Abstract
In Networked, Lee Rainie and Berry Wellman investigate the increasing pervasiveness of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the way they have become embedded in people’s everyday lives through processes of diffusion and domestication. Their objective is to look from different perspectives at how social networks, combined with personal and mobile ICTs, are shaping the ways in which people relate to others, work, play, learn together and seek out information. The result is a thorough analysis of how current ICTs foster online and offline practices and affect, simplify, or complicate our activities.
Making use of a large and articulated set of wisely combined quantitative and qualitative data, the two authors analyse the social and cultural changes that are emerging alongside the technological transformations. While investigating the ramifications of current changes in ICT usage on people’s lives, Rainie and Wellman clarify our understanding of online and offline activities as a continuum in a hyperconnected life. Thus, online and offline practices are never considered separate entities in this book. As a result, the Internet is not conceived as a separate and immersive world but as a means for people to be more connected rather than more isolated from other individuals. In addition, the two authors refuse to embrace pessimistic positions and elaborate on how ICTs supplement instead of replacing human contact.
The main concept addressed in this book is ‘networked individualism’. This term is used to describe how people have changed the ways they interact with each other, therefore becoming increasingly networked as individuals rather than embedded in groups. The authors also use networked individualism to refer to the emergence of a new social operating system. This new system contrasts with the longstanding operating system based on large hierarchical bureaucracies and small groups. The hub of the new social operating system is the person rather than the family, work unit, neighbourhood, or social group. Furthermore, networked individualism not only describes the ways in which people connect, communicate and exchange information, but also underlines societies’ similarity to computer systems in terms of networked structures.
Nevertheless, a clarification is needed: Rainie and Wellman do not claim that the revolutionary social change from small groups to broader personal networks did not exist before the rise of the Internet. They argue instead that the use of the Internet and mobile phones has enhanced the abovementioned social change, giving people new ways to collaborate with each other, solve problems and meet social needs. For this purpose, the authors explain the emergence of this new social operating system as the result of the so-called ‘triple revolution’.
The triple revolution unfolds in three different but strictly related steps: the social network revolution, Internet revolution and mobile revolution. It should be noted that these revolutions are not analysed as merely sequential phases, but as intertwined steps that enhance each other. The social network revolution is investigated first and described more as a shift in how people relate to each other than as a shift in technology. This revolution regards the growing opportunities for people to reach beyond the world of tight groups. Hence, people are increasingly ‘connected with many others in a variety of social circles that provide them with diversified portfolios of social capital’ (p. 55).
With respect to the Internet revolution, Rainie and Wellman focus on the communication power and information-gathering capacities that people have achieved thanks to technological advancements. Particular attention is paid to the three pillars of online engagement: connecting with others, satisfying information queries and sharing content. Furthermore, the importance of the Internet as a participatory medium seems to be a key point in their account of emerging online practices. It is interesting that they also take into account new practices of content production, underlining the blurring of the boundaries between producers and consumers in digital environments and the current reconfiguration of the media landscape.
Finally, the third and last step of the triple revolution, the mobile revolution, is analysed. The importance of this revolution lies in its ability to make ICTs become body appendages. What is particularly compelling in this case is not only the authors’ interpretation of concepts like ‘connected presence’ (Campbell and Park, 2008) and ‘absent presence’ (Gergen, 1991), but also their conceptualization of ‘present absence’ (p. 103). Their attempt is, once again, to demonstrate that even if people are not physically together they are connected with others anyway: ‘people can be physically in one place while their social attention and communication focus is elsewhere’ (p. 102). Besides, individuals have the possibility to be incorporated, even if absent, into group conversations. All this, according to the authors, leads to a renegotiation of the concept of distance, rather than its death, and to the increasing integration of physical and absent presence.
Throughout the book, Rainie and Wellman demonstrate how the ubiquitous nature of ICTs is embedded in people’s lives. They concentrate on relationships, families, work, information creation, and, in particular, on the development of less hierarchical practices and more team-driven activities that are emerging thanks to ICTs. Moreover, in the last part of the book, they provide the reader with suggestions on how to cope with the new social operating system and how to deal with current social and technological changes.
What is remarkable about this book is the narrative style with which the authors sometimes address complex topics to advance the reader’s comprehension of the dynamics under discussion. This is especially evident towards the end of the book, when they develop two scenarios that try to anticipate future technological trends. In these scenarios, an optimistic and a dystopic one, they envisage potential sociotechnical developments and urge the reader to take into account positive and negative aspects of ICTs. Furthermore, they show how some of the changes fostered by networked individualism could be beneficial to people and make society better, whereas others could be even more challenging to personal fulfilment and make society harsher.
Notwithstanding the authors’ arguments and their attempt to maintain a neutral position about the triple revolution, what emerges from this book is a rather positive approach to the usage of ICTs. A lot of attention is paid to the possibilities that ICTs provide to individuals. Indeed, the bright sides of ICTs and of the new social operating system seem to deserve more consideration than the negative ramifications of current sociotechnical changes: ‘being networked is not so scary. Rather, it provides opportunities for people to thrive if they know to maneuver in it’ (p. 255). As a result, the downsides of the triple revolution are not investigated as much as the positive ones. Even though Rainie and Wellman call into question themes like uncertainty, insecurity and opportunities for surveillance, the focus of their reasoning seems to have a propensity for the positive aspects of the networked individualism.
One of the strong points of their perspective about ICTs is their rejection of technological determinism. Instead of focusing on how the design of ICTs determines people’s behaviour, they focus on the implications of information technologies and, in particular, on what they afford the user. They argue and demonstrate throughout the book that even if affordances influence people’s usage of technologies, there can always be dissimilarities between the designed and envisaged user and the real one (Woolgar, 1991). Indeed, the end-user makes use of technologies in many ways, including some never dreamed of by their inventors or designers.
Another fascinating aspect of this book is related to the authors’ account of the emerging necessity of new technological and social skills along with the rise of the new social operating system. In other words, and as Kranzberg’s Second Law states, ‘[i]nvention is the mother of necessity’ (Kranzberg, 1986: 548). This means that every new invention, both technological and in terms of new usage scenarios of already existing tools, creates the necessity to align it both with the advancement of technologies that it supports or complements and with people’s skills and strategies in its usage (Suchman, 2000). This is what Rainie and Wellman strive to explain while they argue that the emerging sociotechnical arrangements require people to develop new strategies and skills for handling problems, coping with current trends, and thriving as networked individuals. Therefore, whether we use new information technologies or exploit old ones in innovative ways, they urge us not only to develop skills from a technological point of view but also from a relational and social one. This is, according to them, the precondition to successful networking and network building in the new social operating system.
To conclude, Networked is a stimulating book that raises interesting questions about current sociotechnical changes and one that could surely be considered as a starting point for investigating the increasingly articulated relationship between information technologies and society.