AMERICAN

Katz et al. / THE

BEHAVIORAL
INTERNET, SCIENTIST
1995-2000

The Internet, 1995-2000

Access, Civic Involvement, and Social Interaction

JAMES E. KATZ
RONALD E. RICE
Rutgers University
PHILIP ASPDEN
National Academy of Sciences

This research, which began fielding surveys in 1995 (and thereafter with variation in 1996,
1997, and 2000), was apparently the first to use national random telephone survey methods
to track social and community aspects of Internet use and compare users and nonusers. The
program has explored the Internet in terms of trends in access, political and civic involve-
ment, and social interaction. The authors uncovered serendipitously what they call the
Internet dropout phenomenon. The findings have found a decline in some aspects of the digi-
tal divide, especially once awareness has been achieved and when the year of adoption is
considered. Contrary to the pessimistic assertions of many, no loss was discerned in terms of
the indicators of political or community involvement. The findings support a more positive
interpretation of the Internet’s impact, at least in terms of interpersonal communication,
where Internet use was associated with greater levels of telephone use (although not of cor-
respondence by mail) and social interaction (although this was more widely dispersed). It
also led to many face-to-face friendships that were judged by respondents as a positive expe-
rience. Thus, some of the earliest research on the social consequences of the Internet, con-
firmed during a half-decade of additional surveys, finds a decreasing but still significant dig-
ital divide, few negative effects on civic involvement and social interaction, and some
positive consequences.

THEMES

Some researchers, media correspondents, and policy analysts have argued

that the Internet is harming individual users and the overall quality of commu-
nity life. Too often, however, discussions of these issues have been conducted
without data or, perhaps even worse, with anecdotes, hybrids of local snowball
samples, or novice and self-selected Internet users. Our aim has been to use a
series of national random telephone surveys to shed scientifically credible

Authors’ Note: We would like to thank editors Barry Wellman and Caroline Haythornthwaite and
two doctoral students working with them, Merav Katz and Wen-Hong Chen, for their very helpful
and focused comments on our earlier drafts.
AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST, Vol. 45 No. 3, November 2001 405-419
© 2001 Sage Publications

405
406 AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST

empirical light on these issues.1 We have done this because without some sense
as to the real situation among the national base of users and nonusers, we will be
influenced instead by the most striking or alarming anecdotes or the most publi-
cized or strident claims. Due to their importance to the critical debate over the
Internet’s societal impact, we have focused on three issues: (a) the digital divide,
(b) community and political involvement, and (c) social interaction. The work
has been largely supported by grants from the Markle Foundation of New York
City as well as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The first fundamental concern is access, including who has/does not have
access to the Internet, what motivates people to use the Internet, what barriers
there are to usage, and what characterizes those who stop using the Internet
(Katz & Aspden, 1997a, 1997b, 1997c). Access is the major public policy area
for those who see the Internet as a universal service and for issues related to
political and economic equity (McCreadie & Rice, 1999a, 1999b). Most studies
report, for example, that Internet users are more likely to be male, younger,
better educated, more affluent, White, and urban (Hoffman, 1998; Katz &
Aspden, 1997a, 1997b). The usual term for this differential access to and use of
the Internet according to gender, income, race, and location is the digital divide.
The second fundamental tension is whether the Internet will decrease com-
munity involvement, political participation, social interaction, and integration
(Kraut et al., 1998; Putnam, 2000; Selnow, 1994) or whether it will foster diverse
mediated communities with greater social capital. Concerns about the decline of
community expressed 200 years ago (by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson,
and John Quincy Adams) often seem little different than those expressed contin-
ually since World War II (Merton, 1957, p. 356; Putnam, 1996). A major compo-
nent of this lively debate has been the question of the impact of communication
technology on these processes. Analysis and criticism started earnestly shortly
after the telegraph was invented (Standage, 1999) and was reinvigorated and
intensified as each new communication technology became popular: the tele-
phone, radio, movies, and, most profoundly, the television (cf. Fischer, 1993;
Schiffer, 1991).
We discern two broad but conflicting views on social communities in
cyberspace. The first general view is pessimistic. Cyberspace cannot be a source
of real community and/or detracts from meaningful real-world communities
(Baudrillard, 1983; Beniger, 1987; Gergen, 1991; Kiesler, Siegel, & McGuire,
1984; Numes, 1995; Stoll, 1995; Turkle, 1996). There has been concern about a
possible reduction in the objectivity of traditional media if these media were to
lose their status and impact because of the growth of Internet usage (Sympo-
sium, 1995; Van Alstyne, 1995). A related concern is that lack of access to
Internet resources by various groups in society, relative to traditional outlets
such as newspapers, radio, and television, would translate into a narrowing of
the basis of political participation and legitimacy of government (White, 1997).
Others argue that the Internet could weaken the legitimacy of the governing pro-
cess by encouraging the spread of small, Net-savvy special interest communities
 Katz et al. / THE INTERNET, 1995-2000 407

