According to a recent paper by Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and Matthew E. Brashears, the number of Americans saying they have no one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled from 1985 to 2004. The study used the same questions from the 1984 survey to determine how social networks have changed over time. The core question was:

“From time to time, most people discuss important matters with other people. Looking back over the last six months—who are the people with whom you discussed matters important to you? Just tell me their first names or initials.”

The study found that the average number of people in our personal networks has decreased from 2.94 in 1985 to 2.08 in 2004. They also found that women’s social networks are more likely to involve non-kin: As women have moved from homemakers to the workforce, they have increased their number of confidants outside the family unit.

The authors offer several caveats for the extraordinary change in less than two decades: a change in the interpretation of the question, a different view of what is “important” in a post-9-11 world, and finally, actual differences in the way we interact.

Indeed, we do work more hours, commute longer distances, and communicate in new ways. All of these are likely contributors to the change. The Internet has made it possible to remain geographically dispersed while finding people with similar interests. Barry Wellman calls this concept “networked individualism.”

Communication via the Internet is also more public: Diaries once under lock and key are now blogs with hundreds of readers. A note once left on a work colleague’s desk is now an email with several other recipients copied. Open communication might make the idea of a confidant a less relevant concept. Asking someone in an Internet chat room for advice on how to deal with a parent with Alzheimer’s certainly qualifies as “discussing an important matter” even the person who responds remains anonymous.

Perhaps a recent paper from the Pew Internet & American Life Project puts it best:

“Instead of disappearing, people’s communities are transforming: The traditional human orientation to neighborhood- and village-based groups is moving towards communities that are oriented around geographically dispersed social networks. People communicate and maneuver in these networks rather than being bound up in one (solitary) community.”

Source: “Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades.” Miller McPherson Lynn Smith-Lovin, Matthew E. Brashears; American Sociological Review, 2006, VOL. 71 (June:353–375)

The Lerner Group is finalizing the purchase of the Washington Nationals today. To celebrate, they rolled out the red carpet last weekend to re-introduce the team to the nation’s capital.

Attendance is down this year for the Nationals. At 43-56 they’re really not very good. But neither is their stadium. Until 2007, when their new $611 million stadium is completed, they continue to play at RFK.

RFK Stadium is a vastly outmoded relic. The Nationals played their first season there in 2005, and the population of the nation’s capitol was so happy to have a baseball team again that we tolerated the stadium’s shortcomings.

But the 2006 season shows little improvement. In Congo, they can pay bills with cell phones, but at RFK, not a single concession even accepts credit cards. There are a total of 6 ATMs for a stadium that holds 56,000. That’s less than 1 ATM for every 9,000 (potential) fans. A recent survey showed one ATM with 20 people waiting, and the second with more than 30. Let’s hope that PNC Bank won’t be building the bathrooms at the new stadium.

But you can still have a cheap day at the ballpark. The Lerner group introduced $3 outfield tickets. Unfortunately, the efficiency of the Internet still doesn’t apply to the ticketing world. Despite the fact that Major League Baseball acquired Ticketmaster rival Tickets.com in 2005, fees look more like collusion than competition. Once you add the fees to your $3 outfield ticket, the total comes to $9.25. Fees more than tripled the price of the ticket!

Of course, you can save yourself $1.75 not printing the tickets yourself… although MLB wouldn’t recommend it.

The term net neutrality has been the subject of half-page ads in the Washington Post, bumper stickers, even ironic t-shirts. Unfortunately, all of the advertising, partisanship, and hipsters may be obscuring the importance of a difficult debate about the evolution of the Internet. If the father and grandfather of the Internet can’t agree, what can the rest of us do?

Let’s try to understand the term net neutrality. When a consumer wants a good, service or information from the Internet, they surf an almost infinite number of web sites. Here’s the only catch: in order for a consumer to have access, they have to pay for the connection. In return consumers have equal access to all web sites.

