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Networked

Networked

The New Social Operating System

Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman

The MIT Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts

London, England

© 2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rainie, Harrison. Networked : the new social operating system / Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-01719-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Social networks. 2. Online social networks. 3. Interpersonal relations. 4. Internet – Social aspects. I. Wellman, Barry. II. Title. HM741.R35 2012 006.7 ′ 54 — dc23 2011038146

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Paulette and Bev

Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xi

I The Triple Revolution 1

1 The New Social Operating System of Networked Individualism 3

2 The Social Network Revolution 21

3 The Internet Revolution 59

4 The Mobile Revolution 81

Interlude: A Day in a Connected Life 109

II How Networked Individualism Works 115

5 Networked Relationships 117

6 Networked Families 147

7 Networked Work 171

8 Networked Creators 197

9 Networked Information 223

Interlude: The Conversation Never Ends 245

III How to Operate in a Networked World, Now and in the Future 253

10 Thriving as a Networked Individual 255

11 The Future of Networked Individualism 275

Notes 303

Index 351

Preface

While writing our book, we had fun with the title. Should we call it “ The Triple Revolution ” of the turn to social networks, the personalized internet, and always-available mobile connectivity? Too complicated, we decided, although that became the title of part I, with a chapter devoted to each of the three revolutions.

Should we call our book “ Networked Individualism ” ? This seemingly contradictory term would confuse browsers — better to explain it inside — and would downplay our interest in the internet and mobile connectivity. And so part II spends a lot of time looking at how the Triple Revolution plays out in relationships, families, work, creativity, and information.

Should we call our book “ The Social Network ” ? Definitely not, for that term resonates too much with Facebook these days — in fact it ’ s the title of the 2010 Oscar-winning movie about the start of Facebook — and we spend a lot of time in this book showing how social networks are much more than Facebook.

So we ’ ve called the book Networked: The New Social Operating System , emphasizing how networks among people have profoundly transformed how we connect, in person and electronically.

Along the way, we made a decision: Although we take the internet and mobile revolutions very seriously, this is not a book about the wonders of the internet and smartphones. Despite all the attention paid to new gadgets, technology does not determine human behavior; humans deter- mine how technologies are used. Moreover, we would be instantly out of date if we took gadgets as our focal point. We are writing this in September 2011, but the book won ’ t be published until 2012, and we are sure that many things will have changed by then and soon thereafter. At the same time, we are confident that one thing holds true: The internet and mobile phones have facilitated the reshaping of people ’ s social networks, enabling them to be larger and more diverse. And they have reconfigured the way

x Preface

people use their networks to learn, solve problems, make decisions, and provide support to each other.

Who knows? By the time you read this, Facebook or tablet computers might have overtaken laptops and desktops, elevating mobile “ apps ” to digital supremacy over the web. But we have tried to get right the basic social processes associated with the Triple Revolution. Although we focus on the societies we know best, the United States and Canada — “ North America ” — the discussion should be more widely useful.

Finally, we note that all revolutions are lumpy. For example, despite all of our revolutionary talk, this book is still a traditional book — whether on paper or as ebook. We dearly hope that the next edition will have hyper- links to all of the articles we cite and the movies we discuss. But there is still a place for a good read. We ’ ve tried to avoid jargon and write for intel- ligent general readers but still keep the specialists happy. We think we ’ ve succeeded, and we hope you like it even more than we ’ ve loved writing it. Please send us comments on our blog, http://www.networkedindividuals .com. Thanks.

Acknowledgments

It is fitting that this book about networks comes from networked teams and via digital interactions. Although coauthors Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman met in person a few times, their basic interactions regarding the book were by email — with copious link insertions and attachments exchanging drafts — and by mobile phone.

In addition, Rainie and Wellman were at the centers of research net- works: Rainie directing the Pew Research Center ’ s Internet & American Life Project and Wellman directing NetLab at the University of Toronto.