that could pursue their own narrow agenda at the cost of the public commonweal
(Starobin, 1996). The quality and validity of material reported on the Internet is
also increasingly problematical, leading to concerns about the corruption or
debasement of elections and a consequent reduction in political participation.
Some theorists have argued that the Internet is destroying community groups
and voluntary associations that are necessary for the democratic process to suc-
ceed (Putnam, 1996, 2000; Turkle, 1996). Other critics fear that the Internet will
absorb and dissipate the energy of the citizenry away from traditional political
processes (Carpini, 1996; Rash, 1997).
The second general view is optimistic. Cyberspace involvement can create
alternative communities that are as valuable and useful as our familiar, physi-
cally located communities (Poole, 1983; Rheingold, 1993). The Internet may
very well foster political involvement: “Life in cyberspace seems to be shaping
up exactly like Thomas Jefferson would have wanted: founded on the primacy of
individual liberty and a commitment to pluralism, diversity, and community”
(Kapor, 1993, p. 53).
The third concern is whether the Internet will hinder expression or foster new
forms of identity and social interaction (Baron, 1984; Gergen, 1991; Hiltz &
Turoff, 1995; Parks & Floyd, 1996; Turkle, 1996; Wynn & Katz, 1997). Can
online social activity and creativity translate into meaningful friendships and
relationships? The first school of thought holds that computer-mediated com-
munication (CMC) technology is too inherently antithetical to the nature of
human life for meaningful relationships to form (Stoll, 1995). To type is not to
be human, to be in cyberspace is not to be real; all is pretense and alienation, a
poor substitute for the real thing. Thus, cyberspace cannot be a source of mean-
ingful friendships (Baudrillard, 1983; Numes, 1995). Furthermore, the technol-
ogy is too limited to provide a useful basis for relationship formation. Hence,
CMC inherently leads to experimentation (that is, lying to others who cannot
immediately know what the truth is) about one’s identity and qualities. Such an
atmosphere can be dominated by trickery, lechery, manipulation, and emotional
swindles. So much posturing, gender-switching, and faking of identities can
take place that it is extremely difficult for any real relationships to be created and
maintained (Turkle, 1996).
However, a second school of thought increasingly sees the Internet as a
medium for social interaction (Rice, 1987b). Numerous case studies of CMC have
shown that the social is an important glue that binds together the task-oriented
aspects of CMC and in some cases even supplants them (Rice, 1987a). This
work has been complemented by research on the functioning of medical discus-
sion lists and newsgroups, health and psychological support groups, Internet
relay chats, multiuser dungeons (MUDs), object-oriented MUDs, and even
online dating services, all of which are essentially social and affect-oriented as
opposed to task-oriented (Rice, 2001). A good proportion of those searching
and participating in health information sites and discussion groups do so as
third-party intermediaries, seeking information and support for their significant
408 AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST

