Effects of communication technology on local communities

History

The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was established to devise a long-term solution to the seemingly intractable problem of extending electricity to rural Americans during the New Deal. As electricity becomes more common in rural areas, so does automobiles and telephones. However, because of high cost of electricity, cars and phones were far more common on farms than electricity; thirty-three percent of farms had a car and forty percent had a telephone, but less than ten percent had electric power by the end of the 1920s.

New technologies for communication purposes that are affecting local communities are phones, cell phones, and computers.

Computers have been around for about 60 years. The first computer was invented in the late 1940s.

Community Use

Common examples of communication technologies for communication purposes are telephones, cell phones, and computers.

The telephone brought people closer together in the sense that distance did not inhibit a phone call, but it also had an unanticipated effect, according to some early studies that people spent less time actually in each other's presence. Starting in the 1890s people began to replace visiting with telephone calls, which were briefer and less personal. It is tempting to use such evidence to decide that human beings are becoming progressively alienated from one another, and that machines have interposed themselves between them. Rather than conclude that networked communication substitutes for personal contact, one can just as easily argue that they amplify and preserve already established relationships. One can conclude the telephone was used to alleviate loss of contact caused by increasing demands on people's time to those in the community.

Millions of people go online daily. Rather than isolating users in a virtual world, the Internet extends communities in the real world. The Internet is used to connect people in individualized and flexible social networks rather than in fixed and grounded groups. Some dedicate most of their lives to the online community. The Internet supplants activities, like watching television, rather than other forms of social life.

In addition to communication, the Internet has become an important source of information. Tourist use the internet to find directions for popular hot spots, students use the internet as an educational tool for schoolwork, and shoppers use the internet to stay connected to distanced friends and relatives by e-mail, chat or Instant Messaging (IM). By using the Internet it both expands communities and changes it in subtle ways.

Between 1997 and 2001, the number of Americans using computers increased from 137 million to 174 million, 27 percent, while the online population rose by 152 percent. Three-quarters of Americans over the age of two had accessed the Internet. Instant messaging has spread. A decade ago, the Internet was mainly North American, and largely the domain of young, educated, urban, white men. It has since become widely used. More than one-third of all American adults are now using Instant Messaging. As more people go online, the digital divide recedes. Yet even as the overall percentage of people online rises, differences in usage rates persist: between affluent and poor, young and old, men and women, more and less educated, urban and rural and English and non-English readers. In the United States, 79 percent of relatively affluent people with a family income of $75,000 or more were Internet users in September 2001. Just 25 percent of poor people with a family income of less than $15,000 were online. There is still a median between poor people with overall technology access then the wealthy. The poor cannot afford the technological tools that are invented in an increasing fashion leaving them behind.

Family and Community Connections

It was found that Internet medium does not replace the telephone medium, which is used as the primary source of communities. Internet users still use the telephone to keep in contact with those close to them. In fact, research has showed that most of the people who use Instant Messaging are found to be those whom you have a face-to-face relationship with. The Internet can connect communities through free websites like Welcome to the town, and Icqpeople.

There is debate as to whether the Internet isolates users or connects them to more social networks. Some believe that Internet use at home has a strong negative impact on time spent with friends and family as well as time spent on social activities, but Internet use at work has no such effect. Similarly, Internet use during weekend days is more strongly related to decreased time spent with friends and family and on social activities than Internet use during weekdays. Time online is largely an asocial activity that competes with, rather than complements, face to-face social time. However, it is the location and timing of Internet use that determines how interpersonal relationships are affected.

Advantage

The Internet connects communities through many online websites. It connects neighbours who would not communicate face to face, but would online via email or Instant Messaging because of chat groups that connect you to those in your geographic locations.

Conclusion

Although Internet use is on the rise telephone usage will always be the primary access to reach those in your community. The strength of communities does not diminish because of Internet use, cell phones, or telephone use. There is no correlation among the sources. There is no solid evidence to conclude that Internet use is breaking community bonds because individuals still socialize outside of Internet use.

Web Resources

Nie, N. H. (2002). The Impact of Internet Use on Sociability: Time-Diary Findings. IT&SOCIETY, Volume 1, Issue 1, 1-20. Retrieved December 5, 2005 from Cambridge Scientific Abstract.

Social Interactions Across Media: Interpersonal Communication on the Internet, Telephone and Face-to-Face. New Media & Society, Volume 6(3), 299-318. Retrieved December 3, 2005 from Cambridge Scientific Abstract.

The ground beneath our feet-electrification. Retrieved December 5, 2005

Selling the Cell Phone. History of Cellular Phones. Retrieved December 3, 2005

Online Neighbourhood Networks Study, 2010

References