Still making waves.

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The HomeNet study that brought to public attention the question of whether internet use only generated greater loneliness among its user (Internet Paradox: A Social Technology That Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-Being?) was one of the earliest studies devoted to the social affects of internet use. It's now almost five years, and perhaps should already be well forgotten. It did, after all, earn a great deal of highly justified criticism, even though it was conducted by professionals who knew how to conduct research. (It's fascinating to think that the study focused on 163 people in 71 househoulds. The PPMT study is based on 26,000 users, but hardly seems more convincing because of such a wider base of results.) Considering the amount of criticism directed toward it back when it was published, one might expect that by today it would be well forgotten. (I certainly haven't thought about it much since I first related to it.) But, among numerous reactions that have continued to appear, both the researchers themselves published a lenghty reflection on their original findings, and other researchers have attempted to reformulate the findings, or at least put them in somewhat different perspective. I doubt that something similar is going to happen with PPMT a few years from now.

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