TABLE 1: Summary Sample Size and Usage Statistics

October November November March

1995 1996 1997 2000

Sample (N) 2,500 557 2,148 1,305

Users (%) 8 19 30 65
Former users (%) 8 11 10 11.5
Never users (%) 84 70 60 23.4
Augmented sample of users 450 153

NOTE: Because of as yet still low percentages of Internet users in the general population, the 1996
and 1997 samples were each augmented by an additional sample of Internet users. For those 2 years,
we report population estimates of usage from the initial, unaugmented samples, but we use the com-
bined (regular and augmented) samples for comparing relative distributions of variables.

others, for themselves to help them deal with illnesses of significant others, or to
bring information from the Internet to stimulate, challenge, or engage their
health care providers (Aspden & Katz, 2001). The growth and persistence of
Web-based chat rooms and instant messaging offering community would seem
to provide additional evidence refuting the nonsocial nature of CMC. Baym
(1995) summarized a decade of research as revealing “the ways in which people
have appropriated the commercial and non-commercial networks demonstrate
that CMC not only lends itself to social uses but is, in fact, a site for an unusual
amount of social creativity” (p. 160). Rice (1987b) argued that fundamental
aspects of social groups and communities may well be supported, even
extended, through online communities, although the boundaries and perma-
nence of such groups might be quite different.

DATA SOURCES

The data summarized here, as well as detailed in various reports from the
overall programmatic research (see Katz & Rice, in press), came from a series of
national representative telephone surveys, all designed by us but administered
by commercial survey firms. These surveys follow rigorous sampling protocols
and use random-digit dialing to produce statistically representative samples of
the adult U.S. population. Table 1 provides summary details on nonusers, users,
former users, and sample sizes.

RESULTS: ACCESS, USAGE,

AWARENESS, AND DROPOUTS

During each of the national surveys, we asked users the year that they started
using the Internet (referred to in the surveys as “the Internet, also known as the
Information or Electronic Superhighway”). This enabled us to establish cohorts
 Katz et al. / THE INTERNET, 1995-2000 409

Percent of Sample Reporting Usage 80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99
Cohort Year
Female Older Poorer Less Education African American

Figure 1: Percentage of All Internet Users (by Cohort Year) Belonging to Each of
Several Demographic Categories
NOTE: Each demographic represents one of the dichotomized categories of the full demographic
(i.e., gender, income, education, race). Data are from each cohort year for all applicable surveys (the
year in which the respondent began using the Internet), not the survey year (the year in which the sur-
vey was conducted). Census figures for 1998/2000 for each demographic category were: female,
51%; at least 40 years old, 55%; less than $35,000 income, 44.6%; less than a college education,
71.9%; African American, 12.7%. Census figures are from the online Statistical Abstracts of the
United States, either 1998 counts or July 1, 2000 estimates, available at www.census.gov/prod/
www/statistcal-abstract-us.html (January 1, 2001). The overall percentage of African Americans in
the survey samples were 9.3% in 1995, 7.3% in 1996, 11% in 1997, and 11% in 2000, whereas the
percentage of African Americans in the recent census data is 12.7%. This indicates that at least the
2000 survey, and probably all the surveys, slightly underestimates the percentage of African Ameri-
cans in the population. This may mean that the surveys slightly underrepresent the percentage of
Internet users who are African American; however, if those African Americans who are
underrepresented in national representative samples are especially poor or less educated, then they
are also less likely to know about or use the Internet, so these percentages may be slight overestimates.

of users based on the year that they started using the Internet—those starting in
1992 or before and those starting in 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, and
1999/2000. Figure 1 portrays the cohort trends.

