8

Computers in U.S. HouseholdsSince 1977. 'r.i j ll rl i:llllil: i: lr.tl tlr'rt.tr'.tilil

Aee 5' ,sp/aull

By the concluding years of the twentieth century, the information age

was no stranger in the home or the office. By this time the Americanhousehold was extraordinarily well-equipped with information andcommunication technologies. By g95,99 percent of U.S. householdshad at least one radio; 98 percent had at least one television; 94 percenthad at least one telephone; 8r percent had at least one VCR; 63 percenthad cable service. In 1995, people over the age ofeighteen spenr about

3,4oo hours watching television and videos, listening to the radio andrecorded music, playing home video games, and reading newspapers,magazines, and books.t

The newest and potentially most powerful information technologyto enter the U.S. household is the personal microcomputer. In namingthe personal computer ttMachine of the Yeartt for r9Bz, Time rnagazineproclaimed, "The 'information revolution' that futurists have longpredicted has arrived, bringing with it the promise of dramatic changesin the way people live and work, perhaps even in the way they think"(see figure 8.r). America will never be the same." By tgg7, twentyyears after the introduction of the personal computer (PC) :Z percentof U.S. households owned one.

This chapter offers a sociological perspective on the spread, use, andeffects of computing technology in the U.S. home from rg77 to rgg7.2It extends the focus of the two previous chapters on the developmentof computer technology and its role in business. In comparison withliterature on other information technologies in the home, little hasbeen written about the use and effects of the household computer.'l'lris has occurrcd for at lcast two reasons. One is that the diffusion ofc()rlrl)ulcrs into thc horlc is still in progrcss; thcrcfore, documentingils slllt'rtrl rt'r;rrirt's lrrrtkirrg:r rrrorirrg lrll'll('t.'A sccon<l rerlson is thltt

Figure 8.1 Machine of the Year. Each year, Time magazine normalty setects one person

who made the greatest difference jn events of the prior year around the world. In1983. for the first time in its history, Iirne selected something other than a person-the personal computer. As the article accompanying the setection explained, thisinformation-handl"ing appl.iance had quickl"y and powerfutly effected a profound in-fluence on how Americans worked and pl"ayed. In 1982. more than a mi[[ion persona[

computers were so[d. Reprinted with permission from Time, Inc., @ 1983 Att Rights

Reserved.

the basic functionality of the home computer changed radically duringthis twenty-year period. Consequently the computer's uses and effects

also changed, and theories or explanations based on one set of uses

(such as efficient word processing or numerical calculation) are notespecially helpful in understanding another set of uses (such as onlinechatrooms.)

Home computers merge attributes of what were prcviously threedistinct realms of information technology found in the home: stand-alone tools like typewriters and calculators; printed media like mail,newspapers, and magazines that are delivered by physical transport;and signal media like telephone, radio, and television that are delivcrcdby beams, wires, or cables. Information in printed media could bc

archived in the home, manipulated to at least some cxtcnt, ancl slrrtrctl

or accessed asynchronously. Information in signal rncclirr wrls lnorcdifficult to archive ancl manipulrrtc in lltc ltotttc and, sith lhc cxr'c1r

tirln ol'prcrccorrlctl nrtrsic: rrrttl virlco. t'otrltl lrt'r'rpt'r'icntt'tl ottlr rrr

real time. Home computers connected to the Internet can access,

store, and manipulate information; they can also be used to participatein synchronous or asynchronous communication. Ultimately satisfy-ing explanations for the spread, use, and effects of household comput-ing must acknowledge how merging attributes of these previously sep-arate realms changes peoples' relationship to information and theirworld.

The "information revolution" claimedby Time in 1983 is still un-derway in ry97. The technology continues to evolve: machines becomcmore powerful; software becomes rnore complex. The industry struc-ture for providing hardware, software) communications, and contentis in a state of flux. The political and regulatory environrnent for suchissues as privacy, free speech, and intellectual property is at least as

uncertain. In the meantime, computers in the home have become thcnew focus for some enduring themes in the history of informationtechnology and media.

First, acquisition of information technology is associated with socialprivilege. The presence of a home computer is associated with markersof social privilege such as family income, education level, race, anrlgender. To the extent that the use of home computers confers advan*tage in knowledge, skills, or outlook, differential access to home conr*puters will reinforce distinctions based on social privilege.

Second, children are particularly susceptible to the potential consc-quences of information technology, both positive and negative. Publicofficials and at least some parents see great educational potential inhome (and school) computers. At the same time, they worry thrrt

children can easily be exposed to inappropriate content and peoplc lnclhehavior.

Third, information technology has affected family dynamics. In mirrrrcases, the networked household computer brought together finrilrmembers residing outside the household, just as the telephone hclpetlpeople stay in touch with local or distant relatives. And it also rcclucctlfamily interaction within some households as the television has ckrrrc.

Fourth, all inforrnation technologies change the boundaries bctrvcerr

the household and the larger world. This may become thc mosl inrportant and enduring effect of the computer on the househ<llcl. So.irrbility boundaries were changed by the telephone, which wrrs usctl torcinforcc pattcrns of facc-t<l-lircc communication and rctlucc rrrrirl iso

lalion. Whilc lhc tclcphonc cxtcn(lc(l thc bounclarics ol' litcc.to l,rtcrclrttionships, nclu'orketl ('onll)utcrs rrllow'cd pcoplc lo corrrrlrrrlricrrlt'rlillr ollrt'r's nltont llrct lrrrrl n('\('r ln('l rttrtl join Hr()ul)s ol llc'olrlt'llrrtlrrill rrt'r('t nl('('l l:rtc to l,rrt'

.,iS I \tlr,,tt I rttrtl,'ttrt,,l /,1 lnltntl,lttrnr L,rttl'ttl,tt ttt I \

This chapter explores each of these themes in turn, after describing

ow the home computer changed and diffused over the first twenty

ears ofthe PC era. (see table 8'r).

Three Eras of Household ComPuting

)uring the twenty-year period covered by this chapter, household

omputers increased and changed in functionality and were acquired

rr different reasons for different family members. In the first era ofrome computing (tg77_tg84), stand-alone machines were acquired for

ntertainment and self-improvement. In the second era (r984-1994),

Lousehold machines began to be connected to on-line databases and to

reople in distant areas. In the third era (tgg4-tg97), household ma-

,hines were connected to the Internet and the World Wide Web' The

:ra boundaries are approximations that characterize a difference in

:mphasis, rather than delineating discrete periods.

Stand-alone Machines

lhe personal computer first entered the U.s. household by way of the

;arage and the workbench in rg75 with the introduction of a machine

br electronics hobbyists. The January rg75 cover story of Popular

Ulectronics introduced the Altair $$6s-((1 full-blown computer that

:an hold its own against sophisticated minicomputers)" a machine that

:ould be put to uses such as ((an automated control for a ham fradio]

;tation, a digital clock with time zone conversion, an autopilot for

rlanes and boats, navigation computer, and a brain for a robot'"a The

{ltair came ,,complete" with a 256 bytes of memory (expandable for

ln additional cost), but no keyboard, monitor, or storage device; it cost

$:gs ir kit form or $4g5 ,,fully assembled." The Altair and its brethren

rhrilled electronics hobbyists and tinkerers, many of whom worked

with larger computers in their day iobs but craved a machine of their

Own.

One of those hobbyists, who had been a video arcade game designcr

for Atari, built a machine in rg77 that propelled the homc computcr

out of the garage and into the living quartcrs. 'I'hc hgbbyist w1s Stcvc

Wozniak; the machine was the Applc II.s Its cglor grrrphics, stttttrtl'

and control padclles rcferencccl thc viclco grttttc rtrcittlc tttorc tltrttt thc

elcctronics shop, but its slcck casc lookcrl rlrol('rll ltotttt itt tlre lrrrrrilr

roonl lhillt orr lhc rlorkbcnt'lr." llolrlrrisls rttttl gilltt('l's lrottIltl tttrtsl rtl

llrc t'rrllicsl .\1rplt.s, t'rrcltrrrrtt'tl ln tlrt'ir.ittlt't:tt lirilr :rtrtl (()llll()llrll)ilil\

Tabte 8.1 Tjmeline for Computers in the U.5. Household, 1'977-1997.

1975 Attair 8800 launched

7977 Appte II introduced; generates $2 mil'tion in revenue

24,000 home computers se[[ this year

7979 Apple enters education market

VisiCatc introduced

Usenet News introduced

1980 H&R Btock acquires and funds CompuServe

VisiCaLc is top-setting Program52,000 home computers se[[ this year

1981 Appte revenue is $335 mitl'ion

IBM introduces PC in August

7982 Time named computer "Machine of the Year'' for 1982, in January 3, 1983,

issue

1983 Mjcrosoft launches Word, a word processing program

IBM announces PC Jr. (in November)

2 mitlion home computers se[[ this year

90 percent of software sates are games

7984 IBM, Sears. and CBS found Prodigy

6.98 mittion househotds have computers

50 percent of software sales are games; 50 percent are self-improvement

(educationa[ software or home management)

1985 The'WELL founded

Q-Link. precursor of America 0n[ine, founded

Intuit founded

1989 13.68 mjttion households have computers

2 mitl"ion subscribers to on-[ine services

A0L nationw'ide service launched

1993 First Internet mail message sent by a U.S. president, 2 March 1993

22.6 mitlion households have computers

1 miLtion households subscribe to Prodigy; 1.2 mil.Hon househotds subscribe

to CompuServe

L50 Web sites (JutY)

7gg4 Estimated number of subscribers to on-tine services: 3.8 mil"l"ion

Estimated number of Usenet sites: 180,000

7995 Netscape goes public

Estimated number of subscribers to on-line services: 12 million

7996 Four NetDays hel.d jn 1996 and 1997

7997 A0L: 10 mitfion househoid subscribers

Compuserve: 2 mi[[ion househotd subscribers

2.4 mittion Web sites (December)

l,:rrlr s,rll\\iil('\(n(lors r:lrq(r((l rlitst rrstr\, nrr)\rlr rorrrrl,, nr.ll(.\.throtrglr rr1ll.1, t1o l)cl'(clll ol rtll lrorttt sollurrlt soltl rrrrs g:r1rr1 s3ltrr:rrt.

