Studying the Internet through the Ages

As a tribal elder, I often think back to the state of Internet and society scholarship before the dawning of the Internet. Although sociologist Roxanne Hiltz and computer scientist Murray Turoff had published their prophetic Network Nation in 1978, linking social science with computerized communication, the word “Internet” hadn’t been invented. As one of the first social scientists to be involved in research studying how people communicate online, I started going in 1990 to biannual gatherings of the then-tribe: CSCW (computer supported cooperative work) conferences that were dominated by computer scientists writing “groupware” applications. Lotus Notes applications were in vogue. Lab studies were the predominant research method of choice, summarized in Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler’s Connections (1991). But all that people wanted to deal with were small closed groups. I remember standing lonely and forlorn at the microphone during a comments period at the CSCW 1992 conference. Feeling extremely frustrated (and now prophetic), I exclaimed:

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