it makes people lonelier. However, a more recent study shows that now the internet has a positive effect on social and psychological well-being. This is even more so for those who have more social support and are extroverted in nature. Interestingly, frequent Internet use is associated with a decline in local knowledge and interest in living in the local area."
> Interestingly, frequent Internet use is associated with a decline in local knowledge and interest
> in living in the local area."
Anything which involves sitting indoors and staring at a box is likely to decrease your knowledge of your immediate environment, isn't it?
. . . "we are going to go to where the internet is really good."
If this were really happening, what would you think?
I find the bit about less local interest interesting as I know that I had little desire to leave Tennessee until I began surfing the internet regularly, meeting people from other places and reading about them on online news sites. Indeed, the first time I truly wanted to leave my state came when I 'dated' a girl online. . . and it's thanks to internet research that I ended up here at Boston U. Naturally curious person enabled by the net, or innocent Southern boy corrupted by the tubes'o'satan?
[Terribly witty statement]
The most recent of the two articles was published in 2002. Is this really relevant to the internet of 2006?
S.D.Rycroft http://www.simon.rycroft.name
...since 1998 the internet has helped make available viagra for all!
I'm gonna guess that the main difference here that in 1998, internet relationships weren't counted as "real" relationships.
qntm.org
One of the answers might relate to the definition of social and psychological well-being. For example; in 1998 if someone said to have numerous online friends, they where looked upon as anti-social and unable to make friend in the real world. This is beginning to change.
This is the 'Internet Paradox' because while the internet is heavily used for communication, it makes people lonelier.
"Tantos satélites en la era comunicacional aún no logran acercarnos totalmente bien"
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
For goodness sake, this is pushing it a bit far, reporting on 5 year old papers. In other latest news from 2002 - New Orleans happy with flood defences, Lebanese economy doing well with current peaceful regional politics, British Airways relaxes security on air travel a year after 9/11 .... sigh ! :-)
There's nothing much in the so-called study, merely an assertion of what's in the headline. The summary and the linked article are almost the same. The only thing noteworthy was, another article from this page appeared on Slashdot recently as well... something to do with "When can I get my email?" or something like that.
Slow news day?
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
frequent Internet use is associated with a decline in local knowledge and interest in living in the local area.
Which of course is not really a negative at all. "The internets" doesn't cause disaffection, it just shows you all the alternatives out there for all those already not happy where they live. No one community is a great place to live in for everybody after all. If it helps you find a place you'll like better it's just good for everyone.
Also, the ability to have contact with diverse groups no matter where you're physically residing probably helps smooth the rough edges out of living anywhere. If you can cultivate your interests over the net, staying in your community may not chafe as much as it would have done in an earlier era.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
This is all thanks to the Web 2.0 revolution which turned the network into a social network.
By the way, I'm planning to write a Myspace killer with XHTML, AJAX and RSS and for that I need some funds. Anyone interested ?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Unlike regional newspapers, for example, the Internet makes news about distant cities as accessible as news about one's hometown."
But also, we read about the cool things other places are doing on places like slashdot. Of course, we're not interested in all the BAD news about those places. Because the crime news about other places more or less matches that of our own. Maybe that's why the grass looks greener. Because we see all the positive and negative of our own environment, but only the "cool" stuff going on in other places. So naturally we want to go there.
> no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
'Hinder' is a verb. The noun form is 'hindrance'.
Haskell, the static-typed, lazy, polymorphic, programming language.
I was painfully shy as a teenager. Was terrified of approaching people in general to talk to them and would avoid most social situations at all costs - I guess I had what psychologists would call a social anxiety disorder. I couldn't even post in an internet forum without the fear of humiliation.
Yet it was the internet where I dared post before I ever tried to contribute in such a way in a real life situations. The more I interacted online, the more comfortable (and confident) I felt doing the same in reallife to the point where I can approach strangers and start conversation.
*Shrugs* Maybe it was the internet or just getting older, as I realize this process happens to a lot of people who were extremely shy/self-conscious as teenagers. But there is no comparing the internet to TV, the TV is a passive medium, the internet is interactive. The only danger I see is when people start substituting the internet for real life.
The Internet is obviously still something of a "linguistic hinder".
And I would rather be online than talk to some of my loser neighbors. And I know I'm not the only one who feels that way.
... and commitment is based on sacrifice of your time, which means half of the time communicating when your friend needs it. People immediately feel that you are communicating only when you feel like communicating, not when your friend needs to pour their positive or negative emotions. Internet is all about communicating only when you need to communicate.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Weird. I'd think that the introverted (who would be too shy to go out into bars, but comfortable enough to participate in a chatroom) who would benefit most.