A sccrlncl cirrly rotrtc into tlrc lr'nrc l;rs rrr'rirrrtt,tl ltl st.llimprovemcnt, or vicarious scll'-inrprovcn)ent lirr orrc's clriltllcrr, r'irt lrcr.than hobbies and entertainment. In this routc thc htxrrc crnrpulcr. \\'rlsvierved as an information-processing tool that could bc cnrpLrlccl i.the service of improving one's performance at work or scho<ll. llclirrccorporations began providing their employees with pCs, somc man-agers and professionals purchased home computers expressly fbr w<lrk-related purposes. They brought work home from the officc to run ontheir home machines in the evening and amazed their co-workers thcnext day with the speed and complexity of their analyses. visicalc, thcfirst commercially available spreadsheet program, was the most popu-larly used software for this purpose. Indeed, visicalc, introduced inry79 for the Apple II, became the home computer industry's first"killer application"-an application so important that it alone justifiedthe computer purchase. Beginning in rg7g, customers would appar*ently go to a computer retail store to purchase VisiCalc, and then ,,ask

for something to run it on.t'8In ry79 educational sofrware for the Apple II began to appear. School

districts bought thousands of machines in the early rg8os and parentsbegan buying home computers and educational software for their chil-dren. Whether or not children actually learned any more or any dif-ferently as a result of using computers (at home or at school), educa-tional improvement for children was another important motivation foracquiring a home computer. Indeed by r9B4 when 7 million households(8 percent of all Lr.S. households) had a personal compurer, sofrwaresales for games had dropped from go percent to 50 percent of totalsales; self-improvement software (educational and home office) repre-sented the other 5o percent.e

The number of households with a home computer had tripled from7 million in rg84 to zz.5 million at rhe end of ry% @4 percenr ofhouseholds), with most of those machines running more powerful andvaried descendents of the entertainment and self-improvement soft-ware introduced in the first decade of home computers. The early daysof the home computer, whether as toy or tool, emphasized personalcontrol and independence from the rest of the world-people using ahome machine did not have to share it with anyone else. They coulclwrite programs, play games, run educational software, do numcricalcalculations and word processing in their own home and on thcir ow.rschedule. There was no need to stand in linc :rt thc vicrc, arc;rrlc,

st lrltlrrlt lltll( .ll llrt ,., lr,rol t orrr|r11lt r l.rlr, ,rr "lror to\\ " t irnlllututl,l(s()ur'(('s Ilottt rttr t trrplort r.

0n-line Services

The crrly home computers could not storc much d:rta in rr pcrrrrrrrrcnrform. T'he data required to store a book, an encyckrpcclirt, or il nl:ll)database was too bulky for these machines. Kitchen datablscs lirr rct.ipes, menu planning, and grocery lists seemed more troublc tl.rirr rlrerwere worth. The same home users who bought VisiCalc for sprcarlshccranalysis would probably have been very interested in databrrscs olfinancial information, news) and flight schedules. But thcse clltabrrscswere too big to be stored on a home machine, needed to bc upclltctlfrequently, and were owned and maintained by commercial intcrcsrswhose business models were based on providing access to commercirrlmainframe customers.

During the r98os, businesses such as Compuserve, Procligy, :rntlAmerica Online began providing households with on-linc access locommercial databases.l0 Each on-line service provided an intcrlrrce r,a variety of different commercial databases such as airlinc schcclulcs,newswires, and financial information. A customer, using a modcnr,made a telephone call to connect the home computer to thc orr-lirrcservicets mainframe computer. Once the call connected the two n.rrl

chines, the home customer could see information from an1, ol'thcprovided databases displayed on the screen of the home machinc. lhrgg4 an estimated 3.8 million households subscribed to on-linc scrrices, representing about r7 percent of all households with compulcl.s.

Internet and tlte Web By rg87, ten years after the introducti<ln ol'thcApple II, all the elements of the home information revolution sccnrctlto be in place. Home computer hardware had continued to incrcasc irrpower. Large disks and CD-ROMS supplied bulk data and srorxgc.Entertainment and self-improvement were supported by cxtcrrsircsoftware. The most compelling ten-year forecast at that timc woultlsimply extend these elements directly into ryg7. Childrcn ancl lccrragers would use more powerful home machines for evcr-morc cngrrgirrggames and learning. Adults would use the machines ftlr nrorc holrrcinformation management and analysis. Everyonc would drl

'r'r.c r'rr.tl

proccssinp; and documcnt prcparation. And, viir commcrcirrl serr,iccs,pcoplc w<lulcl acccss more rlrtirblrscs. Whilc all of thcsc trcnrls rlitl

:6: l ,\tt!irttt'l trtntf orttrr.rl ltl, luft)t.,ilttttt)i ( ,ttr11t1111 1v tn L\' Ilttrrtr'lrrtl,l, .\'tn,, r,l

indeed continue as forecasted through r9g7, there were two big sur-prises.

The first surprise-electronic mail-echoed an earlier surprise ex-perienced by the computer science research community in the earlyrg7os. In order to share scarce research computing resources at thattime, the U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research ProjectsAgency (ARPA) sponsored the development of networking technolo-gies to link remote computers together. Using this technology, re-searchers at any computer tton the Net" could remotely log-in toany other computer on the net and run jobs or exchange files.11 Topeople's surprise the most popular and extensively used feature of theARPANET was electronic mail (e-mail), a way for people to send texr-based messages rapidly and conveniently to other people or groups.l2

On-line services companies defined their business as providing da-tabase access to household customers hungry for information. Like theARPANET developers, they did not realize that people were also eagerto talk with one another.l3 Most of the on-line services viewed e-mailas a necessary but unprofitable and technically uninteresting feature.They imposed strict limits on the size of people's mailboxes, shutdown service during high-volume periods, censored people's messagesto groups, and terminated service to customers who complained aboutunsatisfactory e-mail performance. la

Only one on-line services company, America Online (AOL, estab-lished in rg89), actively courted households whose members wantedto communicate with one another (via e-mail, electronic discussionforums, and electronic chat rooms) as well as acquire information viadatabases. After Netscape introduced its browser in rg94, AOL grewto more than ro million subscribers by tgg7, representing more thanhalf of the 19 million households with on-line services in that year.AOL sales rose from $4o million in 1993 to gro5 million in 1994, andto $394 million in rgg5. ln ryg7 the average subscriber spenr 5rminutes a day logged in to AOL; 43 percenr of that time was spenr forsociability (e-mail and chat), 57 percent was spent for information andentertainment (content sites and "surfing" the web).ls

The second surprise was the introduction of the World Wide Wclrin rggo and that of the browser in rgg4; both innovations rogetherprovided an easy way to find and publish information on thc Intcrncr.The Web created a positive information feedback krop firr its uscrs.Because it was easy to find infrrrmation, morc 1'rcoltle "sur{crl thc Wcb"Io<lking filr inf<lrmation. lJccausc r.nore pcoplc u,crc kroking {irr irrlirrtltltliott, tttorc lteoltlc lrntl orgrutiz:rliolrs llrrlllishetl infirrrtrlrtiorr orr tlrt.\\'clr firr llrt'nr lo lirrtl. ln rryryi lltt.r't' \\(.1(' | 5rl rrt.ll sitt.s. ;rrrtl lrr tlrr.

end of rgg7. There were 2.45 million Web sites.r6 People could use

their home computer and a Web browser to order a book, download a

form from the IRS, submit a college application, follow a sports team,

read a presidential proclamation, or "publish" their wedding pictures.The stand-alone home computer gave household members personal

control in their pursuit of entertainment and self-improvement. On-line services gave them access to large databases and electronic socia-

bility. The World Wide Web gave them personal control of on-linein formation-based transact ions.

Access to Household Computing Vaiesby SociaL Status

Although access to home computers continued to increase by the end

of the twentieth century, access and the increase in access were nothomogenous across social categories. Like access to printed materialsin the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and access to householdtelephones in the first half of the twentieth century, social status influ*enced access to home computers and how they were used. Becausc

using a home computer is perceived to lead to such socially desirablcconsequences as better-educated children and a more-informed citi-zenry) inequality in access is viewed as a public policy problem.