GENDER, AGE, INCOME, EDUCATION, AND RACE

Across the cohorts of users (1992 to 2000), the proportion of female users
increases. New Internet users are proportionally more female than are reported
in surveys that only indicate usage status as of the year of the survey; in recent
years, new users are more likely to be female. Despite the increases in the pro-
portion of users aged 40 and older, this proportion is still well below the propor-
tion aged 40 and older in the general population (approximately 55%). Again,
new Internet users in a given year are older than the average age of all users in
410 AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST

that survey year. However, the percentage of those 65 years and older who are
using the Internet is still well below the proportion of those 65 years and older in
the general population.
Concerning income, the trend is less certain. The proportion of new Internet
users with a household income less than $35,000 appears to be slowly increasing
over time. However, the proportion of users with household incomes less than
$35,000 is less for the later surveys than for the earlier ones. This discrepancy
may be explained by the fact that those with lower incomes are more inclined to
stop being Internet users (discussed below). For those users who started in 1992
or before, the proportion of non–college graduates was 28%, rising to 67% for
the 1999/2000 cohort. During the years the surveys were administered, the per-
centage rose from 48% in the 1995 survey to 56% in the 2000 survey. The pro-
portion of African Americans using the Internet rose and then declined a bit dur-
ing both the cohort and survey years. The difference in percentage of users and
nonusers between African Americans and White non-Hispanics was significant
only in 1996.

MOTIVATIONS FOR USE

Regarding motivations for Internet use, two points stand out (Katz & Aspden,
1997a, 1997b). Users in the 1995 and 2000 survey rated sending/receiving
e-mail as a significantly better reason someone might be interested in becoming
an Internet user than did nonusers (in this analysis, we include former users, or
dropouts, as nonusers). There was no significant difference between users and
nonusers in both 1995 and 2000 to the extent that they rated having contact with
new people as a motivation for usage. Whereas in 1995 users and nonusers did
not significantly differ in the extent to which they believed that people might be
interested in becoming an Internet user “because it’s a good thing to do,” in 2000
users were more likely to believe this, implying a more general social norm of
accepting the Internet as a positive innovation.

AWARENESS

Our research identified a second digital divide, relating to the awareness of

the existence of the Internet (defined by the question, “Have you heard of the
Internet or the Information Highway?”). We looked at the percentages of each
binary category of gender (male/female), age (younger or older than 40 years),
income (less or more than $35,000), education (less or more than college), and
race (African American or White non-Hispanic). Of those who were aware of
the Internet, the percentage of women rose from 45.5% in 1995 to 53.3% in
2000, the percentage of those older than 40 years rose from 47.9% to 50.2%, the
percentage of those earning less than $35,000 fell from 52.1% to 33.5%, the per-
centage of those with less than a college education dropped from 70.6% to 64.9%,
 Katz et al. / THE INTERNET, 1995-2000 411

and the percentage of those who were African American rose from 7.2% to 10.5%.
Thus, the awareness divide seems to have largely disappeared according to gen-
der, age, and race, but seems to be increasing by income and education, implying
a persistent and troubling problem with reaching the most disadvantaged.

COMBINED INFLUENCES ON USAGE AND AWARENESS

Summary logistic regressions were run to predict awareness (vs. never heard)
and to predict usage (vs. nonusers; here former users/dropouts were not consid-
ered) from the same demographic variables.
In 1995, significant predictors of being aware of the Internet were: younger,
greater income, greater education, and White American (14% of variance
explained, 86% of the 1,814 cases correctly predicted). Significant predictors of
being an Internet user were: male, younger, greater income, and higher educa-
tion (16% variance, 91% of the 1,676 cases correctly predicted). In 2000, signif-
icant predictors of awareness of the Internet were the same as in 1995: male,
younger, greater income, and White American (9% variance, 93% of the 1,037
cases correctly predicted). Significant predictors of usage were: younger,
greater income, and greater education (45% variance, 80.2% of 924 cases cor-
rectly predicted). Note that once awareness is achieved, in the multivariate anal-
yses there is no digital divide—differences between nonusers and users—based
on gender or race in 2000.

