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How 25 Years of Life Online Have Rewired Relationships
From phubbing your friends to sinking your sex life, the internet can undermine the bedrock of your happiness. But there are bright sides too, and ways to reboot the system.
Before the start of the millennium, when computers were just beginning to move from workplaces into homes, middle-schooler Rena Rudavsky and her family took part in a novel psychology experiment: Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University installed a computer in their Pittsburgh dining room and connected it to the internet.
For days, Rena and her family members engaged with this exciting new device. Each took turns emailing, participating in chat rooms, and surfing the fledgling World Wide Web. But oddly, each person kept their reactions to themselves.
As it turned out, among the 73 families who participated in the HomeNet study, the experience of Rena’s family was common. Lead psychologist Robert Kraut said his team was “surprised to find that what is a social technology, unlike television, has kind of antisocial consequences.”
For years, critics of the internet have pointed to the HomeNet study as an early warning of digital’s negative effects on human connection. As Douglas Rushkoff, a…