In the Pew Internet world and the larger Pew Research Center, it is impossible to say where Lee Rainie ’ s offerings begin and other staffers ’ contributions end. It is a fellowship of daily learning, creation, and kinship with Susannah Fox, Amanda Lenhart, Kristen Purcell, Aaron Smith, John Horrigan, Cornelia Carter, Kathryn Zickuhr, Deborah Fallows, Paul Taylor, Scott Keeter, and Andrew Kohut. For this book, no one ’ s insights and careful editing skills were as important as those of Mary Madden Nesper, who was generous with her time and graceful in her interventions. Along the way, a cadre of Pew Internet researchers made important contributions: Jessica Vitak, Sydney Jones, Amy Tracy Wells, Eliza Jacobs, Lauren Scissors, Xingpu Yuan, Terrell Frazer, Margaret Griffith, and Niki Woodard.

In the wider world of Pew, the financial and substantive support pro- vided by the board of the Pew Charitable Trusts and board of the Pew Research Center were critical. The personal interest and commitment to technology-focused research of Rebecca Rimel, Donald Kimelman, Tim Durkin, and Elizabeth Gross were essential to the work of the Pew Internet project and the contributions its work has made to this book.

Rainie has also learned at the knee of advisers and teachers whose fin- gerprints are all over this material: Janna Anderson, Keith Hampton, Michael Nelson, Lincoln Caplan, Adam Clayton Powell III, Esther Dyson,

xii Acknowledgments

Linda Stone, Clay Shirky, James Fallows, Marjorie Blumenthal, Larry Irving, Bill Tancer, Michael Delli Carpini, danah boyd, Jeffrey Eisenach, David Silver, Eileen Rudden, Jonathan Zittrain, Howard Rheingold, Jill Nishi, Joseph Turow, Paul Parsons, Ed Fouhy, Tom Rosenstiel, Amy Mitchell, Luis Lugo, and Michael Dimock.

At the center of all that matters are Paulette Rainie — shrewd reader, patient sounding board, and sublime partner — and Amanda, Christina, Abigail, and Clay — the children who tolerated with good cheer the distrac- tions that this work created for their father.

At the University of Toronto, NetLab has been at the center of Barry Wellman ’ s web of relationships for decades: spinning ideas, support, and community. Over the years, Professors Ronald Baecker, Dean Behrens, Bill Buxton, Dimitrina Dimitrova, Bonnie Erickson, Arent Greve, Anatoliy Gruzd, Alexandra Marin, Rhonda McEwen, Kakuko Miyata, Diana Mok, the late Judith Merril, Jason Nolan, Anabel Quan-Haase, the late Janet Salaff, Marilyn Mantei Tremaine, and Helen Hua Wang have stimulated our understanding.

They have been complemented by the NetLab diaspora of former doc- toral students who have worked closely with each other — and Wellman — developing many of the ideas and research we discuss here: Susan Bastani, Kristen Berg, Jeffrey Boase, Juan-Antonio Carrasco, Wenhong Chen, Vincent Chua, Rochelle C ô t é , Keith Hampton, Caroline Haythornthwaite, Bernie Hogan, and Tracy Kennedy have been especially vital participants.

Preparing this book has been an intensive and extensive adventure involving many NetLabbers. Justine Abigail Yu coauthored chapters 8 and 9 — “ Networked Creators ” and “ Networked Information ” plus “ The Con- versation Never Ends ” interlude — while Xiaolin Zhuo focused on the cre- ative use of the internet and mobile phones in the Egyptian revolt section of “ Networked Creators. ” Maya Collum wrote the “ A Day in a Connected Life ” interlude; Tracy Kennedy coauthored chapter 6, “ Networked Fami- lies ” ; Wenhong Chen coauthored chapter 7, “ Networked Work ” ; and Chris- tian Beermann and Zack Hayat coauthored chapter 11, “ The Future of Networked Individualism. ”

