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The early history of the telephone in America provides an especially apt analogy for understanding home computing in the 1990s. The telephone was the first of the information technologies to have entered the lives of the average citizen, and we've had almost 120 years to see its impact unfold. As my colleagues Sara Kiesler and Lee Sproull point out, the telephone is important not simply because it makes conversations more efficient or convenient, what they call first-order effects. Rather, the accumulation of these efficiencies over people and time has led to profound second-order effects. The better communication between migrating family members, between factories and managers, and between customers and suppliers were among the factors that lead to suburbanization of America. Some of these same factors, along with improved communication within a single building, supported the growth of cities by allowing firms to house their company headquarters in skyscrapers in Pittsburgh and other cities.
The history of the telephone also shows how easy it is for analysts and marketeers to be misled by early trends in the use of a technology. Like the computer of today, the early telephone was used primarily by managers, doctors, and other business and professional people. Again, like today's computer, when it was first brought into the home, its purpose was to support business functions. For the telephone to be valuable to these users, it had to improve the flow of work. It is not surprising, therefore, that when the phone companies of the day tried to market the telephone to the home, they pushed a theme of household efficiency -- in communication between a working husband and an at-home wife, in home shopping, or in scheduling social visits. They did not foresee that teenagers and farm wives would talk on the phone simply for its own sake. Today's emphasis by banks, phone companies and computer companies on selling computers for home banking, home shopping and telecommuting echoes this earlier misunderstanding of the household. People generally accommodate new technology to their traditional patterns of behavior, and they like to talk.
The other approach to predicting the impact of home computers is to examine how early adopters are using them. The danger here is that early users of any technology are systematically different from the average citizens who come later. Currently people who use home computers and on-line services oriented toward the residential market like America On-line or Compuserve are much more likely than the population as a whole to be financially successful, highly-educated white men in the 20-35 year age bracket . For instance, twenty-five year old men have a greater interest in sexual material than many other segments of society. Will their behavior generalize to the highly varied population who will use home computers and the National Information Infrastructur e later? Probably not. Yet Senator Exon for example, is alarmed enough about the behavior of these people to propose legislation to restrict what in the future will be only a small piece of a generally useful National Information Infrastructure.
The HomeNet Project at Carnegie Mellon University has been examining how a more representative sample of Americans use personal computers and the Internet. The sample consists of 150 people from 48 families in the Pittsburgh area, representing a wide ran ge of incomes, education levels, and ages, who were given personal computers and Internet access. Like other studies of home computing, the HomeNet sample uses its computers for school work and paid employment. And as envisioned by the cable and phone c ompanies, they also use the computers and Internet for entertainment, particularly playing games and logging on to sources of popular culture, ranging from information sources about the Pittsburgh Penguins and other sports teams, to daily updates on the O J Simpson trial, to various bulletin boards discussing sexual topics. What might not have been envisioned by cable and phone companies, however, is the extent to which their use of the Internet is individualized and the extent to which it is based on int erpersonal communication. Different people have different tastes, and the Internet is vast and varied enough that it provides groups of people and sources of information to accommodate almost any taste. For example, an one professional in the sample get s information from and sends information to a group discussing income tax regulation. Another man in the sample compiled a list of over fifty information sources on African Americans that he frequents. A woman has joined an on-line support group dealing with her chronic illness. And many of the teenagers in the sample exchange daily electronic mail with other kids in their high schools, supplementing the endless conversations they have on the telephone and in person.
Can we make predictions about the future of computing in the home from analogies to the past and snippets of current activity? It is relatively easy to predict the evolution of the technology, somewhat harder to predict the evolution of individual behavi or, and virtual impossible to predict effects on social institutions like the family or the entertainment industry.
Computers computers will become even easier to use and will insinuate themselves into many more domestic realms. Unlike special purpose home appliances like the television, video game machine, newspaper, phone, or home banking terminal, computers are pro tean and can mimic many other applications. Once a family has paid the capital costs of buying a computer, its members can use it for communications, writing checks, playing games or many other purposes by buying consumer software for a relatively small sum. As we have seen in the HomeNet sample and in other recent research, once a computer is in the house, its uses grows to touch virtually all domestic realms: chores, entertainment, intra-family communication, community connection, education, and emplo yment.
It is difficult to predict, however, how this spread of computing at home will affect larger social institution. Let us take the case of communication as an example. It is very likely that the computer at home will eventually become an essential communi cations appliance, a cross between the telephone, TV, and newspaper. Yet this enhanced communication can be used in many different ways -- to more easily participate in PTA meetings and other community activities, to electronically bring together stamp e nthusiasts or other special interest groups independent of geography, to create a market for independently produced courses and other education programs, or to distribute nationally syndicated entertainment and information. Thus the spread of home comput ers and their use as communication devices will almost certainly influence the viability of important institutions like the neighborhood, the local newspaper, or the city schools. But whether this influence will be to support or undercut local instituti on in favor of regional, national, or international ones will not be a technological imperative, but will be worked out in the interplay between personal choices by consumers and strategic decisions made by government agencies, banks, newspapers, and tele communications companies.
You may also reach HomeNet at: 412-268-7505 (voice), or by mail at:
Vicki Lundmark, CS
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213