What kind of social support would an extrovert gain from the Internet, he has already all he needs "in real life"?
Interestingly, frequent Internet use is associated with a decline in local knowledge and interest in living in the local area.
Well given that the Internet is global in nature, this is not really that surprising, especially when discussing about subjects which are not tied to a particular place (technical subjects, etc.).
Of course, for dating, it's a different matter, that has to be pretty much local, unless you like to travel a lot...
At the Radboud University of Nijmegen (The Netherlands) we have about the same number of first-year psychology students as in the COMPLETE science department. Still wondering why the doors to their buildin are always open .. ;)
The rise of social networking sites such as facebook and more notably myspace is nodoubt a large factor to this. These sites allow communication between people who would not normally notice each other. I use facebook to interact with people in classes the same as me so that when I miss a class I can find someone who wasn't as hung-over as me and get their notes.
>> 1) the internet population has grown to include almost everyone.
I would even dare to say it includes more than "everyone". For many people with disabilities it opened a complete new world. I know several people with severe anxieties who now have a social live because of internet fora, msn, social networks like Hyves, etc. In "normal", everyday live, you don't see these people (outdoors, at work, etc), and therefor many people don't know that they exist.
Whilst I'm often 'accused' of living a solitary and isolated life, spending much of my time at home watching TV or chatting/surfing on the Internet or playing online games, I certainly don't feel that it has isolated me OR caused me to suffer from disengagement or bad moods. Quite the contrary infact. I've made many online 'friends' and when I was 'suffering' from mild depressive periods last year, it had nothing to do with with using the Internet and, infact, that combined with me taking up a voluntary position with a local timber recycling community project, helped me 'snap out of it.' Watching comedies on television makes me laugh and cheers me up; documentaries enlighten, educate and informs me; soaps are great entertainment and escapism (yeah I know many folk will disagree but that's me. :)) and so on.
"... while the internet is heavily used for communication, it makes people lonelier."
Certainly not in my case. Infact it helped a lot having people to interact/chat with and talking to people I would not, without the Internet, have 'met' or got to know.
"However, a more recent study shows that now the internet has a positive effect on social and psychological well-being."
Now THIS I agree with totally. It most certainly has.
"Interestingly, frequent Internet use is associated with a decline in local knowledge and interest in living in the local area."
I wonder how many people were 'surveyed' for these conclusions and results? I've been a frequent user of the Internet for many years, as I'm sure have many of 'you', and in the last year or two I've 'joined' the local resident's association, got involved in helping my local LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) councillors with mail drops in the local area as well as joining the local Community Guardian scheme. I love living in my local area which over recent years has become much more pleasant-a-place to live. Two or three years ago we had winos, prostitutes, drug users/sellers and so on frequenting the place and hassling the local people yet the police have done a wonderful job and now I wouldn't want to live anywhere else!
Surely I'm not the only one, am I?!
Since we no longer take care the local interest and actual environment of living, it is more and more likely and feasible that we finally spend quite considerable amount of $ to rent a virtual cell of the 'Power Plant' to enjoy as long as possible Matrix life...
There's simply no basis for drawing conclusions here. while it's quite entertaining to talk about this, it would be a big mistake to actually think that either of these studies mean anything.
I'm pretty sure that if you did a few more studies, you could get some that confirm and some that refute the idea that internet use leads to/cure social isolation.
To quote a wise man:
"The only possible conclusion the social sciences can draw is: some do, some don't."
- Ernest Rutherford
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The internet helps make it painfully obvious how much greener the grass might be on the other side by presenting the user(s) with comprehensive and detailed local info about practically anywhere. It makes wherever you currently are not seem as rosy... especially if where you currently are is someplace that would make a person WANT to be on the internet a lot.
stuff |
Your point about the subjects of the 1998 study being a relatively small group of enthusiasts and the 2002 study including almost "everyone" is exactly right. Plus the fact that there were so many more places "to go" in 2002.
It's kind of like comparing people's driving habits in 1915 and 1950. In 1915, only a small percentage of people had cars or drove, and most roads were local. But by 1950 most families had a car and at least one person in the family could drive, and roads were connecting neighboring towns. Now consider the increase in the number of roadside diners between the two dates.