Gender Inequality

The two earliest routes for computers into the homes-electronicstinkering and video arcade games-were unfamiliar and unappcalingterritory for females. By the early rg8os boys outnumbered girls inprogramming courses and computer camps by eight to one, and ttovs

monopolized computers at school. Game software for home machincs

offered "an array of land battles, space wars, and other forms of' tlcstruction."rT And even educational software relied heavily on sports ()l'

battle metaphors. By the late r98os, girls were still less likely than bor s

to have a computer in the home. And even when they did hlve rr

computer at home, girls did not derive as much educationrrl bcrtclitfrom it as did boys, based on standardized test scores aucl school

grades.rB

Aftcr rt;8g thc gender gap in access to home computing closctl, s,,

tlut by rgr1.5 rr-rrtlcs lncl f'cr-nllcs wcrc cquirlly likcly'to hrrvc rt col)tl)(t1('l'

irr lhc hornc. N'lcn still nrrrtlc rrrorc li'ct;ucnt usc ol'it thrrrt tlitl uotttt'tt.Irorrt'rt'r'. lrollr lirl slrrrrtl :rlont'rrtlirilit's rrrttl lirr orr lirrt';tt lirilit's.'" llttl

.'lr 1 I \,tltrrtt I t,tu\f t'ttrt,l /'t lnlt)tnt,tlttnt

gil'ls rrirrt'tct'll \('ru\ oltl rttrrl \()ullt.,,(r rrsttl rl ,rs lrttlrrtnllr .rr lt,,rr,lcadiltg obsct'tcrs lo cotrclurlc tlrrtt llrt gtrrtlt'r'g:rp irr lrorrrt (()nll)ulrllcould disappear entircl,\' with thc nc\l genct'iltiorr. Lls:rgc str lt's rrrrtl

preferences continued to difl'cr, howcver, wlriclr ntrt,l lcrrtl lo rl ('ontinuation of differences in educational outcclmes.20

Income Equality

During the rg8os and r99os, when tens of millions of computers wcrcbought by households, their acquisition varied greatly by householclincorne level in the United States (see table B.z). By rgg: only 7 percentof the lowest income-quartile households (annual income of $r5,ooo a

year or less) had a computer while about 55 percent of the highestincome-quartile households (annual income of $5o,ooo or more) had a

computer.2l By ry97, although more households at all income levelshad a computer, the "digital divide" had actually increased: about r3percent of households wittr an annual income of $r5,ooo a year or less

had a computer in rgg7, whereas about 68 percent of households withan annual income of $5o,ooo or greater had a computer.22

Racial and Ethnic Inequality

Home computers were also unequally distributed across households ofdifferent racial or ethnic status in the United States. In rgg3 more than

30 percent of whites and 37 percent of Asians lived in a householdwith a computer, whereas only 13 percent of Hispanics, Blacks, andNative Americans lived in a household with a computer. Statisticallycontrolling for other f2g161s-sush as income and level of education-that are also associated with racial or ethnic status reduces the disparityattributable exclusively to racial or ethnic status. Net of other factors,about zg percent of whites and 3r percent of Asians lived in householdswith computers in 1993; between 17 percent and rg percent of His-panics, Blacks, and Native Americans did so.23

In ry97 white households were still more than twice as likely (4o.ttpercent) to own a computer as black (r9.3 percent) or Hispanic (r9.-1

percent) households. As with income, the digital divide betwccn rrrcirrl

groups in household computers had increased since r9g4. l,.vcn rrt

income levels above $75,ooo, white households are morc likcly lo hrrvc

computers (76.3 percent) than are black houscholcls (64. r pcrccnt).r'

(ltrltltr'tt rrrttl I ttrrttly l)Vtrtlntt(',

'l'lrlrt riclu-iorrsstll irtrllr',,rtrrt'rrl (i.r.., rnrlrr',,r('ln(nl l()r'ottt'stlttltltttt)is ir nrotirirtion lirr ltonte colttputcr' o\\ncrsltip is sigrtrrlt'tl lrr lltt l.rr t

that by r<197 irhnost twicc its rttiurl houscholds uitlr clriltlrt'rr ortttt'rl .t

pcrsonrrl computcr as did houscholds without chilclrcn.r5 ,'\ntl itt llrosr'

f'amilies with childrcn, thc children spcnt morc lir.nc using tltc t'otrt

puter than did their parents.2('To be sure, childrcn morc olictt ttsctl

the computer for entertainment rather than for lcaruing.rT llul prtt'crrls

believed that computer use would also improve childrcn's school pct'

formance and help prepare them for twenty-first-ccntury carccrs.'l'hisbelief was probably fueled partly by vendor advertising carttprtign'targeted to parents that delivered precisely those messagcs, rtntl prtltlrby schools embracing first stand-alone computers, then thc lntclnct,as important learning technologies.

The only large-scale research on the effects of home conrputcrs ()ll

children's educational performance, conducted midway thr'otrglr tlrctwenty-year history of home computers) did document positivc ctlrr

cational effects, thus validating parental optimism. Howevcr afict' strt

tistically controlling for other household variables (such as ccottotttit'status) that are also associated with children's educational perfirrntrtnct',the net effect of household computers was found to be rathcr snr:rll,

an increase ofabout 3 percent to 5 percent in standardized tcst scorcs.rn

In the rggos household and school Internet access impcllctl trroapparently contradictory public policy orientations towirrd chiltlrcrrbeing on-line. One was that children and teens should bc cncortrrtgc'tl

to use the Internet for self-improvement. In 1996 and rggT, "Nctl )rtr "programs saw volunteers from high-technology companics rtntl politicians, including Vice President Al Gore, wiring public school buiklirrgsfor Internet access. Approximately 5o,ooo schools, Io,ooo busint'ss

sponsors, and roo,ooo volunteers participated to wire an avcrrrgc 0l'sirclassrooms per school in four NetDays.2e Also various govcrtrtlcttlrtlsubsidies have been authorized to reduce economic disparitics itr horrst'

hold (and school) Internet access. But while encouraging Intcnrel rr('

cess, public figures also believe they nrust protect childrcn rurtl tecrts

from unsavory people and content they could encounter <ln-linc. 'l'lrc

federal Communications Decency Act was passed in r9t;(1, nrrrkirrg it

illegal to provide "indecent" or "patently offensivc" matcrial lo rtrinors

via thc Intcrnct. While this legislation wrs rulcd unconstiluliortrrl irr

thc slrmc ycar, officials continuccl to prcss filr protcction lhrorrglr lt'quiring that publicll' Iirnclccl l)rogrruns usc filtering solirv:rrc to lrlot k

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ccess to objectionable sites. The tension between the potential forrformation technology to uplift and improve and the potential for it) corrupt and degrade has been a persistent theme in U.S. society

ince the nineteenth century. Children's use of the home computer

nd the Internet provide just the most recent variation of the theme.

Another tension played out in the family household is that between

he potential for the home computer to strengthen family ties by bring-:rg the family closer together and the potential to weaken those ties

] encouraging family members to pursue independent interests. Byhe mid-nineteenth century, information abundance allowed people to

xpress their individuality in their choice of what to read. Familyaenbers could choose different newspapers, tracts, and books, de-rending on their interest.30 In the first half of the twentieth century,

amily members gathered around their one family radio to listen to-;ether to the same programs. All family members listened to the same

)rogram at the same time.31 By the late rggos, when the average U.S.Lousehold had 5.6 radios, listening together had become exceedingly

rncommon. After World War II television replaced radio as the house-

rold information technology with the potential to alter family dynam-cs. Although television was marketed as a way to bring household

nembers together, research has consistently documented that an in-:rease in television viewing has resulted in a decrease in family com-

nunication.32In r98z the Family Opportunity Act was introduced in the U.S.

{ouse of Representatives; the act was to provide a $5oo tax credit to

J.S. households purchasing home computer hardware and software,n order "to keep families together more often and to strengthen loos-

:ning family ties."33 Although the legislation did not pass, the vision

rchind its rhetoric evoked the same hope as that held for the earlier

rousehold technologies of radio and television. Unlike those earlier

echnologies, whose design at least afforded the opportunity for shared

:xperience, the household computer was intentionally designed to be

rsed by only one person at a time. Indeed in its rg83 "Computer ofhe Year" issue, Time characterized the family computer as "kind ofike the bathroom. If someone is using it, you wait your turn."r4If family members do not share the household computer at the samc

ime, a simple time-displacement argument suggcsts that a familynember who spends more hours at the computcr w<lr"rlcl havc lcwcrrours availablc for other activitics, inclucling frrnrilf inlcrrtctiotr. Ncrvs

)lrpcr rlccoLlnts rrrrtl lcttcls to rrcllicc colrrlnttists rlcscribc thc:tgottr of'

'r'orlrllrrlcr rvitlorrs" n,ltosc lttrslrrttttls tlisrtppt'rtrt'tl liorrt lltt' lirrrrilr trr

;pt'ntl rrll tlrt'il tirrrc irr llotrl ol llrt'lrotrtt'(()rlrl)ttl('t s(l('('tl. \ltltorrglr

such stories are colorful, they are not unique to home computers. 'l'hc

"football widow" was deserted by her television-engrossed spouse; the

"baseball widow," by her radio-engrossed one.

Systematic research suggests that the time spent using a home com-

puter in part displaces television viewing but not reading books, news-

papers, and magazines.3s To the extent that television viewing is an

individual activity rather than one embedded in family interaction,

increased computer use would not diminish family interaction. Butincreased computer and Internet use can also directly diminish familyinteraction. Both self-report surveys and longitudinal studies using logs

of computer time show that family members who spend more timc

using the home computer are likely to spend less time interacting withother household family members.36

Changing Boundaies between the Household

ond the Larger World

The lffice-Home Boundory

Before home computers, the primary technology for bringing officc

work into the home was the briefcase. In the rg6os and r97os, man\

white-collar workers and professionals worked at home in the evcnirrgs

at least occasionally, usually reading or writing'37 In the earliest clays

of the home computer, before corporations began providing P(,s inoffices, small numbers of managers and professionals purchased hornc

computers expressly for work-related purposes and brought work hotlcfrom the office to run on their home machines. As previously discussctl'

VisiCalc was probably the most popular software for this activity'Beginning in the late rg7os, commentators expected that houscholtl

computers would allow large numbers of workers to telecommutc ll'ortt

home.38 Using a home computer connected to an employer's main(i'rttrtc

by a dial-up telephone line, employees could do their information u'olkjust as productively at home as in the office. Policy-makers irncl cot'

porations saw telecommuting as a mechanism for energy conscrl'rtli,,tt

(through reducing the consumption of gasoline) and financial srrr irrg'

(through reducing office overhead). They believcd cmplor'ccs rrorrltl

benefit through reduccd expenscs for commuting, clothing, rttrtl tttcrtls,

rncl increrrscd rrvailability to othcr h<lusehold mcmbcrs.