Other NetLabbers contributed vital research support and writing: Vincent Chua for chapter 2, “ The Social Network Revolution ” ; Mirna Ghazarian for chapter 4, “ The Mobile Revolution, ” chapter 5, “ Networked Relationships, ” and chapter 7, “ Networked Work ” ; Julia Chae, Melissa Godbout, Sharanpreet Kelley, Rhonda McEwen, and Yu Janice Zhang for chapter 5, “ Networked Relationships ” ; Julie Amoroso and Maria Majerski for chapter 6, “ Networked Families ” ; and Anna Brady for chapter 7,

Acknowledgments xiii

“ Networked Work. ” Mohammad Haque researched and compiled the complex trend graphs, especially in the front end of chapter 2, “ The Social Network Revolution. ”

Quietly supporting all of this were infrastructural heroes who made the research sing and the writing dance, most notably: Christian Beermann, Courtney Cardozo, Isabella Chiu, Sabrina Cutaia, Christine Ensslen, Maryam Fazel-Zarandi, Jennifer Kayahara, Natalia Kononenko, Chang Lin, Julia Madej, Mo Guang Ying, Barbara Neves, Ayden Scheim, Annie Shi, Lilia Smale, Sinye Tang, Erin Weinkauf, and Natalie Zinko.

We have all learned a lot from each other, laughed a lot, and grown in understanding.

Most of all, extraordinarily deep thanks to Beverly Wellman who read, thought about, proposed, edited, and debated every word in every draft of every chapter — all with good humor, profound support, and uncommon intellectual sense. She has been Barry ’ s heart, soul, and brain in their dance through life.

A series of research teams have studied East Yorkers three times since 1968. NetLab has returned for a fourth time. We have been thrilled to watch this area of Toronto change in buildings and people. We have been welcomed with generosity and insight. We have tried to repay a part of our debt here.

Our funders have created the conditions under which NetLabbers could think, communicate, and especially find and analyze evidence. Through- out, continuous grants from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada have been the foundation of NetLab ’ s work. In addi- tion, corporate grantors Bell Canada, Intel, Mitel, Nortel Networks, and Telus have provided generous arm ’ s-length support. Starting in 2010, the GRAND Network of Centres of Excellence have also provided NetLab with support for research on networked organizations and interpersonal relations.

NetLab has benefited from the intellectual communities found in the University of Toronto ’ s Centre for Urban and Community Studies and more recently in the Department of Sociology. Scholars don ’ t work alone: They network.

We both thank our supporters and helpers at MIT Press, especially our faithful ally Marguerite Avery and our trusted pathfinders Julia Collins, Mel Goldsipe, and Katie Persons.

We also bow our heads in humble gratitude to the people whose story inspired many of our insights and whose careful reading made our work smarter: Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz.

I The Triple Revolution

1 The New Social Operating System of Networked

Individualism

Early on December 3, 2007, Trudy Johnson-Lenz tripped on her front steps as she was walking to her door in a rain storm. 1 She slammed her head on a rock and was knocked unconscious. Her husband Peter struggled unsuc- cessfully to rouse her and then called the Portland, Oregon, emergency ambulance service for help. By 8 a.m. she was on an operating table at Oregon Health & Science University. Her skull was filling with blood. To give her brain room to swell and heal, neurosurgeons removed a third of her skull, put it in the freezer for later, and removed the blood. The odds of people in her condition surviving, Peter was told, were 50 – 50, and of the survivors, three-quarters have some disability. Yet, beating the odds, Trudy started recovering just twelve hours later.

Before leaving her bedside, Peter used his mobile phone to snap a few digital pictures of her elaborately bandaged head and breathing tubes. He emailed the pictures and a description of the accident at midnight to some friends and was warmed by the reaction. Within 36 hours, nearly 150 people across North America had sent emails, as friends forwarded the news about Trudy to others. People sent poems, expressions of love and encouragement, and offers of help and prayers. Most were sent to Peter ’ s computer. Urgent and logistics-related text messages came to his mobile phone.

