Goodies to Go ™
April 3, 2000– Newsletter #74

Greetings, Weekend Silicon Warriors,

Did you hear…

In a report released by Strategis, an online analyst company,
Internet growth can be measured mainly in women. By the end of
last year, the male-to-female ratio of people on the Web became
equal. Furthermore, women make up 60% of those who report they
go on the Web every day. Keep that in mind, Web designers!

The pope’s visit to the Holy Land has received a great deal of
press coverage. In a speech he gave in Jerusalem, Pope John
Paul said that Palestinians have suffered long enough and should
have a “natural right to a homeland.” Now, that’s happened, at
least in cyberspace. On March 22nd, ICANN (that’s the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), granted Palestine
its own country code. Domains based in Palestine can now begin
using the suffix “ps” to designate their location.

Finally, Yahoo Magazine reports that the top five companies
mentioned at eComplaints.com, an online consumer complaint site,
were

5. Continental Airlines

4. Northwest Airlines

3. United Airlines

2. Delta Airlines

1. American Airlines

Anyone else see a pattern?

Now onto today’s topic…

The news is full of phrases like:

“The key finding is…” “Our research tells us…”
“The data suggests…”

The Web is still a baby, really. Reports about Web growth in
terms of women, countries, and other groups pepper the news
every day.

Because the Web is still growing at such an alarming rate, I
tend to discount a great many survey results that people send
off to me. For instance, a group will ask 50 Net users a
question and then claim that everyone on the Net feels the
same way, or someone will ask chat room users a couple of
questions and proclaim that that’s the opinion of the entire
Web. That’s just not enough respondents. Maybe the group
questioned was surveyed just because they were available,
and not because they represent the whole.

Besides, with such growth, a survey taken today may be totally
inaccurate in two months because an influx of people onto the
Net has fully changed the user landscape.

The basis for any good survey is the sample chosen to begin
the survey. Asking every single person is impossible, so the
sample a researcher grabs has to be representative of the
entire population.

Another factor in my acceptance or non-acceptance of survey
results is what’s known as “face-validity”. Does it sound
right? I make my living in cyberspace, so I have a general
feel for the landscape. You probably do too. When I receive
results that go completely against what I see, I take them
with a grain of salt until I see secondary supporting material.
For example, don’t tell me Windows 2000 is hated by all and
then allow me to find sales figures showing it’s one of the
fastest selling operating systems ever. That just doesn’t jibe.

I say all this only to give you a basis as to why I offer you
the results of some surveys and not others. Recently I was sent
the hypertext link for The Stanford Institute for the
Quantitative Study of Society (SIQSS). This group has just
finished a survey of, not only Net users, but of all of society
including the Web.

I thought that was pretty smart, because if all you surveyed
was Web-heads, you certainly couldn’t apply the results to the
entire population, although I’ve seen that done many times.

By the way, you can see all of these results, with graphs, at http://www.stanford.edu/group/siqss/ .

The survey included 4,113 adults in 2,689 households. Please
understand that those surveyed were all Americans. The results
cannot be applied to people living in other countries. You may
see similarities, but until the survey is reproduced in your
country, any comparisons you make are pure speculation.

Norman Nie, Stanford Professor and Director of SIQSS,
proclaimed the survey’s key finding to be “the more hours
people use the Internet, the less time they spend in contact
with real human beings.”

Uh oh.

Wait. Before you form an opinion, here are a few more specific
findings:

1. People spend more time with the Internet the longer they
have had access.

2. Internet users who are employed (this is a break-out group?)
claim to spend more time working from home without lessening
their work time at the office.

3. Five hours of use per week appears to be the point at which
a person begins to have some level of “social isolation”. The
more hours of use past five, the more social isolation.

4. Sixty percent of Internet users say that their Internet use
has cut into their television viewing and newspaper reading time.

5. The least educated and oldest Americans tend to access the
Internet the least, but when they do, their habits are relatively
equal to others with Internet access.

6. Email is the most used arm of the Internet.

7. Chat rooms did not fair well in the survey.

There is more, but these were the seven findings that were
trumpeted the loudest. Now the fun begins. You may get a
feeling that these results bode poorly for the Internet society.

Why would you think that? Is it because of terms like “social
isolation”? That’s the one that jumped out and grabbed me right
off, but let’s stop and look at these results in another light.

Without endorsing or condemning this viewpoint, let me suggest
a positive take. Let’s take one of the respondents. For the sake
of argument, she’s a woman, 30 years old, and uses the Internet
15 hours a week.

She is socially isolated. She doesn’t watch a lot of TV, she
doesn’t read newspapers, and she does work out of her house
without lessening the amount of work she does in the office.

By the standards of this survey, one might think this person
is miserable…or is she?

Let’s take the thought process one step further. What if there
was no Internet? What if this person didn’t have access to
other human beings through a mediated pattern of communication,
what then? Are we to believe that this woman would be the life
of the party? She would have developed social skills and would
work less and watch TV more?
Is that better?

I suggest there is a reason that people cocoon themselves into
the Internet. It is their method of communicating. This woman
might very well be so painfully shy that without the Internet
she wouldn’t have ANY social interaction. The Internet is
allowing her to stay comfortable and still talk with other
people. It is my belief that the Internet is a form of
communication. Maybe you have to have that belief to buy
this argument.

I know that when I described the results of the survey, some
of you pictured the man sitting for hours, surfing dirty
pictures at the expense of his wife and 2.5 kids. I don’t
doubt that guy is out there, but I would suggest he is in
the minority.

The results of this survey are quantitative, numbers, but
what about the qualitative? Sure, I spend 15 hours a week
at the computer. If you didn’t know me, you might think
badly of me because of that. But let me fill in the blanks
for you. I spend that time because I am paid to.

There are times that I never want to see a computer again,
but I keep coming back. Obviously, it’s because I’m
socially repressed, right? Nope. It’s because I don’t
get a check if I stop.

So, what is the idea of the “normal person”? Less than five
hours a week on the Internet, TV watcher, and life of the
party? I don’t think so.

We’re all different. Again, I refuse to say whether I buy
this argument or not. I just wanted to put a different
spin on these results into your head. Now what do you
think about that 30-year-old woman sitting in front of
her computer?

What if she’s happy? What if sitting in front of that box
makes her feel complete? What if that box gives her the
social interaction she could never get face-to-face?

A survey conducted by iVillage.com suggests that one of
the main reasons women surf the Iinternet is to “find
friends”. Hmmm…

How do you feel about the results of the SIQSS survey now?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That’s that. I expect this will garnish a good deal of
email. Thanks for reading.

Joe Burns, Ph.D.

And Remember: Did you see the last million-dollar question
on “Who wants to be a millionaire?” It was “What insect
crashed a mainframe computer giving rise to the term
‘computer bug’?” (or words to that effect). The answer
– a moth.