Whilc rrll lhcsc bcrrclits corrltl possiblr rlccluc rts:t resttll ol lclt'tottt

nrrrling, bt tht' rrritl rt;t;os llrt' rrrrrrrlrct' o1'ctnyrlorces ttsittt{ tltt'it ltottrt'(()1rl)ul(.l lirr lrrll lirrrt'l.lr',()nullutittri rr,ts still rlrritt'srtt:tll. l',tlt'ttil

consumption had become less important as gasoline prices returned torelatively low levels. Employers and employees both came to recognizethe value of "face-time," the time spent in the office engaged with co-workers and managers. And being available to other household mem-bers during the day was considered a mixed blessing. While the num-bers of full-time telecommuters remained small, in the late rggos thelaptop computer joined (or replaced) the briefcase as a technology forbringing work home. Workers also used the laptop as a way to stay intouch with the office, via e-mail.

Employees have used their employers' computing resources for ex-tracurricular activities since at least the late r96os, when computerscience researchers began playing "Space'Wars" on university com-puters. In the mid-r97os, "swarms" of people used university ma-chines to play "Adventure"-x f111nsy, questing game, which laterspawned an entire industry of adventure games.3e In the r98os severalpopular game programs for personal computers came with a "disguise"feature, which could be used to mask the game screen swiftly with a

spreadsheet screen if the boss walked into the office.Whenever people gained network access at work, they used the net

for extracurricular reasons as well as for work-related ones. Scientistswho were members of the early ARPANET community used researchmachines to send personal e-mail, play games, and participate in non-technical electronic discussions.{ An early study of corporate e-mailcategorized 40 percent of email messages as having a "non work" topic.Moreover, most of the "non worktt messages were not one-to-onemessages but were from electronic groups devoted to such topics as

movie reviews, wine tasting, and social clubs.al Most corporations havepolicies forbidding or regulating non work-related use of corporatecomputing resources, but small violations are usually undetected orunremarked.

The Home-Commerce Boundary

Beginning in ryg4 with the availability of "browser" software for theWeb, households could use their home computers to connect directlyto retail stores and services. Because household access to the Web wasavailable for only the final two years in the period of this chaprer, gooddata on its uses and effects are not yet available. Many commcntatorsassert that the Web will both encourage more households to buv corn-puters and change patterns of use. If so, therc arc likclv lo bc thrccmajor ways in which houscholcl behrrvior rvill t'hrrrrgc w,ilh rt'spct'l lo

The first is that people will be able to access information aboutproducts and services at their convenience, independent of time andgeography. Many consumer goods and services companies are postinginformation for potential customers on their Web sites. Householdscan find out about houses for sale in a particular are\ with mortgageterms and rates; books or records available at the nearest relevant store;and price and product information for sewing machines or power tools,and the address of the nearest distributor. When comparable infor-mation for different retailers is easily available on-line, comparisonshopping becomes easier. And customers can become better informedconsumers.a2

The second major way in which household behavior may change isthat people may engage in on-line purchase transactions, bypassing oreliminating some face-to-face transactions entirely. The telephone andpostal service have long supported some kinds of home shopping. Thedifference here is twofold: a much broader scope of goods and servicesis likely to be offered via the Web, with more up-ro-date and complexproduct information; and intermediaries between the customers andthe product are likely to be Reduced. Thus, for example, a householdmember may use an on-line brokerage service to buy or sell securitieswith less delay-and paying a lower commission-than trying to reacha human broker on the phone. On-line customers accounted for about17 percent of all retail stock trades in rgg7.a3 Or a family member-might use an on-line bookstore to purchase a book at any hour of thcday or night. The technology underlying the Web makes it easy tosearch and display the bookseller's wares in many different ways. L-r

addition to the common categories found in physical bookstores anclpaper-based catalogues such as genre, author, customer popularity,and topic, customers can also see such categories as "other bookspurchased by people who bought the book I'm considering," ..books

similar to ones I've purchased from this site previously,', ,,books f'a

vorably reviewed by speci{ied reviewers, publications, or prize conrmittees."

Changing the ease with which a family member buys a producr orservice is not by itself sociologically interesting. More interestingand the third major behavioral change anticipated-is thc possibilitrthat extensive use of home-computer-based commerce could charrgcsomc of'thc asymmctries between household consumcrs and busincsscs.lfanrilics whosc rurrrl rlr inner-city loc:rtior-r givcs thcm rclativcl-t' liruitctlrlcccss ttl goocls atttl scrviccs (bccatrse tlcrclrttnls cho<lse rrol lo lotrrlt.t.tcltt'ltr ) rrt:tr cn jor int:rerrsctl ltru'r'hirsing l)o\\'cr_ l,'irlrrilit's irr rrrrr lot rr

liott tttrtt lt:trt' ittt tt':tst'tl ollllorltrrrilt lo t:rlk rritlr ollrr.r' (()lrs11r(.r'\

I \,tltrtrr I t,ttt'1,',111,,1 l'; lrtl,'ntr,tl1rtt1

lrboUt their cxpcriettccs, ittlricc, ttt u:lttlittgs. llr rt1t17, s()lll('(()tlllll(lcial Web sites had bcgun to sLrppol't chrrl roottts or tlist'ttssiotts {irr'

ums where potential customers could cortlmLrnicatc clcctlorticirllr uithsales persormel or other customers. Self-<lrganizing elcctr<lrric ir-rlcrcst

groups not affiliated with any particular vendor afford an opportunitlfor people to trade advice or experiences about purchases felevant to

members of the particular interest group. Merchants may also benefit

by using these groups as a form of unobtrusiYe market research.

The Home-Government Boundary

Households can also use their home computers to connect to local,

state, and federal government agencies with the same three types ofpotential effects as is the case for commerce' Beginning in rgg5 many

government agencies began providing on-line information about their

operations. Citizens could see up-to-date information about such mat-

ters as schedules for local transit, refuse collection, city council meet-

ings, congressional or agency hearings. They could also see minutes or

reports of meetings, press releases, and other public documents. Al-though the government sector has no direct analogy to comparison

shopping in the commercial sector' commentators hope that the easy

availability of government information on-line could lead to a better

informed citizenry just as people could become better informed con-

sumers. Such outcomes are purely speculative at this point, however.

Analogous to on-line purchase transactions for commerce) house-

holds can or will be able to engage in on-line governmental transactions.

In a small number of municipalities residents can already pay utilitybills on-line (for example, in Blacksburg' Virginia) or apply for a

building permit (for example, in Cleveland, Ohio). At the federal level,

citizens can download tax forms. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

home page, displayed in figure 8.2, illustrates two ways in which

computer-mediated interaction with government agencies can differfrom other mediated forms of interaction with those agencies. First, ifa citizen has access to Web technology, time and space are no longer

constraints to the interaction. All forms are accessible twentY-four

hours a day. Second, the "voice" with which the agency interacts with

citizens can be modified relatively easily. This may lead to some con-

fusion on the part of citizens. Note the strangely informal tone of thc

IRS site. Although this will surely be modified, it scems more than

slightly disconcerting to have the federal revenue scrvicc display strch

a jocular, "aw shucks" tone.

\g:rttt, lts rrttlr tlrt (.1\( rll ({)tlllll(t((\ tttt'ttlt ttt{)\llll'. ll.lll\.1(lloll\

on littc rs rrot likclr lo (;ltlst. rt trolitt'rtlrlt'tlt;tttut irr tlrt t.clrtliorrslrrI

bclnccn lrouscholcls lurtl govcrnrncnl. \\'hrll il Irtrr,t tlo is itttt't'rtst'o1t

ltrlrtunitics lilr citizcns to col-lncct with <lnc'.tnothcr clcclronicrrll\ rtltottl

civic or govcrnmental issues Again, ir srnall numltcr tlf'rrrtrnicillrrlitlcshave established electronic discussion groups or firrums whcrc rcsi

dents or citizens can discuss issues of mutual concern Such :rs allirrtlrrblt'

housing or local pollution. Special interest nongovernmcntal org:trri

zations also offer opportunities for people to connect clcctronic:rllr .

The Civic Practices Network, for example, lets people share idcrls:rlrotrt

grassroots projects throughout the United States.

E lectroni c Soci abi lity an d Affi li ation

Household members with a network connection can acccss nol otrlr

information on-line, they can also access other people. S<lmc l.lcoplcuse e-mail to stay in touch with distant family members and li'icntls.

When most colleges and universities provided their stuclcnts w'ith

e-mail accounts by the early rggos, household e-mail becamc a poptrlrrr

way for parents to stay in touch with their college-attending chilclrcn,

In one national suryey conducted in 1995, more than onc-thirtl ol

respondents who had used the Internet for at least a year rcllorlctlusing it several times every month to contact family members.a{ Unlikcthe telephone, which helps sustain only preexisting relationships, tht'

networked household computer also lets people initiate ncw rclaliotlships-even with previously unknown relatives. Some peoplc ttsc ltt

ternet search programs to find others who share their (prcstrrrlrrblr

uncommon) last name, then send an e-mail query to introducc llrcrrr

selves and discover if they are related. Although "meeting" prcviotrslr

unknown family members via the Internet does occur, morc collltll()llis the case of a first encounter with a Stranger in an clcctrotric f ortrrtr

or discussion group and, over time, developing a privatc c-mrtil t't'lrt

tionship with that person. In the same national survcy c<tnclttctetl itr

rgg;, r4 percent of Internet users report that they had fricncls u'lronr

they knew only through the Internet. A majority of thcse rcsl.rorttlt'ttls

(6o percent) also reported meeting at least one of thcsc fiicrltls frtt'c lrr

face.as

Elcctronic mail lets houschold mcmbcrs comrnunicalc witlr liicrrtls

ancl f'amily mcmbcrs, but clcctronic bullctin troanls, tlislrilltrtiorr lists.

chltts, rrrrcl Iirnrnts lcl peoplc l)rlrticillxtc itr rlisctrssiotlsr rlllltltll('t)ts, ot

I \'tltlrt l,tttt\ltit tttt,l l'1 lrllut rrl,lttrttt

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bffi*k1lrldarMMSb

Yeteran RecruiterResruited On-LinsBy IRS Recruiters

fioIflJryd6fw,Ioil

QUANTICO, VA. Mtrine recruiterSgt. Sm Fidelis enlisted his l6t rawrsruit today. Next week civilim SmFidelis signs on for a nw creer, withthe IRS.