I don't think that even today's internet compares with (let's say) 1980s driving habits and road system, though. Today, it's still not "everyone" who's on the net, not by a long shot, and a lot of people who are on the net are the equivalent to 1950's "Sunday drivers": they can get where they want to go, but they're not natural or comfortable doing so.No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I think that a lot of "social interaction" over the internet is much more about quantity than quality. My girlfriend's dad's girlfriend's son (no, I'm not joking) is 12 years old and was bragging about how many MySpace friends he had after spent three entire days sitting in front of a computer while we were at a beach house on the Maine coast (and not swimming, surfing, kayaking, or spending any time enjoying the outdoors). He told me he had 350 friends... when I asked how many he knew in person he said "ten or twenty" but that he knew all 350 of them really well. This is a bit of an extreme example, but it's an important one, and one that I believe exists to varying degrees in most social interaction that happens on the net.
When BBSs were alive I think the social interaction they provided was of a higher calibur... you had a relatively small group of people discussing a wide range of topics. The internet has flipped that, now you have an enormous group of people discussing extremely narrow topics. That's not really good for anyone.
sig.
BombScare: i beat the internet
:)
BombScare: the end guy is hard
The poor internet - it's so misunderstood socially.
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
Internet is negative influence if you sit online for hours.However its not much more "negative" then staring at television.
Living as heavy internet user will change you socially.The thing is impact is very different for different personalities(social people don't suffer much,when nerds get more withdrawn).
Limiting your computer time will solve it(e.g. shedule to dedicate only 2hours and then turn it off.Don't leave it just "in case").
I for instance am naturally introverted in nature, but I'm quite able to go to bars and the like without feelings of anxiety and I'm not shy. I however don't particularly value the type of conversation with the type of people you meet in bars. Chit chat bores me silly. People and their inanities can be very tiresome.
Deleted
> Interestingly, frequent Internet use is associated with a
... except what's happening in your own town, your own neighborhood, your own school district.
> decline in local knowledge and interest in living in
> the local area."
I don't think it's inherent in the technology. There's a dearth of local Internet resources. I have to give local media a D- overall when it comes to using the Internet effectively.
You can participate in a conversation about nearly anything on the net
It's not that nobody wants to talk about these things. It's a general failure of leadership by people who are supposed to be community leaders.
Of the more than 1,400 daily newspapers in the United States, a majority don't even have a forum on their website. TV stations are even worse.
When they do have online discussions, the general pattern is to set up the technology and let a few jackasses drive reasonable people away. Running an effective local forum is very possible, but it requires leadership and moderation.
The situation is improving on two fronts. Independent local websites like iBrattleboro and Baristanet are popping up as entrepreneurs take advantage of the low barrier to entry provided by blogging technology. (They generally underestimate the promotion and marketing challenge, though.) And a small number of local media sites are doing extraordinary work facilitating community conversations and social networking. (I have helped create some of them. I won't link, since they're intended to be local.)
I expect the numbers of such projects to grow exponentially over the next three or four years.
It's not just apartments. Willow Corners, Nebraska was no fun either. Ask Sibyl.
Relatively few places are "exciting and happening". Someone needs to map the quality of the local relationship potential. Many of us are aspirants to the future, and the local topics of conversation include Mrs. Greenberg's *splendid* herb garden, and someone painting the general store.
If it were possible to instantly transplant fifty Dotters into the same town, we'd all do just fine, and have lovely social groups to please the researchers.
"IPO? Is that something about the Post Office?"
--TaoPhoenix
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I'm wrapping my head with duct tape right now!
Social networking sites have a large role to play in making people less lonelier..Sites like Orkut, Myspace, Grupus, etc.. there are just so many of them, in different varieties and flavours, nowadays you end up interacting with a lot of people even from the confines of your home, even by just sitting in front of the box.
the world is spherical
Hinder is a fucking VERB. Jesus H Corbett, you Americans fuck up the language more and more each day. Go to fucking school.
I think this sort of 'research' is done with little insight into what they are researching. IMO what they have found may simply show that sitting in front of a computer/TV or such is something that appeals strongly to people with little interest in their local community - the typical 'nerd type'?
or maybe they interpret their results wrongly; I would say that using the internet is likely to widen your horizon. This will of course mean that on one hand you get to know about things that are far away geographically and culturally; on the other hand this will mean that you perspective is less narrowly focused on your local community. To me that seems like a good thing.
Am I to understand that wanting to leave where you are is a bad thing? I thought exploring, seeing new things and visiting new place... particularly places that are vastly different from what you are used to is a good thing. I know a lot of people who would just LOVE to go someplace else. How many people would love to live in Sydney? Everybody wants everybody else to stay but they don't want to have their own feet strapped to the floor. You notice this a lot lately (atleast in Mass) with the campaign ads, "So-and-So wants to help keep our young adults in our state"...
