TEXTBOOK: Ch. 11: The Impact of New Media Technologies

*perpetual linkage*

Nearly 15 years ago, two media scholars, Jane Brown and Joanne Cantor, outlined a series of crucial questions surrounding new technology that researchers need to continue to study in future years. They framed these questions in terms of the concept of *___________________*, the new tendency for youth to be constantly connected with each other through some type of technology. The authors asked the following questions: "What is the impact of the connectedness that the newer media promote, i.e., the almost constant technological links that youth have with each other, using their cell phones, beepers, email, and other devices soon to be developed? What about the relationships young people have with others they have met only via technological links? Do youth, for example, have stronger social ties to their peers because they are in virtual contact for so much more of the time? Or are they more alienated because this technological contact comes at the expense of potentially richer face-to-face interaction?" These questions have helped to define the new research literature, and we are beginning to get clues on some of the answers.

*multitasking* *task switching*

Cyber-overload: One of the themes to emerge in the last few years is that we're awash in so much information and new media that we literally can't function. Two common areas in which this theme shows up are in our driving behavior and our sleep behavior. The award-winning science journalist Matt Richtel has published extensively in The New York Times on the problems associated with cell phones and driving, and research scholars are busy trying to understand *_____________________*—the behavior of media users who claim that they can simultaneously engage in more than one task at once. If you have ever texted a message while driving, you may be under the illusion that you can successfully multitask. But it really is an illusion. Instead of doing two things at once, your brain has really switched its attention between the two activities very rapidly. This is known as *_______________________*. When you're driving, task switching is particularly dangerous because while you may be under the illusion that you're actually paying attention to your driving, you really aren't during those seconds when your attention is on your cell phone screen. Joanne Cantor has written about this distinction in her book about cyber-overload. Her advice: Forget multitasking. While Cantor's advice is wise, it isn't necessarily easy to implement. Zheng Wang and John Tchernev, two communication researchers who have studied multitasking, note that their research shows that people seem driven to multitask because the resulting environment yields emotional gratifications. In short, it feels good to surround oneself with multiple screen options. Even as I write these words, I'm tempted to have the TV on in the background and my iPhone perched in plain sight just to the left of the keyboard. But Wang and Tchernev's research also shows that in setting up my digital environment to feel good, performance on my cognitive task suffers. I'll write better if I can avoid the distractions of my multi-screen environment (I've counted some 14 media screens throughout my house). Before he passed away unexpectedly of a heart attack in 2013, Clifford Nass appeared in a documentary made for PBS TV in which he explained his research at Stanford University on how multitasking decreases cognitive performance. He summarized the results of his studies succinctly and persuasively when he said: "Virtually all multitaskers think they are brilliant at multitasking. And one of the big discoveries is, you know what, you're really lousy at it. It turns out multitaskers are terrible at every aspect of multitasking. They get distracted constantly; their memory is very disorganized. Recent work we've done suggests they're worse at analytic reasoning. We worry that it may be creating people who are unable to think well and clearly."

*causal claim*

Finally, critics have complained that Kraut and his colleagues went too far in suggesting that their data supported a *______________*. Recall from the earlier chapters on research methods and the chapters on specific effects that surveys suffer from an important limitation. In principle, they simply cannot be used to argue unequivocally for causal relationships. The experiment is the only method that really solves that problem. Because Kraut's data are based on the survey method, it is always possible that the relationships observed are due to some other unmeasured variable. So what's the bottom line?

*individual differences*

Given these various hypotheses about the effects of Internet communication, which ideas seem to be best supported? To find out, Bessiere, Kraut, and their colleagues used a random sample of households from the United States and surveyed more than 1,200 adults. They followed the first survey with a second survey 6 to 8 months later. With respect to the key hypotheses, all 3 were supported in some measure. In support of social augmentation, those who used the Internet to communicate with family and friends reduced their levels of depression over time. The social displacement hypothesis was also supported—but only for those who used the Internet primarily to meet new people or talk in online groups. Perhaps the time these people invested in trying to find new relationships led to subsequent elevations in depression because the time spent on the Internet was time that couldn't be spent interacting with others face to face. The fact that the strongest evidence for the social displacement idea emerged mainly for people who had high levels of social resources to begin with (well connected with friends and family) supports the idea that existing relationships were actually displaced by Internet time. Finally, there was also some support for the social compensation hypothesis. Those with more limited social resources who used the Internet did not suffer increased depression over time. But they didn't show any real improvement in depression levels either. One of the main contributions of this study is to highlight the complexity of the effects of using the Internet to communicate with others. The role of *________________________* needs to be taken seriously in sorting out the effects. Internet use may be beneficial for some and not so good for others when it comes to forming and maintaining social relationships. It appears as if the authors of this study plan to continue their research so that they can untangle these contingent effects of new technology in more detail.