DROPOUTS

Internet dropouts—people who have used the Internet but no longer did so as
of the time of their survey—are usually overlooked in discussions about cyber-
space (Katz & Aspden, 1998). Approximately 8% of respondents were dropouts
in 1995, 11% in 1996, 10% in 1997, and 11.5% in 2000. Note that dropouts are a
very high percentage of the total of those who are both current and former users,
compared with the rather steady 8% to 11.5% of all respondents. In 1995, 1996,
1997, and 2000, dropouts were significantly younger, less affluent, and less well
educated than users—but not more likely to be female or African American. In
1995, dropouts older than 20 years (compared to current users older than 20
years) were more likely to have been taught to use the Internet by friends (42%
compared to 19% for current users), less likely to have learned at work (18%
compared to 35%), and less likely to have been self-taught (15% compared to
25%). Of those who dropped out, the following percentage of respondents (aver-
aged across the 1995, 1996, and 1997 surveys) indicated agreement with these
reasons for ceasing to use the Internet: they lost access to the Internet (23%),
generally due to losing a job or leaving college; the Internet was not sufficiently
interesting (12%); connection and/or usage bills were too high (15.7%); and it
takes too much time (7.5%).
412 AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST

RESULTS: CIVIC AND POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT

To see whether Internet usage is associated with community and political

involvement (or social capital), we analyzed five categories of respondents to
the 1995 survey (longtime users, or those who started using the Internet before
the survey year of 1995; recent Internet users, or those who started during the
survey year of 1995; former users; nonusers who have heard of the Internet; and
nonusers who have not heard of the Internet) (Katz & Aspden, 1997c), and the
more parsimonious categories of current users versus nonusers/former users for
1995 and 2000.

PARTICIPATION IN ORGANIZATIONS

There was no difference between Internet users and nonusers in rate of mem-
bership in religious organizations either in 1995 (about 63%) or 2000 (about
56%). However, in 2000, users who spent more hours online per week were
slightly more likely to belong to more religious organizations (r = .07, p < .01).
Current users were significantly more likely to belong to any leisure organiza-
tions than were nonusers in 1995 (60.1% compared to 49.4%), but not differ-
ently in 2000 (93.4% for both). Users were significantly more likely to belong to
at least one community organization than nonusers in 1995 (40.8% vs. 37.1%)
and 2000 (28% vs. 15.4%). In 2000, for users, spending more hours online was
not significantly correlated with membership in more leisure or community
organizations.

POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT

We identified four dimensions of offline political activity that were all greater
for Internet users than for nonusers: (a) political activities such as attending ral-
lies, making phone calls on behalf of candidates, and giving money to political
causes; (b) reading and the importance of magazines and newspapers; (c) the
importance of national and local television shows and interviews in the 1996
campaign; and (d) voting in the 1996 election. There was no difference in
real-world political activity (including voting) between heavy and light users
and long-term and short-term users (Katz, Aspden, & Reich, 1997).
There seem to be two kinds of online political activity. Browsing was a com-
posite of reading bulletin boards/discussion groups, visiting Web sites with
political information, following part of the election but reading online news, fol-
lowing election day coverage by computer, and viewing information via the
computer after the election. In our sample of Internet users, 46% participated in
at least one of these. Interaction consisted of four activities: participating in elec-
tronic discussions with people about the election, receiving e-mails about the
campaign/election, sending/receiving e-mails to/from government officials,
and sending e-mails to others regarding the campaign/election. In this 1996
 Katz et al. / THE INTERNET, 1995-2000 413

sample, 28% of the Internet users participated in at least one of the four
activities.

COMMUNICATION BY LETTER AND TELEPHONE

Respondents were asked how often in the week prior to the interview they
communicated with other people by letter or by phone. In 1995, usage of both
increased from nonusers who had not heard of the Internet (37% reported send-
ing at least one letter and 41% reported making 11 or more phone calls) up
through current users (letters, 56%; phone calls, 72%). For letter contact, there
was no difference between users and nonusers after controlling for significant
influences of gender and education. For phone contact, Internet usage was still
associated with increased phone contact after controlling for significant influ-
ences of education and age. In 2000, two thirds of Internet users had written no
letters in the prior week, whereas 60.4% had made more than 10 phone calls.

