Internet Steals Time From TV, Makes You More Social

from the the-facts-are-in dept

It's been almost 10 years since the infamous Carnegie Mellon "Rimm Report" and its quickly discredited claims that the internet was pretty much all porn, and was mostly being used for nefarious purposes. A few years after that, came the infamous (and again, quickly discredited) Carnegie Mellon report claiming that the internet made people depressed. That study had a bit of a sampling error, focusing only on people in Pittsburgh, as well as a very questionable methodology and everyone's favorite mistake of confusing correlation and causation. However, it's a new decade/century/millennium and it looks like the depressing, evil internet studies are out of fashion. Now come the cheery, happy internet studies. The latest is a report saying that the internet helps people build better relationships. It claims that internet usage doesn't seem to take time away from social activities. In fact, the only thing it does take away from is television (sorry, TV execs). As the article explains, people are "buying" their internet usage time from television. Other findings (none of which should be at all surprising): the internet is no longer considered just for geeks and nerds, broadband connections change what people use the internet for, people are buying more often online and people are trusting information they find online less (in other words, they've finally discovered skepticism).