Examining the Impact of Internet Use on TV Viewing: Details Make a Difference.

Abstract

What consequences does the widespread adoption of the Internet have, both for how Americans spend their time and on their overall psychological well-being? The Internet is used for a wide variety of purposes: communicating with friends and family, meeting new people, acquiring information about news, health, and other topics, entertainment, and commerce. Most research that examines the Internet's impact on social life has ignored this diversity of use, treating aggregate Internet usage as the independent variable by comparing users versus non-users, heavy versus light users, or early versus late adopters. Most research has also used cross-sectional data, thereby confounding the characteristics of Internet users with the consequences of using the Internet. This paper reports data from a national longitudinal survey, disaggregating Internet use into discrete types of use, and employing longitudinal analyses to test causal relationships. Our results show that cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses lead to different conclusions and that the precise ways that we use the Internet matter. We illustrate these points by examining the effects of Internet use on respondents' TV viewing habits. Keywords Internet use, e-mail, communication, social relationships, closeness, social support, research methods. 197 Examining the Impact of Internet Use: Details Make a Difference