So basically the whole problem here is that the internet lets us meet and talk to multiple people in a short time span and fills our head with strange ideas from other places that have absolutely no relevence or use in our lives... nice to know these articles are written by people so in touch =).
When I discovered the internet about ten years ago (when I was like... 11) everyone thought the internet was this huge monster. My parents did, parents friends, friends parents, etcetera. And to be quite honest they had every right to think that. That seemed to be the general thought about the internet, everyone was out to get everone else. My parents always worried about who I was talking to on the internet and at that age they should have, although they were never overbearing with it. I will say that while it may have made me "antisocial" in the sense that I didn't want to go out and "play ball" with my friends, I made stronger friendships elsewhere with people who could relate with me. By that I mean online AS WELL AS in real life. Meeting people who had the same interest in the internet would immediately bond us. In a sense it made me lose friends who didn't share the same interests but I gained other ones whose friendships have transcended the years.
I will forever be a student.
I would challenge the idea that the internet includes almost everyone. Maybe if "almost everyone" includes only people under 60. I spend a lot of time going to nursing homes and none of them are using the internet. They sit in their rooms waiting on someone to visit (perhaps the lack of local interest is taking a toll?) And a lot of people who are aware of the internet and use it are only using it for e-mail and to check the weather, not exactly part of the community.
I think for a pre-teen or teenager, concepts like "popularity" reign supreme. So having the ability to talk about oneself in some kind of public forum (EG. friendster or myspace), and then having a "hit counter" recording all the people you're vaguely "connected with" is really attractive to them.
There was a similar "dating/friendship" site somebody referred me to in a URL a while back, and it seemed to take this to even more of an extreme. Basically, people would view your photos or bio and click to indicate they had a "crush" on you. Within 30 seconds of making a new account there, and without even posting any info about myself at all, I had 2 "crushes" sent by people generically posting comments like "Share the love!" along with them. Teens were all over the site, pretty much begging for and competing for who could get the most "crushes" on their accounts. (Silly, really, because the original concept of the site was pretty much ruined that way. The intention was, if 2 people actually happened to send each other a "crush", that indicated enough mutual interest that the site would then let them send each other private emails.)
But eventually, I think people grow out of all that and learn the value of a real friendship, vs. a popularity contest. So it's not really an issue.
a more recent study shows that now the internet has a positive effect on social and psychological well-being.
Of course. Jerking-off to porn then going to slashdot to talk about the effects of the internet feels really good, and will benefite you socially and psychologically. I mean, what are you talking about? Of course the internet makes you happier. Plus, pr0nstars can't dump you. And there's so many to choose from. If you did the real thing you would either have to get the girls drunk or engage in a serious relationship.
Besides, with the internet you get to interact with hundreds of people a day. You can see each other in videos, have prolonged academic dialogues, send each other links to other people... that is positively better than a club.
Finally, the internet has never been a "hinder" to social life. It has always been a catastophe. But that doesn't mean it hurts your well-being! Just remember cybersex and porn. Porn is your friend.
P.S: I don't use pornography for entertainment. I was kidding.
That sentance makes me very, very afraid.
Interestingly, frequent Internet use is associated with a decline in local knowledge and interest in living in the local area.
I myself am a good example of this. I live in Australia, and was socially very largely lost until I first began using the Internet in 1994. Since then, I made contact with a number of people from several different countries, and found a far greater degree of acceptance than I had ever received for the most part offline in Australia. If it had not been for meeting my present girlfriend in Melbourne in late 2001, I probably would have at least tried to leave the country by now, although was unsure as to where else to go.
I will admit that I have tended to consider most of my countrymen (at least those that I have known) to be provincial, narrow minded, excessively jocular morons, who also have a tendency to grossly overestimate the country's level of international relevance. To add to the rest of the world's reasons to hold Australia in contempt, the current Howard government is utterly shameless in its' fawning solidarity with the rogue American Bush administration, and because of this, we now have the notorious distinction of being one of the few countries left on the planet whose government is sufficiently facistic to be willing to adopt that stance. In most other countries, not only have the public been vehement in expressing their opposition to the evil of Bush, but their governments have also more commonly listened to their constituents' will.
I live online more or less entirely, and view Australia as merely being the place where my physical body sleeps.
the two arguments in the article why nowadays the internet is not the social hinder any more are obvious. These arguments are : 0) the internet has got more different ways of communication; 1) the internet population has grown to include almost everyone.