"l give the Corps a full day, everyday",

explained the short timq, "so I didn'thave a lot oftime left over to reseilchthe job market. " Sm put his recruitingexperience md computer skills to use

strching the intemet for a new meer'"I w6 surprised to lem that the IRS isnot just about tiles. ", Sam continued,

"They had positions for Y2Kprogrilmers, mgineers, economists,

md one just right for me!"

Sm lemed thal the Intemal RevmueSewice is striving to make senice morethan just a name; md to get there theyneed motivated, skilled, imovaxiveemployees - like Sam ... md you. "Be all

that you cm be - md more.", Says Sm,

debates with hundreds or thousands of other people whom they couldnever meet face to face. Commercial services support proprietarygroups that are open only to their subscribers. Beginning in the r99osthey also offered access to Internet groups, sometimes called Usenetgroups. lJsenet groups were first created on the ARPANET in ry79and, at that time, were accessible only via university computer ac-

counts. In rg8o there were fifteen ARPANET groups and ten posts a

day; in 1987, 5,ooo groups saw 2.5 million bytes of posts a day; inrggz,2.S million people read Usenet groups totaling 35 million bytesa day.a6 Commercial services such as The Source began offering dial-up access to electronic communication in r979, although in the earlyr98os few households participated relative to the number of people onUsenet. The WELL, an active electronic community begun in rg85,was characterized by one of its members as like a "family of invisiblefriends."

By rgg5 more than roorooo electronic discussion groups were avail-able to anyone with Internet access.aT Groups were self-organizedaround technical topics (for example, hardware, software, or lan-guages); hobbies and entertainment (for example, soap operas, sportsteams, bicycle racing, or dog breeding); social, cultural, and religiousorientations (for example, Lebanese culture, Catholicism, or gay andlesbian groups); civic and political causes (for example, neo-Nazism,marine pollution, or home schooling); and physical, mental, or emo-tional ailments (for example, traumatic brain injury, diabetes, or de-pression). Although people could use their home computer to access

databases of information about such topics, on-line groups flourishedbecause people like to talk to and hear from other people with opinions,experiences, and information relevant to topics they care about. Formany household members, when determining whether to continucpaying for an on-line service, having an electronic connection to othcrpeople was a more important decision factor than access to informa-tion.a8

Figure 8.2 A "Coo[" IRS. Foltowing extensjve criticisms of its treatment of U.S.

taxpayers by both the press and the U.5. Congress. the Internal Revenue Serviccbegan an extensive pubtic retations campaign in the Late 1990s to improve its image.0ne of the first things it did was to devetop a friendty Web site on the Internet thatpresented a far different image of the IRS than the agency had ever had before. Likc

many other organizations of the time, it used the Internet to reach out to ltrcAmerican pLrbLic. This fiqLrre illrrstratcs lhe IRS horne plr;c as of Octollcr 29, 19q8.

Atlrlr r',,,,: www. i r s. lrrl rr',r,,.<1ov / pr od / r ovtr. lrl rrrt.

" Check out $e IRS Emo I ovn e n tOwgtulrldattodayl"

At etre Sm.

Tu Stats Tu Info For You Tu Info For Business

Elecfonic Services

TupaysHelP & Ed Tu Regs In English IRS NewsstandFoms & Pubs

What's Hot Meet The Comissioner Comments & HelpSite Treg

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Some local government electronic sites offered discussion forums as

well as access to the kinds of local government information described

in the previous section, thereby giving residents the opportunity to

participate in local community discussions from the convenience oftheir home. As of rgg7, however, most electronic groups were com-

posed of people who did not share a common geographic location.

Indeed the only attribute they necessarily shared in common, other

than network access, was an interest in the topic of the particular group.

In fact, the text-based nature of electronic communication eliminated

or attenuated most information about the people communicating-other than the words they typed. At its best, this meant that people

could be judged solely by their words and not by other personal

characteristics such as race) gender, age, or appearance. At its worst,

this meant that people could forget that other human beings were

reading their words, leading to thoughtless remarks and inflammatorybehavior. The absence of personal information in electronic commu-nication was aptly characterized in a r993 New Yorker cartoon, whichnoted that, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" (see figure

B.:).Electronic groups are typically characterized by egalitarian, free-

wheeling discussion. Anyone may post a message to a group; anyone

may respond, with the response visible to the entire group. Activegroups often have more than roo new messages posted each day. Theenergetic give and take in these groups led one on-line political activist

to characterize the role of on-line discussion in home computing inthis way:

Ben Franklin would have been the first owner of an Apple Computer.Thomas Jefferson would have written the Declaration of Indepen-

dence on an IBM PC. But Tom Paine would have published Common

Sense on a computer bulletin board.ae

Many on-line groups are characterized by lively, sometimes aggres-

sive, sometimes inane posts. But some are also characterized by deep

personal intimacy and support. Hundreds of groups, lists, and forums

are explicitly devoted to offering support to people with medical or

psychological ailments or afflictions. In these groups people lsk antl

answer questions about pharmaceutical dosages and sidc cffccts, irltcr-native treatment protocols, likely or unlikcl.v conrltlicrtlitlrts. Wltct'cits

the topics of thcsc posts coukl bc {irtrntl in nrctlicrrl tl:ttrtbrtst's, lltt'

"On tbe Internet, nobody knotas you're a dog."

Figure 8.3 Dog on the Internet. In 1993, cartoonist Peter Steiner pointed out an

obvious reatity about the Internet, that any person (or apparentty any animat) couldpubtish on the Internet without identifuing themselves the way one norma[Ly did irr

pubtishing an articte or book. or in signing a letter. This anonymity was a new featurcof information exchange in the Unjted States, raising concerns for accuracy artri

accountabitity at the same time that Americans were enthusiasticatly embracing tltt'new medium. Courtesy The New Yorker ColLection @ 1993 Peter Stejner frorrr

www.cartoonbank.com. Att Rights Reserved.

information is conveyed through personal experience irncl fcclings."'Participants report deriving great psychological comfort li'onr lcclingthat they are "not alone" r,vhen they participate in thcsc groulls. llccausc anyonc can participatc, thcrc is no Eluarantcc llrat inlirrrrrrrtiorr is

accurrtc or aclvicc is:rppropriirtc. Ycl lirr pcoplc who nright ltc'ltotttt'bound or isolirtcrl, thc horlc conrl)ulcl with lr rrcllvolk corrnt't'liorr t;rrr

olli'r'solrrtt'irntl rrflili:rtiott rts rrcll lts t'tttct'trtilrtrrcrrl, scll itttptor(lr(nl.,ttttl ittlirt'ttt,tliott ll,tst'rl lt';ttts:tt liotts

I l- l.,t .,-,,1, ,

Conclusion

The personal computer was not invented as a business machine; in-deed, even the IBM PC was initially introduced as the "IBM home

computer."sl Yet the personal computer diffused much more rapidlyand extensively into the business world than into the household. Oneplausible reason for the difference in diffusion rates is that the need

for the information-processing tools provided by the personal com-puter was not as great in households as in business. A related reason

is that the infrastructure for supporting computer users was also notas developed in households as in business. Observation of home com-puter users even as recently as :1996 documented that installing and

using a home computer was a seriously daunting task for many people.52

For those households that were early adopters, the twin motives ofentertainment and self-improvement were clearly central.

The Web provided information-processing tools more attractive than

those provided by stand-alone machines. The ability to access up-to-date information independent of time and geography across a wide

variety of domains is likely to become attractive to large numbers ofhouseholds. This may lead to changes in the current mix of informationcoming into the home via newspapers, television, magazines, catalogs,

and other mass mailings. The ability to execute on-line informationand commercial transactions may also become attractive.

Although some commentators speculate that on-line "content" willbe completely taken over by large corporations, to this point one ofthe most amazing features of the "information revolution" has been

its character as a "people's revolution" once the household computer

went on-line. Although large, formal organizations controlled many

Web sites by ,gg7, anyone with a home computer and a networkconnection could publish his or her personal Web site, complete withfamily pictures, favorite jokes, and advice of the day. Anyone could

create a Web site about an obscure topic and be visited by the only 3,

30, or 3oo other people in the on-line world who shared an interest inthat topic. Hundreds of thousands of self-organizing electronic groups

supported by chats, forums, distribution lists, and bulletin boards give

people the opportunity to make connections with other human beings.

Finding, building, and sustaining connections among groups of people

via electronic communication reminds us that affiliation and sociability

can be significant goals for information technology, just as importantas efficiency and productivity.

I

The Information Age

Continuities and Differences

Atfred,.'A., {honder Ji,,,&i J s'me s;,, W. C o ft a d a

This concluding chapter focuses, as did the introductory one, on thc

evolving infrastructure for the transmission of information in today's

Information Age. Here we do not attempt to summarize or evaluatc

how the recipients used the information transmitted by the evolving

broader information infrastructure. Those responses, the primary sub-jects in the preceding chapters, reflect the ever-changing economic,political, social, and cultural changes experienced in the United Stirtcs.

They will continue to do this in the future. Speculating on the futurcis really outside the scope of this book. However, a reader intercste tl

in the future should take notice of the patterns of the ebb and flow of

information-handling in America's past and present.

There is a striking continuity in the infrastructural evolution thrrt

began with the postal system in the eighteenth century, then movctl

to the railway and the telegraph, the telephone, radio and televisiorr,

and then computers both big and small. That continuity will probrrblr

have a significant impact on the ongoing evolution of the infrastructtlreof the Information Age for reasons that will be made clear latcr.