RESULTS: SOCIAL INTERACTION,

NEW FORMS OF EXPRESSION

SOCIAL INTERACTION

We first explored the extent that respondents met with friends. In the week
prior to the 1995 survey, 38% of longtime users met one to three times with
friends and 54% met four or more times. Of recent users, 40% met one to three
times with friends and 48% met four or more times. Former users met with
friends a broadly similar amount of time—48% met one to three times with
friends and 44% met four or more times. Of nonusers who had heard of the
Internet, 48% met one to three times with friends and 40% met four or more
times. However, nonusers who had not heard of the Internet reported meeting
with friends less often—43% reported meeting one to three times with friends
and 39% met four or more times in the week prior to the survey. In other words,
those who had been using the Internet the longest also were the most likely to
have met with four or more friends, whereas those who were not even aware of
the Internet were least likely to have met with four or more friends in the prior
week. Clearly, long-term Internet usage is associated with more, not less, fre-
quent sociability. These differences between nonusers and users in getting
together with friends remained after controlling for employment status
(full-time, part-time, retired, and unemployed).
We asked respondents the extent to which they agreed with the question, “In
your social life are you frequently away from home?” The aggregate responses
to this question were similar to the above analysis, but the differences were more
marked with users (current and former) more strongly agreeing to the statement
than nonusers. Fifty-nine percent of longtime users, 56% of recent users, and
414 AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST

57% of former users agreed or strongly agreed with the statement. By contrast,
only 37% of nonusers who had heard of the Internet and 34% of nonusers who
had not heard of the Internet agreed or strongly agreed with the statement. Dif-
ferences in being frequently away from home remained for nonusers versus
users after controlling for significant influences of educational achievement and
marital status.
Finally, we asked participants in the survey how many of the 10 people living
closest to their home they knew. Of nonusers who have not heard of the Internet,
37% reported knowing the 10 closest people and 31% knowing 4 to 9 of the 10
closest people. Similarly, of nonusers who had heard of the Internet, 33%
reported knowing the 10 closest people and 36% knowing 4 to 9 of the 10 closest
people. Former users reported knowing slightly fewer neighbors—28%
reported knowing the 10 closest people and 42% knowing 4 to 9 of the 10 closest
people, followed by longtime users—28% reported knowing the 10 closest peo-
ple and 37% knowing 4 to 9 of the 10 closest people. Recent users reported
knowing the fewest neighbors—21% reported knowing the 10 closest people
and 43% knowing 4 to 9 of the 10 closest people. So there is evidence that long-
term and recent Internet users are more likely to meet with friends in the past
week but also more likely to be away from home and to know fewer neighbors.
This implies that users’ social communities are more physically dispersed than
nonusers’. However, there was no significant difference between categories of
users and nonusers in this knowledge of the 10 closest neighbors after control-
ling for significant influences of employment status and age, implying that the
use of the Internet per se is not associated with different levels of awareness of
one’s neighbors.
In the 1995 survey, 42% of users reported contacting family members
through the Internet at least once or twice. Longtime users reported contacting
family members more often than did recent adopters. In the 2000 survey, 21.8%
of the users reported contacting family members online at least several times a
year.
Other possible indicators of home and social activity include having chil-
dren, work situation (full-time, part-time, retired, unemployed, or student),
owning one’s home, and number of years living in the same home. In 1995, users
were significantly more likely than nonusers to work full-time (69.5% vs. 54%
for nonusers) or be a student (13.5% vs. 5.9%), and have lived for fewer years in
their current house (6.4 years vs. 10.5 years). The same differences existed in
1996, except that users were also more likely to own their home. In 2000, users
were significantly more likely to have children, work full-time (62.7% vs.
44.2%) or be a student (8.8% vs. 2.1%), and have lived for fewer years in their
current house.
Finally, respondents’ sense of overload (rushed, too much to do) was sig-
nificantly higher for users than nonusers in 1995 but not in 2000, and
reported satisfaction (overall and with communication with friends, family, and
 Katz et al. / THE INTERNET, 1995-2000 415

work colleagues) was significantly greater for users than nonusers in 2000 but
not in 1995.