*activity displacement effect* *displaces strong social ties*

If using the Internet is really associated with these negative psychological effects, what specifically is it about using the Net that causes them to occur? According to Kraut and his associates, there were two main possibilities. First, the data might reveal an *________________________*. This sort of effect was discussed in Chapter 4 in connection with TV. People have a limited amount of time during any day to engage in their various activities. Once family members are hooked up to the Internet, perhaps they tend to spend more time in isolation from others, using the Internet for private entertainment and Web surfing. Second, perhaps the data reveal that the Internet *______________________*. According to this explanation, when people go online, they often end up talking to people in chat rooms and even occasionally make new friends. But overall, the kinds of relationships that are formed online tend to be more superficial and are characterized by weaker ties than the relationships that people tend to have with family members and significant others who appear in one's life face to face on a daily basis. When people use the Internet, they may be depriving themselves of the richness of their deeper, strong ties with family and other significant friends in favor of relationships that are not nearly as deep or involving.

*interactivity*; *structure*; *channel*; *textuality*; *content*

In contrast to an approach that would emphasize that everything must change with a new technology, Eveland likes to think of all media in terms of a common set of attributes. Differences between media can then be discussed in terms of differences in these attributes. For example, he proposes that we might think of some of the common attributes as *_________________*, *_______________*, *______________*, *_______________*, and *_______________*. Interactivity refers to the extent to which a person is actually able to interact with the technology in a meaningful way. Structure might refer to the extent to which a medium is linear or non-linear. A newspaper article takes you from the beginning to the end in an uninterrupted, linear fashion. But an article on the Web might have various hyperlinks that divert you from the main text to explore other tangents. The Web article is more nonlinear. The channel might refer to whether information is presented visually, acoustically, or in both channels at once. Textuality refers to how much of the information in a medium is communicated in text form. Finally, content refers to the actual information conveyed by the medium, such as violence, sex, persuasive messages, or information.

*social augmentation hypothesis* *social displacement hypothesis* *social compensation hypothesis* *social information processing theory*

In his most recent research, Kraut and his colleagues (led this time by Katherine Bessiere) return to one of the basic questions raised in the HomeNet study: Does use of the Internet cause increasing levels of depression among users? The researchers began by noting a long-established empirical fact that people who live in close social networks with numerous friends and community ties tend to have a higher level of overall psychological well-being. They tend to be happier and less stressed. One hypothesis the researchers wanted to test is the *____________________________*, which holds that people who use the Internet to communicate with others should expand their social networks, thus permitting them to derive many of the relational benefits that come with being more connected to other people. In contrast, the *_________________________________* is the notion that every minute spent on the Internet is a minute that one cannot use to engage in social relationships with family and friends. Consequently, heavy use of the Internet should cause people to communicate less with the people immediately around them and this should lead to the loss of the positive benefits that those social networks provide. According to this idea, heavy Internet users should become more depressed, less connected, and more isolated from others. Part of this hypothesis is the idea that time spent communicating online is not the same as time spent communicating face-to-face. Consistent with the notion outlined in conjunction with the HomeNet study, use of the Internet should displace strong social ties. A final hypothesis suggested in the literature is the *________________________________*. According to this view, the effects of the Internet on social and psychological well-being are positive—but only for certain individuals. For people who are impoverished socially and have few people in their social networks, use of the Internet may expand social horizons and lead to a greater sense of connection—thus increasing a person's emotional and psychological well-being. The idea here is that people who don't enjoy a rich set of social connections are able to compensate for their situations by going to the Internet. For those who are already well connected, this hypothesis doesn't really make any definite predictions about effects. One communication theorist who introduced ideas about computer- mediated communication that are consistent with both the social augmentation and the social compensation hypotheses is Joseph Walther. His *_________________________* emphasizes the notion that even though communication using computers lacks the rich set of non-verbal cues available in face-to-face interaction, people can still use the available verbal cues to establish intimate relationships that rival those formed in the face-to-face context. These relationships may form at a slower pace, but they can eventually arrive at a place of high intimacy.

*mix of attributes approach*

In thinking about what's really new about new technology, William Eveland contributed a helpful conceptual scheme that encourages scholars to integrate their thinking about traditional media with their thinking about media that are newer. He refers to this scheme as the *________________________* to the study of media effects. Eveland contends that some researchers tend to react to a new technology with the attitude that it "changes everything." As he puts it: "Virtual reality, these researchers might argue, requires new theories and new concepts, which then require all new research. Similarly, the Internet and its World Wide Web are somehow supposed to be fundamentally different from all that has come before, and thus research and theory must start from scratch."