Over the next two days, local friends stepped in to help. John Stapp came to the hospital, treated Peter to a bag lunch, and offered to manage a local meal delivery campaign for the couple. Mike Seely, director of the Pacific Northwest Transplant Bank, introduced the couple to a hospital social worker who started prepping Peter with tips about how to navigate the looming insurance, billing, and financial-aid bureaucracy. Martin Tull and Chuck Ensign ran errands and helped prepare their house for Trudy ’ s safety once she was discharged.

4 Chapter 1

More socially and physically distant acquaintances responded in other ways. Buddies who were volunteer DJs on the local jazz radio station, KMHD-FM, announced their concern about Trudy on air and dedicated shows to her. Among their many passions, Peter and Trudy co-moderate an internet forum on jazz vocalist Kurt Elling ’ s website. 2 Several of the radio station jazz aficionados and Elling forum participants took it upon themselves to burn CDs of their favorite music to send Trudy as she recuperated.

Another recipient of a forwarded email was Lisa Kimball, a friend whom they call a “ netweaver extraordinaire. ” 3 Lisa crafted an email in the name of the Johnson-Lenzes that did something they could not bring themselves to do on their own: ask for financial help. Lisa explained to Peter that she understood how hard and embarrassing it is to ask for money, “ but I believe with all my heart that this is what networks are for. ” The Johnson- Lenzes are self-employed and do not have disability plans or group health insurance. Dated December 7, 2007, Kimball ’ s email read:

Dear friends of P+T, [the online nickname Peter and Trudy have used since 1977]

If you ’ re reading this it ’ s because I managed to convince Peter to send it which

makes me very happy even though I ’ m sure it makes Peter feel uncomfortable. I ’ m

sending a check out to Oregon today. We all know about “ pay it forward ” — this is

about “ paying it backward. ”

P+T ’ s work has influenced and enhanced my thinking for years and years . . . so

I feel that I owe them far more than I could ever afford to pay. If we all lived in a

physical village the way we ’ re living in this global one we ’ d be bringing Peter

healthy snacks to the hospital, shoveling their walk, filling the fridge, and doing

whatever else we could to support them during a very difficult time.

Since most of us are far away, we can ’ t do much of that but we can provide some

cash to reduce the stress of figuring out how to deal with the day-to-day while

they ’ re dealing with something way more important. . . . If others have some cre-

ative ideas about more ways we can enact our network being — count me in!

lisa

Jessica Lipnack, another member of P+T ’ s network, put Kimball ’ s “ pay it backward ” email on her blog. 4 Soon, other checks arrived, including some from people who had heard of P+T through these online activities but were unknown to them.

In the following months, there were more medical ups and downs, including a harrowing period after Trudy ’ s skull was repaired when she developed a staph infection and underwent emergency surgery. About the same time, Peter suffered a mild stroke. Local friends were indispensable in helping them get the care they required and supporting their daily needs

The New Social Operating System of Networked Individualism 5

during these periods of incapacity. For instance, it was Donna Tull, the wife of a friend, and a person Peter had never personally met, who heard about Peter ’ s stroke symptoms and convinced him to seek help. Another “ stranger, ” who was the spouse of a friend, is a nutritionist and recom- mended a probiotic that helped Trudy at a time she was on an antibiotic regimen. Many others played direct or indirect roles in the care, thanks to two websites created by Peter and Trudy and their friends. Lotsa Helping Hands is a one-stop web-based domain that allows people to set up helping communities to coordinate meal delivery, transportation, schedules of household chores and visits, and expressions of emotional support. Many of them opted for menus created by Sharon Thorne, a friend who worked at a local grocery store in the deli department and was aware of the couple ’ s special dietary needs. Kimball set up an account on the PayPal e-commerce website to accept donations. By autumn of 2008 about ninety friends, family, and associates had made contributions, including people Peter and Trudy had never met in person and one couple who were complete strang- ers to them. Over thirty people, many of them at a distance, provided meal deliveries, using Lotsa Helping Hands to order from a local deli. 5 This far- flung network used a complex assemblage of email, group software, web- sites, regular ( “ landline ” ) phones, and mobile phones to coordinate. “ We ’ re basically desktop people, ” Peter said, “ but our cell phones came in handy when we were travelling or when I was at the hospital. ”

