In times of physical distancing, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic, people are likely to turn to digital communication to replace in-person interactions. Yet, persisting digital inequality suggests that not everyone will be equally able or disposed to increasing digital communication during a public health crisis. Using survey data from a national sample of U.S. participants (N = 2,925) that we collected during the early months of the pandemic, we analyzed how sociodemographics, living arrangements, and Internet experiences and skills relate to increases and decreases in various digital communication methods. We find that people privileged in their socioeconomic status, their Internet skills and online experiences are more likely to increase and less likely to decrease digital communication during the pandemic. The findings illustrate how digital inequalities can put already disadvantaged groups at greater risk of diminished social contact during a public health crisis. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings for digital inequality research, the practical implications for inclusive crisis responses, and directions for future research.
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on social media
Social media became an important platform for interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic, coinciding with the onset of social distancing. According to a study conducted by Facebook's analytics department, messaging rates rose by over 50% during this period. Individuals confined to their homes utilized social media not only to maintain social connections but also as a source of entertainment to alleviate boredom. Concerns arose regarding the overreliance on social media for primary social interactions, particularly given the constraints imposed by the pandemic.
Social Media and Change in Psychological Distress Over Time: The Role of Social Causation
Abstract This article tests the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICT), such as the Internet, cell phones, and social media, and change over time in psychological distress (PD) and risk of serious psychological distress (SPD) associated with depression and anxiety disorders. Using a longitudinal panel design, survey data from a representative sample of American adults, findings revealed that home Internet and social network site (SNS) use are associated with decreased PD over time. Having extended family who are also Internet users further decreases PD. PD increased or decreased in relation to change in the PD of extended family who also use SNSs. For most people, ICT substantively reduce PD; in rare cases, an extreme spike in PD of extended family also on SNSs, there was a trivial increase to the risk of SPD. PD did not change when extended family not on social media experienced a change in their PD.
Homebound: The Long-Term Rise in Time Spent at Home Among U.S. Adults
The changes in daily life induced by the COVID-19 pandemic brought renewed attention to longstanding concerns about social isolation in the United States. Despite the links between the physical setting for individuals' daily lives and their connections with family, friends, and the various institutions of collective life, trends in where American adults spend their time have been largely overlooked as researchers have focused on how and with whom they spend their time. This article analyzes data from the American Time Use Survey over a timeframe spanning nineteen years and argues that the changes in Americans' daily routines induced by the COVID era should be seen as an acceleration of a longer-term trend: the rise of time spent at home. Results show that from 2003 to 2022, average time spent at home among American adults has risen by one hour and 39 minutes in a typical day. Time at home has risen for every subset of the population and for virtually all activities. Preliminary analysis indicates that time at home is associated with lower levels of happiness and less meaning, suggesting the need for enhanced empirical attention to this major shift in the setting of American life.
Homebound: The Long-Term Rise in Time Spent at Home Among U.S. Adults
The changes in daily life induced by the COVID-19 pandemic brought renewed attention to longstanding concerns about social isolation in the United States. Despite the links between the physical setting for individuals' daily lives and their connections with family, friends, and the various institutions of collective life, trends in where American adults spend their time have been largely overlooked as researchers have focused on how and with whom they spend their time. This article analyzes data from the American Time Use Survey over a timeframe spanning nineteen years and argues that the changes in Americans' daily routines induced by the COVID era should be seen as an acceleration of a longer-term trend: the rise of time spent at home. Results show that from 2003 to 2022, average time spent at home among American adults has risen by one hour and 39 minutes in a typical day. Time at home has risen for every subset of the population and for virtually all activities. Preliminary analysis indicates that time at home is associated with lower levels of happiness and less meaning, suggesting the need for enhanced empirical attention to this major shift in the setting of American life.
Measuring The Health of Our Public Conversations - Cortico
By Deb Roy, Eugene Yi, Russell Stevens Published: March 1, 2018 The Internet and social media have transformed modern society in many positive ways by connecting us to the world’s information, enabling social connections that transcend space and time, and giving everyone a voice. Within this transformation, social media have become an essential part of
The association between adolescent well-being and digital technology use
The widespread use of digital technologies by young people has spurred speculation that their regular use negatively impacts psychological well-being. Current empirical evidence supporting this idea is largely based on secondary analyses of large-scale social datasets. Though these datasets provide a valuable resource for highly powered investigations, their many variables and observations are often explored with an analytical flexibility that marks small effects as statistically significant, thereby leading to potential false positives and conflicting results. Here we address these methodological challenges by applying specification curve analysis (SCA) across three large-scale social datasets (total n = 355,358) to rigorously examine correlational evidence for the effects of digital technology on adolescents. The association we find between digital technology use and adolescent well-being is negative but small, explaining at most 0.4% of the variation in well-being. Taking the broader context of the data into account suggests that these effects are too small to warrant policy change.
