Wenhong Chen

Bio: Wenhong Chen is an academic researcher from University of Texas at Austin. The author has contributed to research in topics: The Internet & Digital divide. The author has an hindex of 24, co-authored 51 publications receiving 2791 citations. Previous affiliations of Wenhong Chen include Duke University & University of Toronto.

The Social Affordances of the Internet for Networked Individualism

Abstract: We review the evidence from a number of surveys in which our NetLab has been involved about the extent to which the Internet is transforming or enhancing community. The studies show that the Internet is used for connectivity locally as well as globally, although the nature of its use varies in different countries. Internet use is adding on to other forms of communication, rather than replacing them. Internet use is reinforcing the pre-existing turn to societies in the developed world that are organized around networked individualism rather than group or local solidarities. The result has important implications for civic involvement.

Digital inequalities and why they matter

Abstract: While the field of digital inequality continues to expand in many directions, the relationship between digital inequalities and other forms of inequality has yet to be fully appreciated. This article invites social scientists in and outside the field of digital media studies to attend to digital inequality, both as a substantive problem and as a methodological concern. The authors present current research on multiple aspects of digital inequality, defined expansively in terms of access, usage, skills, and self-perceptions, as well as future lines of research. Each of the contributions makes the case that digital inequality deserves a place alongside more traditional forms of inequality in the twenty-first century pantheon of inequalities. Digital inequality should not be only the preserve of specialists but should make its way into the work of social scientists concerned with a broad range of outcomes connected to life chances and life trajectories. As we argue, the significance of digital inequalities is...

The global digital divide - within and between countries

Abstract: The diffusion of the Internet (and its accompanying digital divides) has occurred at the intersection of both international and within-country differences in socioeconomic, technological and linguistic factors. Telecommunications policies, infrastructures and education are pr erequisites for marginalized communities to participate in the information age. High costs, English language dominance, the lack of relevant content, and the lack of technological support are barriers for disadvantaged communities using computers and the Internet. The diffusion of Internet use in developed countries may be slowing and even stalling, when compared to the explosive growth of Internet access and use in the past decade. With the proliferation of the Internet in developed countries, the digital divide between North American and developed countries elsewhere is thus narrowing, but remains substantial. The divide also remains substantial within almost all countries, and is widening even as the number and percentage of Internet users increases, as newcomers to the Internet are demographically similar to those already online. People, social groups and nations on the wrong side of the digital divide may be increasingly excluded from knowledge-based societies and economies.

Sharing, Liking, Commenting, and Distressed? The Pathway Between Facebook Interaction and Psychological Distress

Abstract: Studies on the mental health implications of social media have generated mixed results. Drawing on a survey of college students (N=513), this research uses structural equation modeling to assess the relationship between Facebook interaction and psychological distress and two underlying mechanisms: communication overload and self-esteem. It is the first study, to our knowledge, that examines how communication overload mediates the mental health implications of social media. Frequent Facebook interaction is associated with greater distress directly and indirectly via a two-step pathway that increases communication overload and reduces self-esteem. The research sheds light on new directions for understanding psychological well-being in an increasingly mediated social world as users share, like, and comment more and more.

The Global Villagers: Comparing Internet Users and Uses Around the World

Abstract: As the Internet evolves, its users and uses grow and diversify globally. Data from a National Geographic web survey enables us to compare how people in different parts of the world use the Internet. The widest digital divide is between North America and the rest of the world, and secondarily between other developed countries and developing countries. Substantial differences exist between who uses the Internet and how long they have been using it. The lower the percentage of people using the Internet in a region, the more elite the people using the Internet. However, newcomers to the Internet throughout the world are less likely to be elite and are more likely to resemble the diverse nature of North American Internet users. By contrast to regional differences in the characteristics of users, the Internet is used in similar ways worldwide. Throughout the world, frequent users tend to use the Internet in multiple ways – socially, instrumentally and recreationally and to combine it with faceto-face and telephone contact. Moreover, frequent users of the Internet have a more positive sense of online community with friends and family. Acknowledgments We thank Xingshan Cao, Keith Hampton, Eszter Hargittai, Hao Li, Caroline Haythornthwaite, Melissa Kew, Valerie May, Anabel Quan-Haase, and Beverly Wellman for their advice. We are especially grateful to James Witte for organizing Survey 2000 and to Uzma Jalaluddin, Monica Prijatelj, and Uyen Quach for help in preparing the tables and references. Our compatriots at the University of Toronto’s NetLab, Centre for Urban and 2 Community Studies, Department of Sociology, and the Knowledge Media Design Institute have created stimulating milieus for thinking about the Internet in society. Our research has been supported by the IBM Institute of Knowledge Management, the National Geographic Society, the (U.S.) National Science Foundation, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We dedicate this chapter to Manuel Castells, a shining star of the Internet galaxy.

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

Abstract: The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

Abstract: With the radical changes in information production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at an important moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler in this thought-provoking book. The phenomenon he describes as social production is reshaping markets, while at the same time offering new opportunities to enhance individual freedom, cultural diversity, political discourse, and justice. But these results are by no means inevitable: a systematic campaign to protect the entrenched industrial information economy of the last century threatens the promise of today's emerging networked information environment. In this comprehensive social theory of the Internet and the networked information economy, Benkler describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changing--and shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people can create and express themselves. He describes the range of legal and policy choices that confront us and maintains that there is much to be gained--or lost--by the decisions we make today.