NEW FORMS OF EXPRESSION

In the 1995 survey, 25.5% of users reported being a member of an Internet

community. Thirty-one percent of longtime users and 17% of recent adopters
reported participating in Internet communities; 23% of users overall partici-
pated in three or four communities, and 27% participated in five or more com-
munities. For the vast majority of longtime and recent users, use of the Internet
does not appear to have much impact on the time spent with friends and family.
The two groups’ views were not statistically different. Eighty-eight percent of
users reported that the time spent with friends and family face-to-face or by
phone had not changed since they started using the Internet. The same propor-
tion of users (6%) reported that they spent more time with friends and family
face-to-face or by phone as reported they spent less time. In 2000, 10.4% reported
being a member of at least one online community.
In 1995, 11.5% (and in 2000, 13.8%) of users who responded to the question
had established friendships via the Internet. Those reporting a higher number of
Internet friends in 1995 were more likely to have met at least one of them. In
1995, 17% of users who responded to the question reported that they had met
face-to-face at least one person they had first met online (not necessarily one of
those online friends), and in 2000, 10.1% of users did so. There were only weak
or in most cases nonexistent statistical relationships of this Internet-based
friendship formation with demographic variables, traditional forms of interac-
tion, or personality attributes.

SUMMARY

This article summarizes some of the major results from one of the earliest and
most comprehensive survey approaches to

• understand the societal and individual consequences of the Internet,

• consider issues of awareness and dropouts, and
• study the Internet in a way that compares users to nonusers and that also controls
statistically for their demographic differences.

Concerning access on all considered dimensions—gender, age, household

income, education, and race—the digital divide is shrinking. Nevertheless, all
the differences within the demographic variables, based on the years of the sur-
vey, were still significant. Furthermore, for some dimensions there is still a long
way to go before the digital divide disappears. Public policy initiatives aimed at
extending Internet usage could most usefully focus on low-income families, the
416 AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST

elderly, and African Americans. The inequities of awareness and use will
become increasingly urgent as more job-related services (postings of job oppor-
tunities, training), government functions, and public service information
(health, education, insurance, and financial support) become available via the
Internet (Rice, 2001). However, the importance of awareness must not be over-
looked. Because one must be aware of the Internet to use it, the value of showing
utility and ease of use may be a good path to speed amelioration of the steadily
diminishing digital divide.
Concerning community and political involvement, the results show that
Internet users were more likely than nonusers to engage in traditional political
activity in the 1996 general election, including voting, controlling for demo-
graphic differences, and the Internet provided a platform for a significant
amount of additional forms of political activity. Users tend to communicate with
others through other media (especially telephone) more than do nonusers, meet
more with their friends, and interact more with others in general, although in a
more widely dispersed physical environment. Users relative to nonusers were
more likely to work, have children, and own their home, but had lived in their
homes for fewer years. Users experienced greater overload (in 1995) but also
greater satisfaction with their communication (in 2000).
Finally, concerning new forms of social interaction, somewhat more than 1 in
10 users have become friends with others online, have met a notable percentage
of them, and belong to online communities.
Our conclusions do not in the main support arguments about pervasive nega-
tive or paradoxical effects of the Internet, certainly with respect to involvement
or expression, and to some aspects of access that have generally been based on
case studies and samples that were neither random nor representative. Rather,
the findings support perspectives maintaining that this new social technology
has substantial benefits to society. Let us be clear, however: Our survey results
do not conclude that there are no negative aspects or consequences of the
Internet. However, the nature of survey research precludes studying particular
kinds of negative consequences or detailed aspects of especially damaging,
pathological, criminal, or chronic uses. Nonetheless, we find that Internet usage
(a) is becoming more equally accessible and widely used and, controlling statis-
tically for demographic differences, is associated with (b) increased community
and political involvement and (c) significant and increased online and offline
social interactions.

