HomeNet: a field trial of residential Internet services

Citation: Robert Kraut, William Scherlis, Tridas Mkhopadhyay, Jane Manning, Sara Kiesler (1996) HomeNet: a field trial of residential Internet services. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems common ground - CHI '96 (RSS)
DOI (original publisher): 10.1145/238386.238531
Semantic Scholar (metadata): 10.1145/238386.238531
Sci-Hub (fulltext): 10.1145/238386.238531
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): HomeNet: a field trial of residential Internet services
Download: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=238386.238531
Tagged: Computer Science (RSS) CHI (RSS)

Summary

This early study of Internet usage suggested that broad demographic groups are interested in Internet use, although teenagers tend to have the greatest interest and to drive family usage patterns. They found difficulties connecting, a skewed range of topics available (i.e. lots of sports), displayed modest interest in porn, communicated heavily, used diverse services, and were often expressive in their uses. A later study (1998) found harmful effects on social well-being.

Theoretical and Practical Relevance

This project was controversial for its claims that the Internet caused psychological harm, and should be read alongside a 2002 retrospective (http://doi.org/10.1111/1540-4560.00248).