Being wired helps you connect

Netville offered a vision of a wired community

People who spend time online are not sad, lonely individuals with no social life.

Quite the opposite, argues Professor Keith Hampton, an expert in cyber-sociology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"The social impact of new communications technologies is a greater number of social ties, more diverse social ties, more support," he said.

"It doesn't cut into your phone communication. It doesn't interfere with your face-to-face contact. It just increases communication," Professor Hampton told the BBC programme, Go Digital.

Binding communities

Various studies have suggested that people who spend time online are more vulnerable to unhappiness and loneliness.

The internet is just another medium that any of us use to communicate with friends and family

Keith Hampton, MIT

One report by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University suggested that even spending an hour a week surfing the internet could increase depression.

But in his research on the relationship between technology, social relationships and the urban environment, Professor Hampton has found that the internet can serve to bind a community together.

"It's all garbage," he said of studies labelling net users as depressed or lonely individuals.

He argues that the key difference between his research and other studies is that he sees the internet as part of people's everyday lives.

"The internet is just another communication medium that any of us use to communicate with friends and family," he said.

"If you look at it as just another technology that provides you with access to people, you see that communication online leads to more communication, in person or on the phone."

Unique neighbourhood

Professor Hampton is a pioneer of cyber-sociology.

For his doctorate, he spent two years as a member of the Netville project, a wired neighbourhood in the suburbs of Toronto.

Hampton: Expert in cyber-sociology

The community was built from the ground up with a high-speed computer network - offering fast internet access - a videophone, an online jukebox, online health services, local discussion forums and entertainment and educational software.

Professor Hampton found that living in a wired community encouraged greater community involvement, strengthened relationships with neighbours and family, and helped maintain ties with friends and relatives living farther away.

"Netville was a unique situation," he said. "It allowed people to form social relationships when they moved in and solve all sorts of problems they encountered when they moved to the new suburban community.

"When you move into a new home, some of the first questions are: where can I find a babysitter, where can I find the best pizzeria? All these questions were answered online with information by existing residents."

Ironically, once the research project was over, the companies that had provided the technology that went into people's homes decided to take it all out.

Faced with the loss of their technology infrastructure, the residents pulled together to replace what they had lost.

"They now all have cable modem access and they have replicated their neighbourhood e-mail list," said Professor Hampton.

"These were the most important technologies to them - broadband access to the internet and simple e-mail technology that allows you to communicate with your neighbours."