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Generation-long Internet Research Project Funded

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i-want-the-results-now dept.

Wonko42 writes "Microsoft and AOL have put aside their bickering for a moment and teamed up to fund a research project that will examine the effects of the Internet on modern society. " The results of will be quite interesting-they are looking at not only the effects of usage, but also non-usage, which is equally important, IMHO. It looks like UCLA will be the key institution, and the time span is "at least a generation".

8 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. We need to monitor this by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 3

    This is just the sort of fuzzy study that can be used as "proof" to further socioligical or political agendas. We (as in knowledgable and frequent users of the 'net) need to keep track this group's research to ensure that it is impartial. Consider the hysteria after Littleton, or the long running effort to censor anything that resembles porn. This study could be skewed in ways that could give credibility to all that silliness.

    Of course, I don't understand why this is a big deal. The GVU has been running a Web user survey for years.

  2. Effects on me by Raato · · Score: 2

    Well I must say that I've lost at least few weeks of productive time to mindless surfing, which is reported as "R&D management" to the work hour system ;) and I know I'm not alone. You don't even need WWW to get addicted to the net. Most of my Internet time has been wasted in usenet news. Thank God I haven't got into irc/mud-madness. That would mean throwing the rest of my normal life (in the eyes of other people) away.

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    Microsoft? Is that some kind of a toilet paper?
  3. Research isn't for us by Rayban · · Score: 2

    This study isn't really for us, but for our children. We can harvest some of the gains of a life-long study like this, but to realize the entire potential, it needs to run for its full course.

    I guess in 100 years our children will know whether the Internet really was a benefit to our society and can build on our successes and mistakes, while keeping in mind the effect that it has on the human part of the equation.

    There are so many projects now that are designed to be finished in _our_ lifetime, that we forget the benefit of stuff that spans generations. Look at all the monumental pieces of architecture that took hundreds of years to complete.

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    æeee!
  4. Generations (not the ST movie) by Rupert · · Score: 2

    How many years between Gen X and Gen Next? And then how many between Gen Next & the Millenials?

    Since this is a piece of marketing, we have to use marketers definitions of generation, which appears to be logarithmic. "At least" a generation could be five minutes by the end of next year.

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    E_NOSIG
  5. They've been working on this for a while. by Vince · · Score: 3
    This research has been going on at UCLA for a while. Recently, one of the big grad students was hired by Microsoft research. You can get info on his work at http://www.marcsmith.com/.

    As far as "fluff" goes, hey, it's Sociology. This is hard-core stuff for them.

  6. "at least a generation"? by jabber · · Score: 3

    Generation of people??
    It's hard enough to get a proper psychological study done over that length of time. For technology that's only been around that long to begin with, it'll be damn near impossible. Sounds to me like a publicity stunt designed to make the techno-behemoths appear sociologically minded.

    Now, if they're talking a generation of chips, that's much more plausible. 18 months of non-usage is sure to have some serious implications on the Klamath. :)

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    -- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
  7. ...and here's the results of this amazing study by Kurt+Gray · · Score: 5

    People who user the Internet frequently:
    • 41% Need to double their eye glass' perscription every 6 months

    • 14% Can be seen driving the wrong way down one-way streets thanks to maps.yahoo.com

    • 75% Laugh at people who pay for pornography or software.

    • 54% Are fully aware that AOL sucks.

    • 99% Always want a bigger monitor.

    • 48% Would rather be playing Quake right now.

    People who do not use the Internet:

    • 52% Wonder if "surfing through cyberspace" is anything like snowboarding

    • 27% Still can't figure out how to dial ".com" on their telephone.

    • 21% Wrap their heads in tin foil to prevent the governement from monitoring their impure thaughts.
  8. UCLA, unbiased? by witten · · Score: 2
    I can tell you right now that this study will be highly biased, without having to wait "at least a generation" to see the results. I'm a current UCLA student, and every indication I've seen here points to the fact that UCLA is in Microsoft's back pocket (save for a few small holdouts in the Computer Science and Physics departments). The people who run the dorm network are so pro-Windows and anti-Unix, that they even at one point considered banning Linux from the dorms altogether. Nearly all of the school's administrative web sites run on NT, and many of its labs do, too.

    So basically, consider this study completely irrelevent.