Social Capital: Technology's Impact on Society

From the start of the electronic revolution, people have worried about technology's impact on society. To put it in scholarly language, they have worried about "social capital" -- a term coined by Harvard University's Robert Putnam to describe the benefits people gain from their relationships and membership in social networks.

Putnam tracked a decline in America's social capital over the last half century. He measured a decreasing membership in national organizations and less personal time committed to social causes. Putnam blamed the erosion on TV. His research seemed to show that each hour spent watching TV reduced by one hour a person's involvement in groups and also made viewers more skeptical about the motives of others.

Then along came the Internet, which intensified worries about social capital. The Internet is about interaction, so it's far more compelling than TV and radio. Writers, researchers and pundits began reporting what they saw as an epidemic of isolation, addiction and mental illness arising from Web usage.

Licensing the Devil in Our Hearts

In 1998, a study of 18,000 Internet users who logged on to the ABC News Web site found that nearly 6 percent of them met the study's criteria for compulsive Internet use. Nearly one-third of respondents said they regularly used the Internet as a form of escapism or to alter their mood. According to the study's author, David Greenfield, founder of the Center for Internet Studies, the addicted were far more likely to admit feelings of losing control on the Internet than nonaddicts. "The Internet is unlike anything we've seen before," he wrote. "It's a socially connecting device that's socially isolating at the same time."

Stanford University's Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society published a study in 2000 reporting that the Internet was creating a broad new wave of social isolation. "The more hours people use the Internet, the less time they spend with real human beings," wrote Professor Norman Nie, who led the study. A repeat of the study in 2005 showed that each hour on the Internet reduced face-to-face time by more than 23 minutes. As Nie put it, "Time is hydraulic." Not only does time spent online reduce in-person interaction with family and friends, he reported, but it's also associated with lower mental health scores.

But that's not the worst of it. In 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a report called Cyberstalking: A New Challenge for Law Enforcement and Industry. It stated that the Web's low cost, ease-of-use and anonymity made it an attractive medium for fraud, child sexual exploitation and cyber-stalking.

The report told frightening stories, like that of a 50-year-old former security guard who used the Internet to solicit the rape of a woman who rejected his romantic advances. The defendant terrorized his 28-year-old victim by impersonating her in various Internet chat rooms, where he posted messages that she fantasized being raped, along with her telephone number and address. On at least six occasions, men knocked on the woman's door saying they wanted to rape her. The perpetrator was eventually discovered, charged under a new cyber-stalking law, and sent to prison.

Fear of sexual predators tops the list of concerns about bad actors on the Web. American parents have been bombarded by statistics from two studies conducted by the Crimes Against Children Research Center, which claims that "one in five youth have been sexually solicited online." Dark images of predators waiting to trap unwary children fill parenting magazines and Web sites.

Adapting to 'The New'

If this wave of research is taken at face value, the conclusion is clear: The Web is a destroyer of social capital. Power it up with broadband, and you have the makings of a virtual plague laying waste on a community.

But is that really so?