Date: Fri 30-Oct-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

iinfo-Brand-depression

Full Text:

INTERNET INFO FOR REAL PEOPLE: Net Depression?

By Bob Brand

"Sad, Lonely World Discovered in Cyberspace" woefully states the headline on

the front page of the Sunday New York Times of August 30, 1998. Amy Harmon's

lead paragraph reports researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found

people who use a computer to spend several hours online per week experience

higher levels of depression and loneliness than if they use the computer

network less frequently. Is it little wonder the editors at "The Gray Lady" of

the mainstream press neither challenged the conclusions nor criticized the

shoddy workmanship? Perhaps April Oliver has found new employment at the NYT .

How can they be so out of touch?

Using $1.5 million ponied by Intel, Hewlett Packard, the NSF, Apple Computer,

Bell Atlantic, the US Postal Service, and other high profile organizations,

Robert Kraut, a social psychology professor, Michael Patterson and four other

researchers at Carnegie Mellon examined 169 people in 73 Pittsburgh families

to come to some bizarre conclusions. It is called the Home Net Project.

Here is a quote from the report as published in the September 1998 issue of

American Psychologist and posted on the Internet: "In this sample, the

Internet was used extensively for communication. Nonetheless, greater use of

the Internet was associated with declines in participants' communication with

family members in the household, declines in the size of their social circle,

and increases in their depression and loneliness." Wow! This stuff does not

even pass the giggle test.

The 25-page draft reads like a version of a plagiarized freshman psychology

term paper. Here are a few of the details. From 256 individuals who filled out

a pre-test form, 169 filled out the pre- and post-test questionnaire. These

folks, who had never used a home computer before, were given Macs and two

family members were exposed to a morning's worth of training to cover

hardware, email and the web. (I am not making this up. This is the test

sample.)

The households were given a free HomeNet Internet access account. The report

details in pure academic statistical mumbo-jumbo how angels, hoofing on a

pinhead, remain enveloped by Stevie Nicks belting out "Don't Stop Thinking

About Tomorrow." Seriously, here is another profound finding found on page 16.

"Loneliness was stable over time. People from richer households increased

loneliness more than those from poorer households did, men increased

loneliness more than women did, and more minorities increased loneliness than

did whites." Heady stuff. This test must have been conducted in a well-heeled

minority suburb of Pittsburgh. It would not be quite so sad if our tax dollars

were not picking up a piece of the tab on this disaster.

Reaction To The Findings

After CNN, AP, the BBC and other media heavyweights repeated the headline

grabbing "findings," pundits across the net spectrum from Salon Magazine to

Cybergrrl and many in-between lambasted the "Home Net" study. Perhaps the most

knowledgeable (and respected) source on cyber-behavior, Vanderbilt

University's Donna Hoffman, provided the most cogent reasons to have the

report relegated to the nearest shredder. She raises the questions: where was

the control group and where is the data to show that this was a random

sampling of the population?

Can such a flawed piece of work find resonance in the community at large?

Perhaps. It may not be totally out of the question for government employees at

the Library of Congress or other federal institutions with daily Net exposure

to take drastic action. For example, they could demand that Prozac vials be

made available in glass cases alongside fire alarm boxes. The sign might read

"In case of severe depression, break glass."

Sadly, this is not the first time Carnegie Mellon University finds itself at

the eye of a cyber-storm. In 1995, Marty Rimm, a Carnegie Mellon graduate

student published a study that purported that the Internet was supersaturated

with pornography. While the premises were false and respected scholars quickly

discredited the report, the media hype resulted in the passage of the

Communications Decency Act.

Read It Yourself

From my prospective, the high profile nature of the New York Times' article

borders on reckless journalism. The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) for the

study was omitted. Go to the Web, read the unfiltered "Home Net" report

(http://www.apa.org/journals/amp/amp5391017.html) and send me comments if the

findings mirror your experiences on the Internet. Hopefully, you will not

become too depressed.

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://homenet.andrew.cmu.edu/progress/HN.impact.10.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/09/biztech/articles/14digicom.html

(This is the 126th of a series of elementary articles designed for surfing the

Internet. Next, Questions in Plain English is the subject on tap. Stay tuned.

Until next week, happy travels through cyberspace. Previous issues of Internet

Info for Real People (including links to sites mentioned in this article) can

be found: http://www.thebee.com. Please e-mail comments and suggestions to:

rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.)