[Air-l] Statistics Canada - General Social Survey: The Internetandthe way we spend our time

[Caroline Haythornthwaite]

Reading 'The Daily' -- the statscan report -- rather than the media account, it 
seems to me there are a number of places where the write-up is causing 
confusion. 

Two things in particular stand out -- the use of "the day" appears to mean 
literally the one day asked about, not a general measure of daily activity. 
Respondents filled out a diary for on 24 hour period. However, to me the term 
'day' means daylight/9-5 hours, and hence the report is confusing (although if 
you look at the questionnaire it is quite clearly the 24 hour period).

The other thing is that the report implies causality, e.g., "Internet use takes 
away from the time that its heavy users devote to both family life and chores 
around the house" -- but there is no comparison of before and after, so the 
statement about 'taking away from' is unsubstantiated. (In my quick look at the 
questions, there seems to be only one question that asks about prior experience 
-- asking about whether people feel more rushed now than 5 years ago). 

It's a lesson on how to write clearly and not to go beyond the interpretations 
possible from the data collected. I think it is also worth looking at the results 
themselves to get the best view of the work.

/Caroline

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 10:08:32 -0500
>From: "Ledbetter, Andrew Michael" <aledbett at ku.edu>  
>Subject: Re: [Air-l] Statistics Canada - General Social Survey: The Internet 
andthe way we spend our time  
>To: <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
>
>I'm particularly concerned by the study's operationalization of heavy Internet 
users as "those who spent more than one hour on the Internet during the day" 
for personal reasons---though I appreciate the study's attempt to at least 
separate personal use from work/school use, I wonder if that is really possible 
for a group such as students, who tend to multitask online (even beyond 
students, how commonly do people write an e-mail or IM while also "studying" 
or "at work"? How was this accounted for in the study, if at all?).
> 
>And I'm even more troubled by the study's seeming assumption that Internet 
use cannot yield satisfying and meaningful relational interaction. Since results 
found that most heavy users spend their time using the Internet engaged in 
interpersonal and group communication, and talked on the phone more, and 
were less stressed... might one conclude that the study's heavy users are 
connected, media-savvy extraverts who lead richly satisfying and stress-
reducing social lives?
> 
>Andrew M. Ledbetter
>Ph.D. Candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant
>Department of Communication Studies
>University of Kansas 
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----------------------------------------
Caroline Haythornthwaite
Associate Professor
Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820