The Internet and Social Participation: Contrasting Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Analyses

Abstract

The Internet opens new options for communication and may change the extent to which people use older communication media. Changes in the way people communicate are important, because communication is the mechanism people use to develop and maintain social relationships, so valuable for their physical and mental health. This paper uses data from a national panel survey conducted in 2000 and 2001 to examine the influence of Internet use on communication and on social involvement. In doing so, it contrasts the conclusions one can draw from cross-sectional and longitudinal data on these issues. Longitudinal analyses provide stronger evidence of the causal effects of using the Internet than do the cross-sectional ones. The longitudinal data show that heavy use of the Internet is associated with reductions in the likelihood of visiting family or friends on a randomly selected day. Cross-sectional analyses show high correlations between the frequency with which respondents communicate with specific family members by visits, phone calls and email, suggesting that communication in one medium stimulates the others. In contrast, longitudinal analyses suggest that the links between communication media are asymmetric: visits drive more email communication and phone calls drive more visits, but email drives neither phone calls nor visits.