NOTE

1. The groundwork for what has become the Syntopia Project began in 1994 with a team headed
by James Katz and Philip Aspden; Ron Rice joined it in 2000. The initial spur to action was our con-
cern that the surveys of the Internet we had seen, although having much to offer, typically suffered
one or more shortcomings. First, they tended to look only at those who were online. Yet, to be able to
 Katz et al. / THE INTERNET, 1995-2000 417

make much meaning about the Internet’s role in societal change from whatever data these surveys
turned up, one had to have a comparative baseline of nonusers, or at least of the general population.
Statistical controls were needed to account for preexisting variation among the characteristics of
users versus nonusers (e.g., differential genders, incomes, and ages). Without that, one would not
know whether surfers were, for instance, more or less politically conservative or more or less likely
to be married. Second, these studies were often by no stretch of the imagination random samples, or
even representative ones. Hence, it would be hard to know, for instance, if a sample drawn from sub-
scribers to a PC magazine, or a “snowball/grocery store bulletin board–recruited volunteers” sample
of people in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, represented anyone other than themselves or whether they
might be peculiar in some way. Obviously, no matter how tantalizing the findings drawn from such
groups might be, it would be hard to generalize from them. Third, even though the social, interper-
sonal, and community aspects of behavior were of central interest to those carrying out ethnographic
observation and case studies (some of which did include e-mail surveys of a particular online group),
these concerns were being ignored by those doing larger scale survey work. Our aim was to address
these shortcomings in a series of national random telephone surveys that would constitute a
multiyear program charting social aspects of Americans’ behavior online and offline.
In seeking a name that would capture our view of the matter, we wanted a term that would tran-
scend the desiccated notion of cyberspace as a place or virtual society as a process because we saw
that the “out there” was really more “in here.” That is, these processes should be seen as part of an
experiential continuum, ranging from interior psychological states through face-to-face interaction
and social organization, and that would include a variety of other forms of communication. In partic-
ular, we saw that the Internet was and would continue to be part of a fabric of activity that included
PDAs and especially mobile phones. At the same time, we wanted to avoid the wrung-out emptiness
of bowling alone. The idea of “e-anything” was quickly passed over. Although it is easy to say what
we wished to reject, it was harder to find a word or phrase that captured what we did mean. In our
view, the Internet is now (and increasingly becoming) a place where people get together. It is part of a
continuum of existence that ties life together in new ways. Yet even as it erases some older forms of
social interaction, it strengthens and reinforces others. We would also argue that these systems are in
their social action and ramifications not altogether different from those of earlier technologies that
precipitated communication revolutions, such as the car or the telephone.
The word we selected, Syntopia, is a neologism (although others have used it as well) drawn
from the words syn and utopia. Derived from ancient Greek, it means literally “together place,”
which is how we see the Internet and related mobile communication. The term Syntopia invokes uto-
pian and dysutopian visions of what the Internet does and could mean. At the same time it brings
these two visions together symbolically and, perhaps not so subtly, also alludes to the Internet’s dark
side in the homophone sin. Other nominal connections are synergy, synthetic, and synthesis, all of
which are appropriately evocative and also fit with our project results to date. The Internet is a place
for people to interact, express themselves, emote, and find new friends. It is also a place in which
people seek to hurt, cheat, and exploit others. The Syntopia Project aims to identify what these activ-
ities mean for issues ranging from political involvement and health care to friendship formation and
family communication patterns. (See Katz & Rice [in press] for a full treatment of Syntopia.)

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