*media multiplexity theory*

Media Multiplexity Theory: One theoretical idea that seems to be enjoying some support from the most recent research on the Internet is Caroline Haythornthwaite's *______________________*. In addition to defining more precisely what is meant by "strong ties" and "weak ties" in terms of connection to others (see Study Box 11-3), the theory makes a prediction that runs counter to much of the very early literature on the Internet. Simply put, the theory predicts that relationships that are strong are those in which the people involved communicate with each other in multiple ways. In contrast, "weak tie" relationships are more likely to be those in which communication takes place over a limited number of media channels. I can illustrate with two people in my own life. My strongest tie is with my wife, Cheri. Consistent with the theory, I talk frequently with Cheri face to face because I see her every day. But I also talk with her on my cell phone frequently, and we exchange frequent text messages between the time we leave home in the morning and return in the evening. Over the course of a typical week, we also exchange email messages. And it isn't uncommon for us to leave each other messages on our respective Facebook pages. We also compete occasionally by playing against each other in various games on the Internet. Sometimes when we do this, we're sitting together in the same room—but sometimes we're not. In short, we use multiple means of communication to sustain our relationship. One of my weaker ties is with my nephew. It's been years since we've interacted face to face; I never talk with him on my cell phone, and I can't remember the last time we had a text message or email exchange. My contact with him is limited almost exclusively to checking out his Facebook status and making an occasional comment on his wall. When the Internet first appeared on the scene, many feared that spending time on email, texting, and social networking sites would take people away from face-to-face relationships. But the theory of media multiplexity predicts that the time I spend communicating on the Internet with a very close friend who I see frequently in person is not weakening my relationship. In fact, my use of multiple communication channels to exchange information with such a person is actually an indication of our closeness.

*light-at-night (LAN) hypothesis*

Related to the concern about media and sleep is the possible link between exposure to the light of a computer or TV set at night and the reduction of the body's natural production of a chemical called melatonin. If the *__________________________________* has merit, then exposure to the light of a screen at nighttime may affect melatonin levels. Why is this of any concern? The answer to that question is simple: melatonin seems to be a natural weapon that the body uses to fight cancer. TV sets and computer screens could also be culprits in reducing melatonin if they are viewed at close distances. I find this possible relationship to be so important that I'm collaborating with Jan Van den Bulck with hope to study the issue.

"*online sense of unidentifiability*"

The fact that most people may not be using the Internet to make new friends doesn't mean that they aren't using the Web to express their views to others. Some experimental work on Internet interaction suggests that even communicating with strangers can induce strong feelings. In one study, the amount of communication between participants in a chat room was positively correlated with the nature of the statements that people were making. The researchers examined both positive statements and negative statements made during chats. Positive statements were ones that complimented another person, expressed agreement with the other, expressed approval of some idea or behavior, expressed a positive emotion, and so forth. Negative statements were ones that criticized another person, expressed disagreement with the other, expressed disapproval, or expressed a negative emotion. Intuitively, you might think that the more positive the comments, the more communication took place. Actually, the correlation was in precisely the opposite direction. The more negative the comments, the more communication took place. At least in chat rooms, positive comments don't seem to get many takers. People seem more willing to argue and engage in various forms of hostility. Why is this the case? Study Box 11-1 focuses on some experimental work on Internet communication that confirms that people experience intense feelings in Internet interactions. Study Box 11-2 highlights a more recent experiment that helps in understanding some of the dynamics at work when people express their hostility online. As it turns out, the lack of eye contact and what the authors call the "*___________________________*" appear to be key factors in hostile online interactions.

"*the media equation*"

Will Our Old Brains Catch Up to the New Technology?: Over 15 years ago, Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass published a provocative book that I believe was way ahead of its time. My hunch is that media scholars will be mining the insights in this book in future years and expanding them in all sorts of fruitful directions. The book is called The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television and New Media Like Real People and Places. You may remember that you read a little about this book back in Chapter 4 when the topic of discussion was the formation of parasocial relationships with media characters. In the opening pages of the book, Reeves and Nass explain "*___________________*": "In short, we have found that individuals' interactions with computers, television, and new media are fundamentally social and natural, just like interactions in real life." They go on to explain that for a few hundred thousand years, Homo sapiens learned to react to the things in their environments without questioning their reality. Then, in the 20th century, along comes an electronic revolution that essentially "tricks" our brains. In Chapter 7, you read personal accounts of people who became frightened of images that existed on pieces of celluloid and were projected onto a large screen. Why would someone actually become scared of these images? After all, they're not real. The answer from the media equation is that our new brains have not yet been able to overcome the deeply ingrained processing rules from our old brains that tell us to react to what we see as if it is real.