As we also describe in this chapter, iust as there were contintritics.simultaneously there were differences. The most obvious, tlrrtnrrttie,

and important difference was software. This aspect ol thc historr ol

information-the story of how software camc into being ancl w:ts tlt'

ployed throughout the economy-represents thc first major tliscotttirr

uity with thc past because it is very new in tl.rrcc ways:

. ln u,l.rrrt il is

. Irt ltou i1 crttttc ittlo llrc c('()rlorrr\

. lrr lrou il n:rs soltl

porary I/T industry issues'. Competing on Internet Time: Lessonsfrom Netscape

anrl lts Battle with Microsoft (New York: Free Press, rg98). For an example

of how the Internet affects an industry, see Bruce M. Owen, the Internet

challenge to Teleaision (Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press, rg99).

The direct management of information processing departments and infra-

structures has yet to be properly studied by historians. For a short introduc-

tion to the issues, see Cortada, Information Technologt as Business Historyl

(cited previously). For a bibliography of all the key studies on American L/Tmanagement, see James W. Cortada, Second Bibliographic Guide to the History

of Computing, Computers, and' the Information Processing Industli (Westport,

Conn.: Greenwood, 1996). We lack a comprehensive study of applications ofinformation technology in business, although the contemporary literature on

the U.S. experience is now massive. For a bibliography of this material, see

James W. Cortada, A Bibliographic Guidc to the History of Computer Applica-

tions, r95o-r9go (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood' 1996).

Personal Computers ond Their Use

The PC has now been around for more than a quarter of a century and is

beginning to leave a trail of historical literature behind it. Lee Butcher wrote

an early biography of the cofounder of Apple Computer' Accidental Million'aire: The Rise antl Fall of Steae Jobs at Apple Compuler (New York: Paragon

House, rg87). On Apple's product development, written by an insider in the

firm, there is Guy Kawasaki, The Macintosh lMay (Glenview' Ill.: Scott,

Foresman, r98g). For a history of the Macintosh itself, see Steven Levy'

Instantly Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, The Computer That Changed

Eaerything (New York: Viking, r9g4). The most complete account of Apple

available today is byJim Carlton,Apple: The Inside Story rtf Intrigue, Egomania,

awl Business Blunders (New York: Times Business, 1997).

On the early history of MITS and Altair, see the memoirs of Forrest M.

Mims III, Siliconnections: Coming of Age in the Electronic Era (New York:

McGraw-Hill, 1986). A massive anthology of contemporary articles on PCs

that appeared in BYTE magazine (tgZ s-tgg+) provides an excellent window

into the period in the United States: Jay Ranade and Alan Nash, eds., IirBest of BYTE (New York: McGraw-HilI, tgg+).

On IBM's role with PCs, there is the early yet excellent account by Jrrmcs

Chposky and Ted Leonsis, Blue Magic: The People, Power, and Politics Bchinl

the IBM Personal Clm4uter (New York: Facts on File, 1988). Clharlcs II.Fergusson and Charles R. Morris, Computer lfiars: Hom the Wcst Can lttr'in rn

a Post-IBM World, (New York: Times Book, rgg3), pr6viclcs a harcl atr:rck orr

IBM, but along the way we learn a great deal irbotrt fhc l)(. btrsincss i1 tlrt'United States. See also Ceruzzi, A llistory o.f'Mrtlrnt (:onftttttt.t: (citctl plc

viously).Materirl is beginning lr) ill)l)errr ort lht' rolt' ol ttst'rs ol l)( ,s rrt tllt' I rritt tl

Stlttt's. r\tt t'ltrlt:tttortttl, trtillt'tt lrt rttl trpcrl,rrl tllt I S l/'l sttttt', tr

Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community: Homestead,ing on the Electrontc

Frontier (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, rg93). A recent important study

on the use of PCs by young Americans is by Don Tapscott, Crowing Up

Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation (New York: McGraw-Hill, rg98).

Ameica as a Information Society

A wonderful readable study is David Shenk, Data Smog: Suraiuing the Infor-mation Age (New York: HarperCollins, $97).There are those who would

argue that the notion ofthe "information age" is false; for that contrary view

see Theodore Roszak, The Cuh of Information: A Neo-Luddite Treatise on High

Tech, Arttf.cial Intelligence, and the True Art of Thinking (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, r994); or Bill McKibben, The Age of Missing Information

(New York: Plume, r993). Three broad studies enrich our understanding of'

the role of technology in society: James C. Carey, Communication as Cuhure:

Essays ttn Merlia and Societ.y (Boston: Unwin Hyman, rg89); Carolyn Marvin,When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communications itr

the Late J,{ineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, r99o); antl

Joshua Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place: The Impact of Mass Media on Sociul

Behaaior (New York: Oxford University Press, rggo). All of these works go

beyond just the role of computers.Sociological material and social/personal comments on computing atrtl thc

internet is proliferating rapidly. A few publications have emerged that itrc

crucial to our understanding of what is going on. An early study rctlrrtirrs

useful for its broad considerations: Starr Roxane Hiltz and Murray'l'trroll'The Network Nation: Human Communication oia Computer (Reading, N'l:rss.:

Addison-Wesley, r978). For a personal view and recounting of early irctir itics

with what eventually became known as the Internet, see the fascinrtting:rt'

count by Howard Reingold, The Virtual Community (cited previousl-v), rvlriclr

has become a "best seller." Sara Kiesler brought together a numbcr of'e xpct'ls

to explore the Cuhure of the Interner (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrencc l',rlb:rrrrrr,

r996), while similar issues were explored by William Mitchell, Oit.1' ttl lltrt(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, rg95).

The broad subject of the effects of computing and telecomnrutricittiotts irr

the United States is not a new topic. In fact, scholars and consullitttls ltrtrt'

discussed the subject for many years. The book that most dramrticrtlll brotrqlrt

the U.S. public's attention to the subject was Alvin TofHcr, l;tttttrt.\'hrt, I

(New York: Random House, r97o), in which the authgr clcscri|ctl rt rrotltlfilled with computers and telecommunications. I{c contintrcd this tlrt'rrrt rrr

The Third Wace (New York: Morrow, rt;So)'andin l)rtn,tr ^tli/l (\t'u \ r,rlBantam, rggo). An even morc influentiirl carly conrrtrenl:tlor on lltt'gcrrt'r.rl

thcme wits l)irnicl llcll. IIis trook, 7Ir Oorrtirt.rg rtf l)rtst lrr,lrtslri,rl '\'rtLrr't1'. I

l.'rtrlrtrr it ,\tttitl l:rtrttttslitt.l (Ncl \"ork. ll:rsit liroks, tr17.1), rrr'litrt tl tll.lt

ilrrltrstrilrl sot'iclr l:ts t'r,rlritr;1 irtto il n('\\, l)()slitltlrrslri;rl plt:tsc tlt;tt.tr'lttiztrlirt ll;ttl lrr lltt ttst ol totttltttlttttl 'l lrrt lrool rlllttttti lot ttt.tttr srltol.tts llrttt

research themes for the next two decades. For a short version of his ideas,

see his ,,The social Framework of the Information Society ," in The computer

Age:ATwenty-YearView,ed.MichaelL'DertouzosandJoelMoses(Cam-U."iag., Mass.: MIT Press' 1979), t63_ztt' The granddaddy of all these

comlents about the future effects of computing was John Diebold who'

during the rg5os and r96os' influenced the thinking of many business exec-

utivesl sociologists, and government policy-makers, with his comments on

automation. of all his publications, the most useful is his Automation: Its

Impact on Business on,l. iabor, Planning Document No' ro6, Special Commit-

tee Report (Washington, D'C.: National Planning Association' 1959)' How-

.u.r, ,i. book that made him famous was Automation: The A1oent of the

Automatic Factor.y (New York: Van Nostrand, r95z)'

Tools for the Scholar of Informotion in the

United States

It was probably inevitable that the first maior guide to the use of the Internet

byhistorianswouldhavebeenpublishedintheUnitedStates,withanover-*h.l-i.rg number of citations originating in the United States: Dennis A.

Trinkle, Dorothy Auchter, Scott A' Merriman, and Todd F ' Larson' The

History Highwoy: A Guitte t0 Internet Resources (Armonk, N'Y': M' E' Sharpe'

1997), which includes a bibliography on the Internet' Prior to this book's

p.rtii.utio.r, the most widely used reference to all information processing tools

for historians was Daniel Greenstein's I Historian's Guid,e to computing (New

York: Oxford University Press, 1994)'

Archival guides to the American experience with information are largely

limited to the information processing industry. However, Arnita A. Jones and

PhilipL.Canteloneditedasmallvolumeonarchivalmanagementandinthepro."r, described many U.S. business and technical archives: corporote Ar-'rhir^

n*t Historyt: Uining the Past Work (Maltbar, Fla':Krieger Publishing

Company, rgg3). The most definitive book on the subject, aimed at archivists

brrt i.r.ribing many U.S. holdings, is James M' O'Toole' ed''The Recortls of

American Briirrrs (Chicago: The Society of American Archivists' r997)' On

U.S. computer-related collectiott'' see James W' Cortada' ed'' Archiaes of

Data-Proiessing Historlt: A Guit1e to Major tl'S' Cotlections (Westport' Conn':

Greenwood,rggo).Formorecurrentinformation,contacttheCharlesBab-bage Institute (CBI) at the University of Minnesota' CBI is the largest center

forthestudyofthehistoryofcomputinganywhereintheworldandittendsto focus primarily on the U.S. experience'

Two anthologies of documents in the history of telecommunications are by

George Shiers, ed., The Telegraph: An Historical Antholog (New York: Arno'

,977i nnd, The Telephone: An Historical Anthologlt (New York: Arno' r977)'-fh"..

are a number of useful guides to sources and archives on various

infirrrn:rtion technokrgies. Donal<l G. Godfrey and Frederic A. Lcigh. cds '

llistttritrrl l)itlrttnttr'1' ttf"lrntritttn /?a/rrr (Wcstport' (lrtnn': (ircettllootl' trlrlli)

is an excellent tool. So is Anthony SIide, The Nep Historical Dictionary of the

American Film Ind.ustry (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, r998). On television, a

good starting point is George Shiers, Early Teleaision: A Bibliographic Guideto rg4o (New York: Garland, 1997). Two other guides are crucial: ATAS/UCLA Television Archives, ATAS / UCLA Teleaision Archioes Catalog: Hold-ings in the Study Collection of the Academy of Teleztision Arts 6 Sciences of the

Unioersity of Califurnia, Los Angeles Teleoision Archiaes (Pleasantville, N.Y.:Redgrave, r98r) and World, Directory of Mooing Image and. Sound, Archit:es(New Providence, NJ.: K. G. Saur, 1993).

