9/12/2021 The Social Net: Science News Online, May 4, 2002

Table of Contents Feedback Subscribe Help/About Archives Subscribe

Science News Online

Subscribe to Science News.

Copyright Clearance
Center
New Searchable

Archive Print Copyright Clearance Center

this
article Photo Archive

Week of May 4, 2002; Vol. 161, No. 18 Browse a Science News photo

Link to Special Topic Email collection.
Section this
article Audible Science News

to a Subscribe to Science News in

friend spoken-word format.

The Social Net Science News

Books
Scientists hope to download some insight into online
Online Features interactions

Math Trek Bruce Bower
Prime Spirals

Ten years ago, computer aficionados had the Internet pretty much to

Visit our online bookstore.

Food for Thought themselves. Today, their electronic playground has become a grand,
When Herbs Bite
weird, unpredictable social experiment. About half of U.S. households now Pangaea Mug

Back have Internet access, although only 5 percent were connected in 1995. Buy a Science News Pangaea
Europe and many other parts of the world also contain mushrooming Mug.

Science Safari numbers of Net users.
Fluid Beauty

There's a complementary growth industry in studies of how this

TimeLine wildly successful technology affects social life. Behavioral MacAdam

in
70 Years Ago scientists are grappling with a seismic shift in communication
Science News that's been more hospitable to armchair speculation than to empirical
investigation.

Confusion about the social implications of new technology is hardly new. It

existed in post-Civil War America, when booting up occurred mainly
among cowboys. After inventing the telephone in 1876, Alexander
Graham Bell described it as a broadcasting instrument that would perhaps
provide "music on tap." Early telecom executives regarded the telephone
mainly as a business tool. Nearly 50 years after the phone's invention,
telephone companies finally realized that people wanted to use the
product for talking with friends and family.

The Internet is poised to transform society far more profoundly than

telephones, or even cell phones, have.

Two contrasting schools of cyberthought offer explanations for what's

happening. Optimists regard the World Wide Web and e-mail as realms
for making and keeping friends, joining global communities, and
exchanging ideas freely outside the bounds of oppressive government
restrictions. Pessimists argue that online endeavors pull people away from
real-world interactions, make them less concerned about their
communities, and provide a forum for hate groups. They also charge that
the Internet creates unprecedented opportunities for governments to
monitor citizens' private lives.

Both views simplify an unsettled situation. Much of the Internet's allure lies
in its flexibility. People adapt it to their own purposes, whether for good or
ill. For instance, in the 48 hours after the terrorist attacks of last Sept. 11,
more than 4 million people contacted family and friends by e-mail to check
on their safety and used e-mail and the Internet to find out what had
happened. Yet government investigations indicate that the Al Qaeda terror
network used hard-to-trace e-mail missives to organize the attacks and
has since expanded its Internet presence.

www.users.miamioh.edu/shermalw/TheSocialNetScienceNews.htm 1/7