;)
Maybe you have spent too much time in the digital reality? Because AFAIK people haven't started counting in the binary system.
not like this will be seen on page two... but what the hell.
I can say with 100% certinty that the net has GREATLY help my social life. I suffer from a rather permanent and disruptive physicological condition (that i wont go into details here) that was crippling my social interactions with the greater public. Through the net I was able to find, talk to and get support from others with the same condition. Suddenly I wasnt as alone, I found out how to seek treatment and now I am a FAR happier, more social, person.
Without the net i would still be wollowing alone in my room insted of enjoying life.
Whose social life hasn't been improved with the internet? Especially with the younger generations still in school or college, using social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook is a must. It's how you meet more people! Obviously, years ago this wasn't true. When I was in elementary/middle school, I only had a handful of friends online who I actually knew from school. Today, my little cousins are constantly iming/myspacing/etc their schoolmates. The internet definitely expanded my social circle in recent years and has made it easier to keep in touch with old friends. Without the internet there is no way I would be this social.
That's the real lesson here.
But not the one the poster thinks it is From dictionary.com: Hinder: 2. Chiefly Northern and North Midland U.S.. the buttocks. [Origin: 12501300; ME; cf. OE hinder (adv.) behind; c. G hinter (prep.) behind] Insert various Porn, WoW, Myspace, jokes here ->
...to how television causes social disengagement and bad moods.
does anyone have more info on how television causes social disengagement and bad moods? Are there conclusive studies of this? I'd be interested in reading about that, but TFA doesn't touch that issue. I kind of like how this statement was thrown out there in the story like it's some universal truth that everyone holds to be obvious.
Heh. You needed the Internet to learn that? No offense, but I'd have thought that anyone who's ever went to (high) school, had any work that doesn't only involve telecommuting, or, really, went out of the house at all, had witnessed the RL-equivalent of karma-whoring. People want to be perceived as part of the group, well liked, cool, fashionable, etc, and will go to insane (and often bloody stupid) extremes to achieve that.
It even has an impact on polls and statistics, as you have to skew your poll to account for the facts that:
- if it seems that the interviewer wants a particular answer, they'll give that answer, just to be liked. So if you actually want a fair result, you have to go to great lengths to make sure that the question sounds as neutral as it the English language allows. (Or, conversely, if you want to skew the statistics to your ends, you just need to give people a strong indication that only a monster would pick the other choices.)
- all else being equal, people tend to answer "yes" more than they answer "no". (Presumably because being too negative is perceived as something bad or non-social.) So you have to actually have randomized tests, where the same question is asked in one way on some forms (e.g., "are you for continuing the war in Iraq?") and as the opposite on others (e.g., "are you for stopping the war in Iraq?")
- as anthropologists showed, even when you accounted for the above two, if you ask people anything about themselves, the result will be basically a lie. Well, not as in a deliberate, conscious-level lie, but more like distorted through the need to perceive themselves as doing the right and, most importantly, the socially-acceptable thing. _Very_ few will give you an answer that, according to the current social standards, would ammount to a "yes, I'm an asshole" confession, even if the poll is completely anonymous and confidential.
Or you can see that at smaller levels, and sometimes even at petty levels, from high school to your everyday work. People ostracize person X, just because they want to fit in a group where the popular ones are against person X. People pretend to be stupid in school, just because in nowadays' broken culture it's _cool_ to be stupid and ignorant, and is waay uncool to show any academic effort or ability. (And god forbid showing _interest_.) Etc.
The most perverse form of that is "groupthink". Take a dozen people which, each of them separately, are against doing X. Put them in a group where they each think that the rest of the group is _for_ X. Watch them all vote/chest-thump/shout-slogans/whatever for X, just to please the rest of the group, and take a decision as a group that neither of them actually really wanted. It's more common than you'd think, and affects a wide range of groups, from small cliques at work to government commissions to whole countries.
Etc, etc, etc.
So let's just say that Slashdot's karma-whoring is actually just representative of society as a whole. In fact, compared to some RL counterparts, let me assure you that the worst
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
... it has really fucked up spelling and grammar, or did someone slip in "hinder" as a noun when I wasn't looking?
I know Americans have a habit of verbing nouns but is nouning verbs now de rigeur?
No but, yeah but, no but...
but sorry, myspace friends don't count. The difference is, there are just more losers these days.