Historical dictionaries on information technology are just beginning toappear. The first was James W. Cortada, Historical Dictionary of Data Pro-cessing,3 vols. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, rg87), which covers technology,biographies, and corporate histories. A massive biographical dictionary oncomputer scientists and engineers (primarily American) is now availablc:

J. A. N.Lee, Computer Pioneers (Los Alamitos, Calif.: IEEE Computer SocietyPress, rg95). On the U.S. computer industry, see an annual publication byEgilJuliussen, Portia Isaacson, and Luanne Kruse, Computer Ind.ustrlt Almanur(Dallas: Computer Industry Almanac, rg8Z- ).

s6. Keen, Mougayar, and Torregrossa, Tlte Business Internet ond Intranets,define routers as a key component of all networks; as their name suggest,

they handle the routing of traffic across a network, interpreting desti-nation addresses and managing traffic jams among their many othercommunication, coordination, and management functions (p. rSS).

Gomes, "Cisco Passes Significant Milestone."Sales per employee numbers were compared with the industry averages

presented in "1998 Fortune 5oo," Fortune (April 27, ryg9). GeneralElectric was the only company presented in Table 7.2 that had sales peremployee more than double that of its industry average (z.og times). Atthe other end of the spectrum, IBM had sales per employee that wereonly o.85 times that of its industry's average and Johnson & Johnsonhad sales per employee that were o.gg times that of its industry's average.

Rates ofincrease were based on the difference in SPE between each ofthe eras for the firms listed in table 7.2. The average rate of increase

between rg78 and 1986 (not including International Group's 28.63 rateof increase) was 2.oo; the average rate of increase between 1986 and

tggT was 2.6o.

Here the investigator must rely upon a combination of small-scale aca-demic studies and consumer polls.

4. H. Edwards Roberts and William Yares, "Altair 88oo Minicomputcr,Part r," Popular Electronics (|anuary rg75): 33, 38.

5. Wozniak built his first machine, the Apple I,in ry76 and sold about z-5o

of them for $666. The Apple II, which was introduced at the First WestCoast Computer Fair in April rg77, sold for gr,z98. It came with from

4K to 48K of memory, color graphics, sound, text screen display, andthe BASIC program loaded in its read-only memory (ROM).

6. The Apple II was designed to appeal to people beyond the world of thcelectronics hobbyist. Wozniak explained:

A lot of features of the Apple II went in because I had designedBreakout for Atari. I had designed it in hardware. I wanted to write irin software now. So that was the reason that color was added in first-strthat games could be programmed. I sat down one night and tried toput it into BASIC. . . . I got this ball bouncing around, and I said,

"Well it needs sound," and I had to add a speaker to the Apple II. Itwasn't planned, it was just accidental. . . . Obviously you need paddles,so I had to scratch my head and design a simple minimum-chip paddlccircuit, and put on some paddles. So a lot of these features that reallvmade the Apple II stand out in its day came from a game.

Jack Connick, ". . . And Then There Was Apple," CALL-A.P.P.L.ll.(October ry86):24.

7. Serious Software Helps the Home Computer Grow lJp Business Wetl'(|une rr, rg84): rr4-rr8.

8. Robert X. Cringely, Accidental Empires (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, rygz), 64. VisiCalc is often given much of the credit for thcenormous increase in Apple II sales, from $8oo,ooo tn 1977 to more thirn$+Z million in rg7g. James Chposky and Ted Leonsis, Blue Magic: T'htPeople, Power, and Politics Behind the IBM Personal Computer (New York:Facts on File Publications, 1988), 8. Even though most software sold wrrs

game software, by rg8o VisiCalc was the top-selling personal compurcrprogram in the United States.Business Weele, (June r r, r984).The earliest database services such as CompuServe and The Sourcc w'crcactually established in the late rg7os. No significant customer basc, ho*'ever, grew until after the mid-rg8os.

rr. Larry Roberts and Barry Wessler, "Computcr Netlvork I)cvclopnrclrt loAchievc Rcsource Sharing," AfIP.\ Spring -"/oint Oomputtr Oot.fi.rrtr,,'Pntt'cclings .16 (rt17o): -543 .5,+9.

rz. Katic Ilirfncr :rnd M:rtlhcrv l,yon, ll,htrt L|/i:unls ,\tu.y Ult l,uttOrr.qitrs uf tht ltrttrttl (Ncrr York: Sirrrorr rrnrl Scltrrstt.r', r1116), rllT

| (. lt l.icklrtlcr' :rrrtl ,'\llrcrt Vczz;t, ".,\grplitrrlrorrs ol lrrlirrnrrrtiorrrr,,rlr," I l l l. l'r,,,,,.,1nt.t'' (ilt(rryTli) r.1 1o r.q,1{r.

97-

98.

99.

roo. Standard & Poor's Compustat.ror. Richard L. Nolan, "Business Needs a New Breed of EDP Manager."ro2. See Paul A. Strassman, The Business Value of Compzrters (New Canaan,

Conn.: Information Economics, rggo).

Chapter 8

r. U.S. Department of Commerce, Stotistical Abstroct of the United States(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, ry97), 565-566. Esti-mates for recorded music and video games include persons rz years andolder.

z. A complete sociological analysis will treat many topics omitted or onlytouched on here, such as the role of the mass media in creating ratherthan simply reporting "the computer revolution" and a comparison ofthe role of the household computer with that of the telephone and tele-vision.

3. Data on the acquisition of home computer hardware and software arc

generally sparse and ofuneven quality. Sales figures are often proprietary;industry polls use sampling frames that produce upwardly biased csti

mates. Federal government surveys, which have minimal san.rpling bils,include few questions about household computers. See Donnr L. I krll:man, William D. Kalsbeek, and Thomas P. Novak, "Intcrnet irntl WclrUse in the U.S.," Communicutions of the ACM .ig (l)cccrrbcr rr;9(r): .1(r

46, for an analysis of shrlrtcomings in cstilnirtes of'Inlernct rrsc. \\'lrilcnationally rcprcsentrrlivc rlat:r on thc tlifiirsiorr of lrorrrc ('()r)ll)ul('ls:u('sl)xrsc, lrillioll:ll rl:tl:t ott lltt'ir ttsc ltttrl cfli'tls ilr('l)r'il(li(;rll\ rrorrt'r,isttrrl

9.ro.

'I h,

.: tl;\r't

t tfi

13. Overlooking or underestimating the importance of computer-based so-ciability via e-mail echoes the telephone industry's earlier overlooking thesociability uses of the telephone. Claude Fischer, America Calling: ASocial History of The Telephlne to rg4o (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, r99z).6o-85.

r4. Jonathan Zittrain, "The Rise and Fall of Sysopdom," Haroartl journalof Law and Technologt (summer ryg7): 4gS, describes how commercialservices use sysops (from "system operators") to regulate on-line discus-sions.

r5. Marc Gunther, ((The Internet Is Mr. Case's Neighborhood," Fortuner37, no. 6 (March 3o, rg98): 68.

r6. Netscape's browser (introduced in r994) had a distincr impact, making iteasier for people to create and view Web sites. AOL's sales rose from$4o million in 1993 to gro4 million in ryg4, and 9394 million in 1995.Hoooer's Guide to Computer Companies (Austin, Tex: Hoover's BusinessPress 1996), 37.

17. Sara Kiesler, Lee Sproull, and Jacquelynne S. Eccles "second-class Cit-izens?" Psychologt Today ry (r983): 40-48.

18. Paul Attewell and Juan Battle, "Home Computers and School Perfor-mance," The Information Society 15 (February, rggg): r*ro. Their anal-ysis was based on data from the U.S. Department of Education's NationalEducational Longitudinal Study of rg88, which surveyed a stratifiedrandom sample of r8,ooo U.S. schools and 8th grade students.

rg. This disparity is not seen in male and female television viewing, radiolistening, or newspaper reading. Statistical Abstract, 565-566.

zo. In tgg6 girls made up only 17 percent of those taking the high schooladvanced placement exam in computer science, see Boston Globe,October15, 1998: A-28 Women were also less likely than men to major in com*puter science in college or pursue graduate work in computer science. Inr9g5 women represented 29 percent ofstudents graduating from collegewith a major in computer science; they comprised z3 percent of studentsenrolled in graduate programs in computer science; see National ScienceFoundation, Science and Engineering Degrees: r966-95 (Washington D.C.:Government Printing Office,

zr. Robert H. Anderson, Tora K. Bikson, Sally Ann Law, and Bridger M.Mitchell, Uniaersal Access to E-mail: Feasibility antl Societal Imptitu-tions (Santa Monica, Calif.: The Rand Corporation, r995). The authorsbased their estimates on U.S. Bureau of the Census Current PopularionSurveys conducted in r9g3 on a random sample of r43,ooo U.S. houscholds.

zz. National Telecommunications and Information Administr-.,rtior.r, I|rIIirt,qthrough the Net II: Nep Data on the Digitul Diz,irir (Washingrorr I).( .

