| Beginning with its penetration into popular culture in 1995, the Internet has grown extensively in its availability and geographic distribution. The ubiquity of Internet access has spawned a phenomenal increase in the number of users, and some estimates suggest the number of U.S. users exceeds 100 million. Disconcertingly, time spent using the Internet may reduce time spent for community and social activities (O'Toole, 2000); however, social integration is crucial for both physical and psychological health (Stroebe & Strobe, 1996). If America has experienced a general decline in community and civic engagement since the 1960's, as some have claimed (e.g., Putnam, 1996), and if Internet use is exacerbating this decline, then increased Internet use may have ominous social and psychological effects. However, the data concerning such effects are equivocal (e.g., Bargh & McKenna, 1998; Katz & Aspden, 1997; Kraut et al., 1998). It was hypothesized that the functions of Internet use (i.e., the primary purposes underlying its use) mediate its social and psychological effects. A scale entitled the Internet Attitudes Survey was created and used in this research to determine the specific reasons why people use the Internet. Two pilot studies revealed that patterns of specific uses tend to neatly and consistently cluster into one of two empirically robust functions: Goods-and-Information Acquisition (GIA) or Socio-Affective Regulation (SAR). A non-standard structural equation model involving number of personal Internet hours, number of professional Internet hours, GIA, SAR, social integration, and psychological well-being was tested on both a sample of Internet respondents and sample of introductory psychology students. After minor modifications, goodness-of-fit indices (e.g., the CFI, NFI, and NNFI) each exceeded .9, chi-square values were non-significant, entries in the normalized residual matrix were near zero, each path coefficient was significant, and R2 values for the hypothesized endogenous variables were appreciable. Combined, these findings indicate that the theoretical model adequately fits the data. In general, Internet use driven by SAR negatively influences psychological well-being by first reducing social integration. However, Internet use motivated principally by GIA appears to have a small but positive effect on psychological well-being by first increasing social integration. Although the Internet is regarded by many as a social tool serving to improve communication and help users feel more socially involved, the results of this study suggest that, depending upon the functions underlying its use, the Internet's social and psychological effects may be ominous for some people. |
