Virtual World Leads to Lonely Place, Study Says

The Internet has heralded the rise of a brave new world of work, communication and social interaction, but according to a study to be released this week, it has also begun to make the real world a somewhat lonelier and sadder place.

For two years, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University peered into the lives of 93 Pittsburgh families as they waded through the virtual world to experiment with such new methods of communication as e-mail, online chat and Web surfing.

Robert Kraut, a professor of social psychology at Carnegie Mellon and the leader of the study, said he had expected a rise in people’s sense of well-being because most forms of social interaction are beneficial to such social animals as humans.

But what the researchers found instead was a subtle yet discernible shift in the group as a whole. For every hour online came a slight increase in their level of depression and loneliness.

“There isn’t this dramatic impact that says that the Internet will make you crazy,” he said, although he added that the study indicated that overall there was a net negative impact on emotional health.

Kraut said he suspected that even though the virtual world provided many opportunities for social interaction, they ultimately stole little pieces of time from things in the real world.

“People are giving up something to participate in these things online,” he said. “They all take a little time away from talking with family or playing with other kids because it’s easier to have social interaction online. It may be a case of the easy driving out the good.”

The Carnegie Mellon study is the first to measure the emotional effects of the Internet over time.

The $1.5-million project was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Markle Foundation and a host of cutting-edge technology firms, such as Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T; and Intel. It is to be published this week in the American Psychologist, the monthly journal of the American Psychological Assn.

At the beginning of the study in 1995, each of the 169 people filled out a questionnaire examining such issues as their sense of loneliness, level of depression, number of friends and general happiness.

The participants then regularly filled out a questionnaire asking whether they agreed or disagreed with such statements as: “I felt everything I did was an effort,” “I can find companionship when I want it” and “I felt I could not shake off the blues, even with help from my family and friends.”

By using the initial questionnaire, the researchers were able to discard the hypothesis that their results were simply due to the fact that depressed and lonely people tend to gravitate to the Internet in search of virtual companionship.

Sara Kiesler, a professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon and one of the study’s principal investigators, said it was Internet usage alone that led to the weakening of real-world social connections.

Even relatively limited use of the Internet, such as the average participant’s one to three hours a day, led participants to report fewer friends, smaller social circles and increased stress.

But serious addiction appears to be rare, with less than 2% of the participants in the study spending more than 30 hours a week online, Kiesler said.

One reason for the negative effect might have been that using the Internet left less time for the deeper relationships of friends and family, Kraut suggested.

“People are substituting weaker social ties for stronger ones,” Kraut said. “They’re substituting conversations on narrower topics with strangers for conversations with people who are connected to their life.”

Kraut cautioned that all studies of social phenomena involve an enormous range in responses. For example, he said that one person who was online for about 35 hours a week felt happier because she worked at night and normally had no opportunities to talk with people.

“It was social contact she couldn’t have had otherwise,” he said.

One study participant, 17-year-old Andrea Rubinsky of Pittsburgh, told the Associated Press she didn’t feel any worse for her Internet use, although her Internet use has dropped since the study began. She started out using it 10 hours to 15 hours per week but now averages about three hours, she estimated.

“It just also might be I have more things to do now,” Andrea said.

She made no lasting friends through the chat rooms, she said, but does use e-mail to keep up with friends she has met in person.

Her father, Peter, also didn’t feel he ever neglected personal relationships to spend time online.

“I would say there’s a conflict with other things that needed to get done. The grass didn’t get mowed sometimes, and the car didn’t get washed,” Rubinsky said.

Kraut said the results of the study have made him take another look at how his own family uses the Net.

He has limited his teenage son to one hour a day. Kraut said he hasn’t changed his own habit of spending about two hours a day, mainly to write and respond to e-mail.

Kraut said the second phase of the study is now looking at beneficial aspects of Internet use that balance its emotional effect.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.