European Perceptions and Use of the Internet

While much of the growing body of research about the Internet focuses on interactions on-line, this paper reports on the results of a 5-country qualitative study which has examined how the Internet relates to, or potentially relates to, the way people and households experience their daily home life. There were some general national differences in overall attitude to the Internet and some minor differences which were culturally specific. But on the whole there was much that was common across all the countries. In a historical perspective, the main finding is the extent to which this innovation has been domesticated. While it has not revolutionised everyday life, it has usually found a stable, though often modest, place within people’s lives within a very short period of time. Few of the middle class samples interviewed in the study totally rejected the Internet and while a number of users had ‘no need’ for it at the moment they thought they might go on-line in the future: so the prospects for the Internet appear good. One key factor which shaped, as well as constrained, usage was the nature of people’s ‘free’ disposable time.4 Analytical framework The form of the research and subsequent analysis builds upon a framework for understanding the consumption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) which has been built up through empirical studies and theoretical elaboration over the course of a number of years. Principally it asks how such ICTs are 1 This research was originally commissioned by NCR Financial Services and was conducted by a team of researchers most of whom had been part of the EMTEL European network. ‘domesticated’, that is to say, the processes by which these technologies are brought into the home and with varying degrees of success integrated into the routines and practices of everyday domestic life (Silverstone et al, 1992; Silverstone 1994; Lie and Sorenson, 1996). It is a framework which takes into account the symbolic meanings of ICTs, both given by wider social representations and negotiated by household members and others. That framework considers how those ICTs are made to fit into or themselves influence the home as a dynamic social space, with its own domestic politics and patterns of temporal and spatial organisation, whose members themselves operate within wider social networks and a world outside the home which provides both opportunities and constraints in their daily lives. Over the course of a number of years this form of analysis has been applied to analyse the lives of particular social groups such as teleworkers (Haddon and Silverstone, 1993), lone parents (Haddon and Silverstone, 1995a) the young elderly (Haddon and Silverstone ,1996) and dual income households (Frissen, 1997). It has been used to focus on specific technologies such as home computers and Minitel (Lie and Sorenson, 1996; Aune, M., 1992; Berg, 1994a, 1994b), cable television (Silverstone and Haddon, 1996) and, extending the analysis beyond the home, the mobile phone (Haddon, 1998). That empirical work has feed into a further elaboration of the careers of technologies over time (Haddon and Silverstone, 1994), gender issues (Haddon, 1995a), how household composition and non-work commitments outside the home affect ICT use (Haddon,1995b) and it has formed the basis for a discussion of wider issues of social inequality (Silverstone, 1996). Turning now to the specific Internet study, the fundamental questions covered the extent to which and ways in which the Internet been domesticated or resisted, its career within the household and factors shaping usage, and what it has come to mean for household members. The research also explored the situation of people who had not yet subscribed to an Internet service provider in order to understand the limits of the Internet’s appeal and barriers to joining the on-line world.