As Peter and Trudy thought about this outpouring of generosity and altruism, they reflected on the power of social networks and the amount of effort required to maintain effective support. In a series of emails to their friends, they meditated on the “ art of networking ” and the occasion- ally grueling work of making choices and tradeoffs in order to sustain a social network. Some of their emails began with their twenty-first-century update of a little-remembered quote from Shakespeare ’ s Timon of Athens . Timon had said, “ I am wealthy in my friends. ” Their rewrite and occasional email header was, “ We are truly wealthy in our network. ” Tracy and Peter later described their experience for this book ’ s authors:

We have been able to “ get by with a little help from our friends, ” but we had to ask

for help first, and that was a big challenge for us. . . . We have learned so much

about our own resilience and that of our networks. Each relationship is a source of

unique nourishment that has contributed to our healing and recovery. We thought

we knew a lot about the art of networking, but this was a whole new experience.

It ’ s been something of a challenge to manage some of the labor-intensive

mechanics of networking in the current technological environment: choosing which

networking tools to use and when; creating, adding to, updating, and maintaining

6 Chapter 1

email lists; offering opt-outs along the way; finding tools to help with scheduling

food deliveries; and tracking and acknowledging contributions of money, food, and

other gifts.

On the social side, we have wondered how often to send updates, with how

much detail and with photos of what. What ’ s the right balance of optimism, humor,

and candidness? We didn ’ t want to add even more to everyone ’ s overload. We were

also surprised to hear how much people appreciated getting news of our progress

and being included in our circle of support. . . .

Several of you have also told us that we have isolated ourselves too much. Certi-

fied INFJs (Myers-Briggs) 6 who prefer to put things in writing and like to immerse

ourselves in our projects, we unwittingly opted out of the real-time flows of talk

and lots of interaction where trust grows and real work is negotiated. We realize

now that we need to schmooze, circulate, and network a lot more to survive!

This is a time in our lives for radical trust, taking a leap, moving along whatever

paths we take, and seeing what happens. We surrender. Heads to the floor. 7

Networked Individualism

We read Peter and Trudy ’ s account and we wonder about the folks who keep moaning that the internet is killing society. They sound just like those who worried generations ago that TV or automobiles would kill sociability, or sixteenth-century fears that the printing press would lead to information overload. While oy vey -ism — crying “ the sky is falling, ” makes for good headlines — it isn ’ t true. The evidence in our work is that none of these technologies are isolated — or isolating — systems. They are being incorporated into people ’ s social lives much like their prede- cessors were. People are not hooked on gadgets — they are hooked on each other. When they go on the internet, they are not isolating them- selves. They are conversing with others — be they emailers, bloggers, Facebookers, Wikipedians, or even organizational web posters. When people walk down the street texting on their phones, they are obviously communicating. Yet things are different now. In incorporating gadgets into their lives, people have changed the ways they interact with each other. They have become increasingly networked as individuals, rather than embedded in groups. In the world of networked individuals, it is the person who is the focus: not the family, not the work unit, not the neighborhood, and not the social group.