Government Printing Office, lgqU). 'lhis rcporl wxs brrsctl on tlrrl:r corrrpiled by the U.S. (lcnsus llurcrru lhrorrgh 4ll,ooo rloor to tloor srrr\(.\\in Octobcr r<,1t;7.

23. Anderson et a1., Unittersal Access to E-mail.24. National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Falling

through tlte Net.25. Computer Intelligence, Consumer Technologt Index $gg8). This industrl

survey of more than 5o,ooo households estimated that almost 6o percentof households with children own a computer, while 35 percent of housc-holds without children o\4/n a computer. Although, like most industrystudies, this one overestimates the total extent of computer ownership,there is no reason to suspect any bias in the relative estimates of housc-holds with children versus households without children.

26. Robert Kraut, William Scerlis, Tridas Mukhopadlyay, Jane Manning,and Sara Kiesler. "The HomeNet Field Trial of Residential InrernclServices," Comruunications of the ACM 39 (December 1996): 55-63.

27. See, for example, Joseph B. Giacquinta, JoAnne Bauer, andJane E. Levin,Beyonrl Technology's Promise: An Exomination of Childten's EtlucationulComputing at Home (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

28. Attewell and Battle, "Home Computers and School Performance." Asthe authors of this analysis noted, the average increase in student tcstscores associated with a home computer was comparable to that associatctlwith taking an after-school art, music, or dance class or going to scienccor history museums with one's parents.

29. "The Internet Index": http:,/,/new-website.openmarket.com/intindcx/index.cfm. NetDay wiring programs bore no resemblance to the ruraltelephony wiring parties of the early twentieth century. Farmers whowanted telephone service raised the money and supplied their own labor.and materials to string wire and connect to switches. They were ignorcdby the phone industry, politicians, and the medial see Fischer, AmcricrrCalling g4-g8.As Fischer documents, farmers needed and used thcirtelephone service. In the case ofthe schools, many ofthem have nor yclfigured out what to do with their Internet access"

3o. Richard D. Brown, Knowletlge Is Power: The Dffision of Informatiort ittEarly America, rToo-1865 (New York: Oxford University Press, rgllq),z7o-286.

3r. Families listened together to entertainment, self-improvement, and ncnsprograms. On May t6, tgz3, one radio station's broadcast schcdulc irr

cluded several musical programs, "things to tell the houscwif-c alrorrrcooking meatr" a short story, a lecture, and an adventure progrirnt;'l'orrrLewis, Empire ot''the Air (New York: I{arperCollins, rggr), r(rj r6-1 ( )nthe evcning after the attack on Pearl Harbor in Dcce mbe r r g.1 r , llo l)e r(.r.r r I

tlf thc countrl"s .5(r rnillion radigs werc funcd t9 Prcsitlelt l,'rrtlkli1 l)l{o<rscvclt's s1-rccch, scc J,cr,r'is, Iinrltirt rtl'tht .lir, zl3o. I)oprrlrrr :l(.('ount\ol lltt lirrc :tntl rt.llospt.( li\( r.\o(illiorrs t.nrPlr:rsize llrrrrilit.s listt.rrrrrllog('1111'1. llttl ltctltttsc tlrt'rt'is tto lrtrtlr ol stslt'rrrlrlit l'cs(.:lr(l) on lrrrrrilrllttlio listcrtrrrg lrtltrtriot, trt tit rrot krro* llrt (\l(.nl l() rrlritlr tlrt.st.

l)()r I t;l\,tlr or t r csl itl,rlt lr,rst, t.tlt s

\rlrr /r l'ttrt 'ltt ,llt

34.

35.

32. Eleanor Maccoby, "Television: Its Impact on School Childten," Public

Opinion Qrarterly 15 (r95r): +2r-444; M' Jackson-Beeck and John P-

Robinson, "Television Nonviewers: An Endangered Species?," iournolof Consumer Research 7 (r98r): 35G359; G. H. Brody, "Effects of Tele-vision Viewing on Family Interactions: An Observational Study," Family

Relations z9 (April ry8o)'. zfi*zzo. The research literature on the effects

of television viewing on individuals is voluminous and not without con-

troversy. The focus here is only on the effects of television viewing on

time spent in family communication.

33. Computerworld (December 13, rgSz): r5 Representative Newt Gingrich(R-Ga.) was the author of act.

Time [awary 3, 1983): 17.

John P. Robinson, K. Barth, and A. Kohut, "Social Impact Research:

Personal Computers, Mass Media, and Use of Time," Social Science

Computer Reoiew r5 (1997): 65-82.Nick P. Vitalari, Alladi Venkatesh, and K. Gronhaug, "Computing in

the Home: Shifts in the Time Allocation Patterns of Households," Com-

munications of the ACM z8 (May 1985): 5rz-5zz; Robert Kraut, Michael

Patterson, Vicki Lundmark, Sara Kiesler, Tridas Mukopadhyay, and

William Scherlis, "Internet Paradox: A Social Technology that Reduces

Social Involvement and Psychological Well-being?," Americ an Psy c lco lo-

gist 53 (September rg98,): rorT-ro3r. This analysis of data from seventy-

three households shows a statistically significant negative effect of in-creased computer use on a person's family communication centrality,

reducing that centrality by approximately ro percent when controlling

for other variables known to affect communication centrality such as

family size.

37. A. ry82 national probability sample of households found that 30 percent

of those employed outside the household brought work home with them;

those bringing work home were primarily white-collar workers' Robert

E. Kraut, "Predicting the Use of Technology: The Case of Telework,"in Technologt and the Transformation of White-Collar ll/ork, ed. Robert E.

Kraut (Hillsdale, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1987), rr3-r34.

38. Margarethe H. Olson, "Telework: Practical Experience and Future Pros-

pects," in Robert E. Kraut, Technology and the Transformation' t35-t\4'39. Hafner and Lyon, Where Wizards Stay []p Late,ln fact, one version ol

"Adventure" was shipped on the original IBM PC in r98r. Chposky lntlLeonsis, Blue Magic, rro.

4o. Hafner and Lyon, Where Wizards Stay Up Late, zo5-zt.

4r. Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler, ,'Reducing Social context (lucs: l,,lcctr,,rri,

Mail in Organizational Communication," Munttguncnl ,Stitntc.lz, (rr,1ll(r).

t4gz t5t2; Thomas Finholt ancl Lec Sprotrll, "l',lcclrorric (it'ottps rtt'Wttrk,"

Orgunixutitttr '\cicnct r (r99o): .1 r (r-1

.12. On thc strllplt.sitlc, btrsint'sscs rlr('stri\ittg to tttttlttslrttttl rtltrtl il tttt';ttls

to have a "presence" on the Web, including how to display their product

information in a way that will best reach their potential customers.

43. Boston Globe,};4:ay 5, r978, Cr.

44. James E. Katz and Philip Aspden, "A Nation of Strangers?," Cornmuni-

cations of the ACM 4o (December ryg7): 84. In addition, seventeen per-

cent of respondents who had used the Internet for less than a year

reported using it for family contact.

45. Ibid., 85.

46. Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Elec-

tronit Frontier (Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, rgg3): oo.

47. About r8,ooo lJsenet groups and about 85,ooo listservs or mailing lists.

48. Woo Young Chung, "Why Do People Use the Internet?" (Ph.D. disser-

tation, Boston University, rgg8).

49. Dave Hughes, quoted in Rheingold, The Virtual Community, z4r.

5o. For an analysis of discourse strategies in electronic support groups' scc

Jolene Galegher, Lee Sproull, and Sara Kiesler, "Legitimacy, Authoritl 'and Community in Electronic Support Groups," Written Communicatiutt

r5 (r998):49J-5Jo.

5r. Chposky and Leonsis, Blue Magic,65.

52. Kraut et al., "The HomeNet Field Trial," 57; Marita Franzke and Annc

McClard, "Winona Gets Wired: Technical Difficulties in the Homc,"Communications of the ACM 39 (December ry96): 64-66. An analysis ol

reasons why people did not buy a home computer as rapidly as they clitl

a home television could be the topic of a separate chapter. See All:rtli

Venkatesh, "Computers and Other Interactive Technologies filr thc

Home," Communications of the ACM 39 (December ry96): 47-54, l\n'

some possible explanations. The twenty-year diffusion of the persorr'rl

computer (36.6 percent of U.S. households by tggZ) more resembles tht'

diffusion of the telephone into households in the first twenty years tll't ht'

twentieth century than it does the diffusion of the PC into organizltions

in the last twenty years of the century. The telephone also diffuscd rrrtrt lt

more rapidly into business markets than into households; Claudc l"ist lrt'r,

America Calling, 42. One should not conclude from the telephgnt' rrrttl

the personal computer, however, that the household is always slttrt lladopt technology. As Margaret Graham reminded us in chlprcr' .5, ()o

percent of U.S. households acquired a television during the tett rc.rr

period ofthe rg5os.

Chapter 9

r. Scc Arthtrr 'l'. I)icr, llttrhts; 'l'tltphrtrtt l)ittrtttt (Ncrv Yolk: l )otltl' \lt:rtl,rt;5.1),ch:rp. ro, rr.-f.Al:rn\lovcr,"[]rlr:rrr(irorrtlrrtntl lltt'l)t'r't'lolrtrttttlol tlrt''l'clt'lllrorrt,: Sorrrt'llcl:rtiorrslrips rtt lltt''l'ttttr ol lltt'(,tttlttt't." tll'I'ltt.\',,,rrrl lntlt,t,t rtf llt,''lrltplttttrt, r'tl. ltlrit'l tlt'Sol.t l'lol ((,;ttttlrtt,lpit,

36.