Nice that the word is -- finally -- getting out.
Dr DePaulo also has a longer version in Psychology Today.
My expectation is that HuffPo will get more media play
Barry Wellman

See below:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 03:03:02 -0700
From: Bella DePaulo depaulo@psych.ucsb.edu
To: wanghua@usc.edu, wellman@chass.utoronto.ca
Subject: thanks for your important work

So good to see that myth of growing social isolation getting debunked:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bella-depaulo/americans-have-more-frien_b_658903.html

--Bella DePaulo

Colleagues -- "From the Beginning: Children as Subjects and Agents of
Surveillance" by Gary T. Marx and Valerie Steeves and related articles in a
special double issue of Surveillance & Society (7/3/4) devoted to the
surveillance of children may be of interest. The article begins with a
satirical "Urgent Message to All Parents from PISHI" [Parents Insist on
Surveillance Help Inc.]", a fictitious organization urging responsible
parents to make maximal use of control and protection technologies.
Illustrative technologies are discussed, empirical and ethical questions
raised and concepts and theoretical perspectives to aid academic and policy
analysis are offered. As always, critical suggestions are welcomed.  Gary

http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/childrenandsurveillance.html Surveillance &
Society 7(3/4): 192-230)

www.garymarx.net

This news is excellent! When the ASR article appeared I was swamped with calls from reporters and could only say the data do not show what you think they show because I had no trend data to use to counter them. I remember discussing this particular measurement issue all the way back when Ron Burt was working up the network questions for the GSS in the late 70's or early 80's. Discussing important problems is not the same as discussing personal problems and people do both with people who aren't friends! In one case Lynn even got involved and told the reporter my interpretation was right and his was wrong, but he still printed the misleading story and headline. Good work Barry!

Rebecca G. Adams
Associate Provost for Planning & Assessment
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
P.O. Box 26170
Greensboro, NC 27402-6170

Email: Rebecca_Adams@uncg.edu
Voice: 336-334-3578
FAX: 336-334-4342

-----citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org wrote: -----

To: communication and information technology section asa <citasa@list.citasa.org>, aoir list <air-l@aoir.org>, social networks list <socnet@lists.ufl.edu>
From: Barry Wellman <wellman@chass.utoronto.ca>
Sent by: citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org
Date: 07/26/2010 08:19AM
cc: helen wang hua <wanghua@usc.edu>
Subject: [CITASA] thanks for your important work (fwd)

Nice that the word is -- finally -- getting out.
Dr DePaulo also has a longer version in Psychology Today.
My expectation is that HuffPo will get more media play
Barry Wellman

See below:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 03:03:02 -0700
From: Bella DePaulo <depaulo@psych.ucsb.edu>
To: wanghua@usc.edu, wellman@chass.utoronto.ca
Subject: thanks for your important work

So good to see that myth of growing social isolation getting debunked:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bella-depaulo/americans-have-more-frien_b_658903.html

--Bella DePaulo

_______________________________________________
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org

Those who are interested in the general idea of children as agents of surveillance and in the usually ignored forms of reciprocal surveillance -- as well as the issue of why there seems to be relatively little public outrage over the proliferation of surveillance technologies in recent years may be interested in the the following articles by Joshua Meyrowitz:

"We Liked to Watch: Television as Progenitor of the Surveillance Society," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 625, September 2009, 32-48. [Special issue edited by Elihu Katz and Paddy Scannell on The End of Television? Its Impact on the World (So Far).] http://ann.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/625/1/32

Those interested in multiple theoretical perspectives from which to view surveillance and other communication technologies might also be interested in his

"Power, Pleasure, Patterns: Intersecting Narratives of Media Influence," Journal of Communication, Vol. 58, December 2008, 641-663.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121588367/abstract

Joshua recommends David Bell's recent (2009) article on "Surveillance is Sexy" (Surveillance & Society 6:3, 2009) as an intriguing example of the "pleasure" dimensions of surveillance, exploring aspects of self-exposure as a form of resistance against the "surveillance society."  http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/ojs/index.php/journal/article/view/sexy/sexy

Professor Joshua Meyrowitz
Department of Communication
Horton Social Science Center
20 Academic Way
University of New Hampshire
Durham NH 03824-3586 USA

Office & Voice Mail: 603-862-3031
H-Fax: 603-868-6123 / O-Fax: 603-862-1913
joshua.meyrowitz@unh.edu

My students and I have a forthcoming paper on core networks and new media that will be published in iCS. The paper builds on the Pew report we released last November. We replicated the GSS "important matters" question with a national phone sample, and added a second name generator on people who are "especially significant". The findings are clear, in terms of Internet and mobile phone use there is no relationship to social isolation, and some evidence of a positive relationship with core network size and diversity - although maybe not for the reasons you would expect.  We did not find the same dramatic increase in social isolation as the ASR paper, but we did find networks of similar size and diversity. I have included the abstract and a link to a preprint of the paper, the final version should be out on the iCS website soon, but will not be in print until February:

Hampton, Keith N., Lauren F Sessions, and Eun Ja Her (2011). Core Networks, Social Isolation, and New Media: Internet and Mobile Phone Use, Network Size, and Diversity. Information, Communication & Society 14(1).