So Peter and Trudy ’ s account of how they used their social networks is not only a heartwarming tale. It is also the story of the new social operat- ing system we call “ networked individualism ” in contrast to the longstand- ing operating system formed around large hierarchical bureaucracies and

The New Social Operating System of Networked Individualism 7

small, densely knit groups such as households, communities, and work- groups. We call networked individualism an “ operating system ” because it describes the ways in which people connect, communicate, and exchange information. We also use the phrase because it underlines the fact that societies — like computer systems — have networked structures that provide opportunities and constraints, rules and procedures. The phrase echoes the reality of today ’ s technology: Most people play and work using computers and mobile devices that run on operating systems. Like most computer operating systems and all mobile systems, the social network operating system is personal — the individual is at the autonomous center just as she is reaching out from her computer; multiuser — people are interacting with numerous diverse others; multitasking — people are doing several things; and multithreaded — they are doing them more or less simultaneously.

Peter and Trudy rebuilt their world through their own resourcefulness and with the help of many allies. They used varied branches of their network operating system to find support, solve problems, and improve their knowledge and skills. The actions they took to recover were different from the actions that would have been used by their parents and grand- parents. Those actions took place on a different human scale from the one that would have been available to their ancestors facing similar traumas. Those ancestors were embedded in groups and had little opportunity to navigate life by maneuvering through their networks. Yet, to networked individuals like Peter and Trudy, such art is second nature. They worked hard and thoughtfully to take advantage of the wide-ranging skills that existed in their extended social network — their closest friends, plus their more varied and extended system of associates, plus the new entrants into the network who were connected to them through personal, participatory media.

By Peter and Trudy ’ s reckoning their network has several thinly con- nected segments. Because their friends traveled in different milieus, their friends needed contact and coordination in order to help. About twenty of those who helped were close friends and family. Beyond that inner circle was a ring of people who pitched in to help with specific issues even though they were not bosom buddies of the couple. Another ten or so were medical professionals, while another ten or so beyond that were parapro- fessionals in the health-care world, the insurance world, the social-work world, or the patient-advocate world. And there were many part-time helpers, contributors, and well-wishers. Some in the network felt tied to the couple because of their common professional interests. Others were linked through their shared passion for jazz. Still others were linked because

8 Chapter 1

they live in Portland — proximity still counts for something, even in the networked age. Beyond them, hundreds of others found the wherewithal to offer help from afar by sending good wishes, advice, money, and job contacts. Collaboratively, this far-flung network made contributions to the couple ’ s emotional, financial, and logistical well-being.

The networked life epitomized by Peter and Trudy ’ s story is different from the all-embracing village that is usually held up as the model of com- munity. In Peter and Trudy ’ s case, the people who were most useful in providing advice on medical decisions often did not know the people who provided emotional and social nourishment. Nor did all network members work closely in sync in providing assistance. Nevertheless, they found ways to work together in helping the couple wrestle with their daily — and future — lives.

So, what ’ s new about this social reality? Haven ’ t many communities pitched in before to help their members? Of course. Yet the way in which Peter and Trudy ’ s network did this is quite different from the way their forebears ’ communities would have. In generations past, people usually had small, tight social networks — in rural areas or urban villages — where a few important family members, close friends, neighbors, leaders and com- munity groups (churches and the like) constituted the safety net and support system for individuals.

This new world of networked individualism is oriented around looser, more fragmented networks that provide succor. Such networks had already formed before the coming of the internet. Still, the revolutionary social change from small groups to broader personal networks has been power- fully advanced by the widespread use of the internet and mobile phones. However, some analysts fear that people ’ s lesser involvement in local community organizations — such as church groups and bowling leagues 8 — means that we live in a socially diminished world where trust is lower, societal cohesion is reduced, loneliness is widespread, and people ’ s collec- tive capacity to help one another is at risk. While such fears go back at least one hundred fifty years, the coming of the internet has increased them and added new issues: Are people huddling alone in front of their screens? If they are connecting with someone online, is it a vague simula- crum of real community with people they could have seen, smelled, heard, and touched in the “ good old days ” ?

The evidence suggests that those with such fears have been looking at the new world through a cloudy lens. Our research supports the notion that small, densely knit groups like families, villages, and small organiza- tions have receded in recent generations. A different social order has