No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior
Electronic media present us with a collage of experiences from everyplace. We eat dinner at home while watching starving children thousands of miles away reach out to us for food. From our easy chairs, we stare at blindfolded hostages, and coolly
The Internet's Meaning Crisis
Parasocial media is a response to excessive irrelevance
the chronically online will become a new underclass
The Slow Death of Online Safety
Women Worry, Men Adopt: How Gendered Perceptions Shape the Use of Generative AI
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is diffusing rapidly, yet its adoption is strikingly unequal. Using nationally representative UK survey data from 2023 to 2024, we show that women adopt GenAI substantially less often than men because they perceive its societal risks differently. We construct a composite index capturing concerns about mental health, privacy, climate impact, and labor market disruption. This index explains between 9 and 18 percent of the variation in GenAI adoption and ranks among the strongest predictors for women across all age groups, surpassing digital literacy and education for young women. Intersectional analyses show that the largest disparities arise among younger, digitally fluent individuals with high societal risk concerns, where gender gaps in personal use exceed 45 percentage points. Using a synthetic twin panel design, we show that increased optimism about AI's societal impact raises GenAI use among young women from 13 percent to 33 percent, substantially narrowing the gender divide. These findings indicate that gendered perceptions of AI's social and ethical consequences, rather than access or capability, are the primary drivers of unequal GenAI adoption, with implications for productivity, skill formation, and economic inequality in an AI enabled economy.
The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power, and Cyberspace
Interpreting the myths of the digital age: why we believed in the power of cyberspace to open up a new world.The digital era promises, as did many other te
The Impact of Internet and Social Media Use on Well-Being: A Longitudinal Analysis of Adolescents Across Nine Years
Abstract The present research examines the longitudinal average impact of frequency of use of Internet and social networking sites (SNS) on subjective well-being of adolescents in Germany. Based on five-wave panel data that cover a period of nine years, we disentangle between-person and within-person effects of media use on depressive symptomatology and life satisfaction as indicators of subjective well-being. Additionally, we control for confounders such as TV use, self-esteem, and satisfaction with friends. We found that frequency of Internet use in general and use of SNS in particular is not substantially related subjective well-being. The explanatory power of general Internet use or SNS use to predict between-person differences or within-person change in subjective well-being is close to zero. TV use, a potentially confounding variable, is negatively related to satisfaction with life, but it does not affect depressive symptomatology. However, this effect is too small to be of practical relevance.
Stewardship of global collective behavior
Collective behavior provides a framework for understanding how the actions and properties of groups emerge from the way individuals generate and share information. In humans, information flows were initially shaped by natural selection yet are increasingly structured by emerging communication technologies. Our larger, more complex social networks now transfer high-fidelity information over vast distances at low cost. The digital age and the rise of social media have accelerated changes to our social systems, with poorly understood functional consequences. This gap in our knowledge represents a principal challenge to scientific progress, democracy, and actions to address global crises. We argue that the study of collective behavior must rise to a “crisis discipline” just as medicine, conservation, and climate science have, with a focus on providing actionable insight to policymakers and regulators for the stewardship of social systems.
Facts and Figures 2023 - The gender digital divide
The percentage of men and women using the Internet.
How Does Media Influence Social Norms? Experimental Evidence on the Role of Common Knowledge
How does media influence beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors? While many scholars have studied the effect of media on social and political outcomes, we know surprisingly little about the channels through which this effect operates. I argue that two mechanisms can account for its impact. Media provides new information that persuades individuals to accept it (individual channel), but also, media informs listeners about what others learn, thus facilitating coordination (social channel). Combining a field experiment with a plausibly natural experiment in Mexico, I disentangle these effects analyzing norms surrounding violence against women. I examine the effect of a radio program when it is transmitted privately versus when it is transmitted publicly. I find no evidence supporting the individual mechanism. The social channel, however, increased rejection of violence against women and increased support for gender equality, but unexpectedly increased pessimism about whether violence would decline in the future.