Evidence from the U.S. General Social Surveys (GSS) suggests that during the past twenty years, people have become increasingly socially isolated and their core discussion networks have become smaller and less diverse. One explanation offered for this trend is the use of mobile phones and the Internet. This study reports on the findings of a 2008 survey that replicates and expands on the GSS network methodology to explore the relationship between the use of new technologies and the size and diversity of core networks. The findings conflict with the results of the 2004 GSS, i.e., we find that social isolation has not increased since 1985. However, the current study supports the conclusions that the size of core networks has declined and the number of nonkin in core networks has diminished. Mobile phone and Internet use, especially specific uses of social media, were found to have a positive relationship to network size and diversity. In discussing these trends, we speculate that specific social media provide for a "pervasive awareness" within personal networks that has increased the specialization of close ties. We argue that this same pervasive awareness provides for heightened surveillance of network members, the result of which is a higher level of perceived diversity within networks based on metrics that include political affiliation.
http://www.mysocialnetwork.net/downloads/iCS18.pdf

Keith N. Hampton
Assistant Professor
Annenberg School for Communication
University of Pennsylvania
3620 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

www.mysocialnetwork.net
Twitter: mysocnet

From: citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org [mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org] On Behalf Of Charles Kadushin
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 10:03 AM
To: citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: Re: [CITASA] thanks for your important work (fwd)

"important problems" has been a problem (pun intended) ever since the item has been formulated. The issue of course is finding a single name generator that covers what we mean by friendship, discussion, contact and what have you. The original name generators (see Wellman, Barrry. 1993. An egocentric network tale: a comment on Bien et al. (1991). Social Networks 15 (4):423- 436. for a history) had considerably more than one generator.
By and large, single name name generators cannot cover what we have in mind, just as a single survey item hardly constitutes a scale. However, practicality rules in developing an omnibus survey and we should be aware of the limitations of a single item, statistical errors and other problems aside.

On 7/27/2010 8:41 AM, Rebecca Adams R_ADAMS wrote:
This news is excellent!  When the ASR article appeared I was swamped with calls from reporters and could only say the data do not show what you think they show because I had no trend data to use to counter them.  I remember discussing this particular measurement issue all the way back when Ron Burt was working up the network questions for the GSS in the late 70's or early 80's. Discussing important problems is not the same as discussing personal problems and people do both with people who aren't friends! In one case Lynn even got involved and told the reporter my interpretation was right and his was wrong, but he still printed the misleading story and headline.  Good work Barry!

Rebecca G. Adams
Associate Provost for Planning & Assessment
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
P.O. Box 26170
Greensboro, NC  27402-6170

Email:  Rebecca_Adams@uncg.edumailto:Rebecca_Adams@uncg.edu
Voice:  336-334-3578
FAX:    336-334-4342

-----citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org wrote: -----
To: communication and information technology section asa citasa@list.citasa.orgmailto:citasa@list.citasa.org, aoir list air-l@aoir.orgmailto:air-l@aoir.org, social networks list socnet@lists.ufl.edumailto:socnet@lists.ufl.edu
From: Barry Wellman wellman@chass.utoronto.camailto:wellman@chass.utoronto.ca
Sent by: citasa-bounces@list.citasa.orgmailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org
Date: 07/26/2010 08:19AM
cc: helen wang hua wanghua@usc.edumailto:wanghua@usc.edu
Subject: [CITASA] thanks for your important work (fwd)

Nice that the word is -- finally -- getting out.
Dr DePaulo also has a longer version in Psychology Today.
My expectation is that HuffPo will get more media play
Barry Wellman

See below:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 03:03:02 -0700
From: Bella DePaulo depaulo@psych.ucsb.edumailto:depaulo@psych.ucsb.edu
To: wanghua@usc.edumailto:wanghua@usc.edu, wellman@chass.utoronto.camailto:wellman@chass.utoronto.ca
Subject: thanks for your important work

So good to see that myth of growing social isolation getting debunked:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bella-depaulo/americans-have-more-frien_b_658903.html

--Bella DePaulo

CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.orgmailto:CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org

CITASA mailing list

CITASA@list.citasa.orgmailto:CITASA@list.citasa.org

http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org

--

Charles Kadushin

Distinguished Scholar, Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies

Visiting Research Professor Sociology

Brandeis University

Telephone: 212-865-4369

http://home.earthlink.net/~ckadushin/index.html

http://www.cmjs.org//http://www.cmjs.org/

Hello CITASA buddies.

My graduate student, Ibrahim Yucel, will be attending the ASA for the first
time, and without me.
He is presenting his work in Gustavo¹s session on Sunday morning. The title
of his paper is, ³Talking over the crowd: A Discourse Analysis on comments
from Special Topic Blogs.²
I am not attending the ASA this year because the moving truck is coming to
haul away all my stuff on Friday to move us into our new house next Tuesday.
Bad timing.

I have a favor to ask of those of you attending the ASA this year. If you
spot him wandering around, please introduce yourself and make him feel
welcome. The ASA can be a big, scary place to the first-timers. I¹ve
attached his picture so you can spot his smiling face.

Also, would the current list managers please add him to the CITASA list so
he can receive updates on CITASA activities while in Atlanta?

Thanks and Happy Conferencing!

Andrea H. Tapia, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Sciences and Technology
Affiliate Associate Professor of (1) Labor and Industrial Relations, (2)
Sociology and (3) Science and Technology Studies
Penn State University

Check out my pages!
http://andreatapia.net
http://cohort.ist.psu.edu
http://evosta.ist.psu.edu
http://emerse.ist.psu.edu
http://ist.psu.edu