But some broadband providers have started complaining that not content is alike. The consumer may be requesting enormous amount of data in a streaming movie, or a few 1s and 0s in an email message. So the broadband providers want to start charging the content producers for their bandwidth usage. Sure, the producers don’t have to pay these tolls, but if they don’t their competitors’ web sites might load faster.

Content providers assert that they are merely responding to consumers by sending the information they request. Broadband providers claim that with these new fees, they can build even bigger, faster networks that consumers will love.

So the producers of content are actively lobbying Congress to push for what they call “net neutrality.” This so-called neutrality is actually regulatory legislation that would prevent broadband providers from a discriminating against particular companies. It would apply common carrier rules to the Internet, ensuring that all Internet traffic is managed on equal terms, protecting startups that might not be able to compete with bigger, faster web sites.
But wait a second, it’s not just Internet giants such as Google that use an enormous amount of bandwidth, so do newcomers such as youtube.

Let’s say I’m at a startup and our business strategy is to stream movies faster than anyone else. We’ve allocated half our budget to pay Comcast cable for broadband priority. And then a pokey competitor sues. How long would it take the courts to determine what’s fair? Would bad network neutrality legislation stifle innovation more than the status quo? (Just ask Ted Stevens.) Many techies are opposed to net neutrality because they’re worried that the government just wouldn’t move fast enough if there were net neutrality violations.

But if broadband carriers start charging content providers for bandwidth, what’s to prevent them from acting more like monopolistic cable companies? Couldn’t they start packaging Internet “channels” based on which company is bidding the most? Maybe, but not for long. Current broadband providers are still under the supervisory eye of Department of Justice (anti-trust), FCC (content) and FTC (consumer protection).

So it seems to come down to the market of broadband providers. If our goal is consumer choice and innovation, then we need more competition between the carriers. How much is there? Only about 50% of Americans have two or more broadband options.

How does the U.S. compare to the rest of the world? Let’s have a look at the statastic. Even though the U.S. is twelfth in the percentage of the population with broadband connectivity, we do have three competing broadband options: cable, DSL, and satellite. As a nation, we have a healthy broadband competition relative to the rest of the world… even if it doesn’t seem that way in your neck of the woods.

Sources: Statastic research, OECD

The Internet has been available in the developing world almost as long as it’s been here in the U.S. Internet cafes were popping up in Cameroon in the mid 1990s before the local Peace Corps volunteers even knew how to use them. Penetration rates, however, lag predictably behind the richer countries in the north. But the lack of telecommunications infrastructure is something of a blessing in disguise: developing nations have the potential to leapfrog technologies. Cell phones and VOIP prove easier than installing costly land lines, and there’s no need for telephone poles and copper cable if governments can create WiFi and WiMAX zones around burgeoning urban areas.

Wired Magazine recently featured a map with average prices for one hour of online access in Internet cafes around the world. Statastic used the average hourly price as a percentage of daily wages to provide a glimpse into the state of Internet access in a selection of low to middle income countries.

The chart below begs several questions. Could lowering the cost of public Internet access lead to higher usage rates? What is the demographic profile of the average Internet user in the developing world? Should multi-lateral donors subsidize the cost of public Internet access?

Among this small sample, D.R. Congo, Nigeria and Kenya are the three most expensive places for locals to access the Internet, relative to income. They also have some of the lowest usage rates. But these countries have several other characteristics in common: low literacy, high rates of corruption, and a high level of inequality. These countries may simply have a limited number of Internet cafes that cater to tourists, corrupt officials and the wealthy locals who are lucky enough to have an education and a job.

Brazil’s usage rates are surprisingly high. Perhaps Brazil’s high inequality can help explain how 14% of Brazilians have regular access to the Internet despite the fact that one hour in an Internet café costs nearly one sixth of average daily wages. Just who are those fortunate 14%?

Sources:
http://internetworldstats.com
WIRED Magazine, May 2006