The social impact of broadband household internet access
The social impact of broadband household internet access
Broadband changes everything. Or so we are told. But does it? There is only one way to find out - follow people who move from narrowband to broadband internet access and see what changes. This paper reports exactly this kind of analysis using data from a two wave European panel study (e-Living) and the lagged endogenous regression approach to see if switching to broadband increases the time spent online, the use of online communication services, the breadth of internet activities and the amount of online spend, and whether it decreases the time spent watching TV and the level of social leisure activities. The results suggest, in the main, that switching to broadband made little difference for this group of early broadband adopters who were already heavy internet users. There was no evidence of an online spend or social leisure substitution effect although there was evidence of a reduction in time spent watching television, and an increase in email in use, time spent online and breadth of internet use. In all cases however it was the previous levels of behaviour that were the most significant and switching to broadband was, in general, one of the least strong effects.
broadband, social impact, social capital, e-commerce, longitudinal household panel
5-24
Anderson, B.
01e98bbd-b402-48b0-b83e-142341a39b2d
February 2008
Anderson, B.
01e98bbd-b402-48b0-b83e-142341a39b2d
Anderson, B.
(2008)
The social impact of broadband household internet access.
Information, Communication and Society, 11 (1), .
(doi:10.1080/13691180701858810).
Abstract
Broadband changes everything. Or so we are told. But does it? There is only one way to find out - follow people who move from narrowband to broadband internet access and see what changes. This paper reports exactly this kind of analysis using data from a two wave European panel study (e-Living) and the lagged endogenous regression approach to see if switching to broadband increases the time spent online, the use of online communication services, the breadth of internet activities and the amount of online spend, and whether it decreases the time spent watching TV and the level of social leisure activities. The results suggest, in the main, that switching to broadband made little difference for this group of early broadband adopters who were already heavy internet users. There was no evidence of an online spend or social leisure substitution effect although there was evidence of a reduction in time spent watching television, and an increase in email in use, time spent online and breadth of internet use. In all cases however it was the previous levels of behaviour that were the most significant and switching to broadband was, in general, one of the least strong effects.
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More information
Published date: February 2008
Keywords:
broadband, social impact, social capital, e-commerce, longitudinal household panel
Organisations:
Energy & Climate Change Group
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 350367
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/350367
ISSN: 1369-118X
PURE UUID: f9606934-7fb9-4acf-b93c-c2a22d453419
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Date deposited: 25 Mar 2013 16:37
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 13:24
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