Maybe, just maybe, the composition of Internet users has changed since 1998 to include a broader demographic spectrum which will, by definition, follow societal norms more closely.
Where's my grant money?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
That's one thing I don't really get: the mentality some people have that the only way to make online friends, or to succeed in a MMO, or whatever, is dependent on pretending to be a horny female teenager.
Somehow it doesn't even add up. The most popular people I've met on MUDs and MMOs for example, were playing male characters, and were the people with a memorable personality one way or another. They might have been the guy who played for ever and knows every single secret lever, or the guy who was the most involved in the community, or the most helpful newbie-helper, or the most (nauseatingly) consistent full-time role-player, or in one case simply the biggest asshole on the MUD. (But always very careful to not break any rules, so the admins never could quite justify outright banning him, even if they were _very_ irritated by him too.) You'd be surprised at the number of fans one can have by simply being the biggest asshole and full-time ganker on the server.
But the opposite works just as well, and in fact much better when you're low level and in no position to be an asshole. You'd be surprised how many people will remember you just because you were nice, helpful, and able to function in a group. Heck, even just being the polite newbie who knows how to ask politely and doesn't try to sound like an "I have 7 level 60 characters, you noob, I just forgot where Stormwind is" clown, you'd be surprised how it does get enough people trying to help. Some of us actually _like_ babysitting a polite newbie. Remember to say "thanks" at the end, and you may well be on the way to making a friend.
If anyone finds it necessary to play the "I'm a cute, lonely 13 year old girl" card to get any "friends" or any online help, then I'd advise them to take a good look critical look at their own personality and approach to human relationships, because that's where the real problem lies.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Except I have speech and hearing impediments due to my disabilities. BBS and Internet opened up a new world for communications.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
2002, eh? So this really isn't "news" in 2006, is it? I mean, it's been four years since the publication of that study, and a lot of analysis has been done since then about it and the previous results. The HomeNet study has already had enough holes drilled into it that I doubt many researchers give any validity to the idea that the Internet is socially isolating any longer.
Offhandedly suggesting things like "social networking" (which barely existed in 2002 as a unique phenomenon) could have contributed to the change in perceptions isn't very "tasty" or "research." It could have just as well been the increase in users (no, sorry, not "everybody" has access to the Internet still), or some other unknown variable not yet studied. With just a few hundred people enrolled in both studies from one lone geographic location in the U.S., I'd hardly feel comfortable making robust generalizations about all U.S. Internet users.
The second citation is actually dated 2001 in the PDF linked, and talks about the timeframe for that data collection -- 1998-1999. Hardly a time where there was any social networking going on, or where "everyone" was on the Internet.
... because different people have different definitions of "green".
Seriously, there is nothing that's "one size fits all", and that goes for places, events, other people, clothing, food, etc.
- Some people actually like the rural/suburb communities, with their cliques, gossip, and all good and bad parts. Some of us are introverts and not interested in neighbourhood gossip/influence/power games at all, and thus may feel actually better in a large town where you're an anonymous nobody in a crowd.
- Some people are perfectly happy in a group/suburb/whatever, where the only choice of conversation is the last football game or the weather. Dunno, maybe they actually like football or don't mind faking it. Some of us prefer other topics. I for one, you know what I like? History. So me, I'd rather look for a place or people where I can talk about that, or failing that, physics, computers or cats.
- Some people are ok with having just one grocery store in their area, with a narrow but cheap selection. (E.g., IIRC here in Germany some 80% of people buy their stuff at Aldi. Which is just that: the cheapest stuff money can buy, but practically zero choice.) On the other hand, my brother had to take along a camera and produce ample evidence that the new town, in which he wanted to move and take a job, had lots and lots of shops of all kinds, to convince his wife to move.
- on one vacation abroad, the hotel also organized some sort of outdoors disco right under my freakin' windows. A lot of people actually seemed to enjoy it, and just went and danced there. Me, I hated it with a passion, and I would have rather just freakin' slept at night.
Etc. Two different people can (and usually do) have very different ideas of what's "green" for them. Person A might hate place/item/person/whatever X and love Y, while person B loves X and hates Y. Go figure.
It's not just ignoring the bad parts. It's that even when you do know the bad parts, different people give them different priorities. What for you is "awful", for someone else may just be "a mild annoyance", and for someone else it might even count as "nice". See the hotel example again: other people's "cool, we can go dance there" ranked up with root canal for me.
Global travel and information just considerally enlarged the pool of choices. Now each can find a different place or person or whatever, which for them _is_ better. Even after taking the bad parts into account.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You're not the only one!