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Why longitudinal social surveys matter EU research project e-Living
ICT sector profits and ‘e-Society’ social policy outcomes depend on the answer to one question: What difference do Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) make to everyday life? Companies need to know how their customers’ usage and e-commerce behaviour will change – or not – if they switch to broadband. Public policy makers need to know how people’s employment, leisure and social communication needs and opportunities are met or enhanced by new ICTs. Following people over time to measure behaviour before and after they adopt new technologies is the only way to answer this question. This longitudinal approach is rare. It is easier to implement one-off surveys such as the Eurescom P903 project and a myriad of other commercial market research and academic surveys. But these cannot answer this crucial question and without this kind of knowledge we cannot take sensible strategic or social policy decisions. By implementing a longitudinal comparative study e-Living is unique. e-Living is an EC FP5 IST Programme research project being conducted by a nine partner consortium including two Eurescom shareholders, BT and Telenor. A representative sample of 1,750 individuals aged 16+ were recruited in autumn 2001 in each country (UK, Norway, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and Israel), and about 65% of these were re-contacted and re-surveyed in autumn 2002. Initial results using the first survey were published in 2003, and the final results using both surveys were made public in January 2004 although analysis and publication is ongoing. All reports and the data are in the public domain and can be used for both commercial and non-commercial research purposes without restriction. Patterns of flux – two examples The e-Living data show that in 2002 in Norway the rate of yearly Internet dropout was higher than the rate of adoption causing an overall small decline in the online population. In the other five countries the Internet population has stabilised at between 55% (UK) and 10% (Bulgaria) even where penetration is low (see figure 1).
The data also show that the rate of dropping out varies between countries and ICTs. Between 4% (Germany) and 10% (Israel) of those with household Internet access in 2001 no longer had it in 2002. In contrast, between 3% (Italy, Germany) and 24% (Bulgaria) of those who personally owned a mobile phone in 2001 no longer did so in 2002. What is the reason for these dropouts and for the national differences? We do not yet know. Clearly ICT adoption is no one-way street, and there are still many households and individuals who are persistently “excluded” from ICT – 96% of Bulgarians and 52% of Italians did not have household Internet access in both 2001 and 2002, whilst 84% of Bulgarians and 29% of Germans did not personally have a mobile phone in both years. Similarly the data show a high degree of flux in forms of flexible or homeworking. About 30% of those who worked mainly at home in 2001 now work mainly at their place of work, and only 2% have moved in the other direction. 37% of those who used to work at one or more other places now work mainly at work premises. These data do not suggest a mass movement either towards home-based or flexible e-working and may suggest that those who have tried home-based working may not continue with the experiment. So what changes? Many studies claim that broadband users are heavier Internet users and spend more money online. However, the e-Living data show that this is due to selection effects – those who have broadband were already heavier Internet users and online spenders before they switched. In fact, switching to broadband between 2001 and 2002 significantly increased the time spent online only in the UK when other factors such as the kind of person who adopted are controlled (see figure 2 as an indicator without controls).
There is no evidence that switching to broadband decreases leisure activities, especially out-of-home socialising such as going to a cinema or having a meal out, nor that switchers use a greater range of applications and services. In contrast, the e-Living data show that switching is associated with a significant reduction in time spent watching TV in the UK, Italy and Germany. We have no evidence that adopting broadband is associated with an increase in any aspects of quality of life such as satisfaction with communication with friends. Those who adopted broadband in Norway reported a significantly lower overall quality of life score compared to when they had narrowband access. We have also looked at the changing quality of life of those who start or stop working from home. The Eurescom project P904 on telework and its impact on quality of life claimed that home-based working will lead to an increase in perceived quality of life. The e-Living results suggest that in fact starting to work mainly at home has a negative effect on perceived quality of work life in Norway and Germany, but a positive effect in Italy when other factors are taken into account. The most consistent effects on quality of work life are control of work schedule, reduction in working hours and moving from temporary to permanent employment. So it is obvious that ICTs and forms of e-work (such as home-working) are much less important in improving working conditions than more traditional employment factors. The music effect The music industry is claiming that music downloads are leading to the demise of industry. In contrast, our results suggest that downloading music is associated with an increase in music purchases. We have discovered that in general those who download music were nearly 40% more likely to buy music, either online or offline, than those who did not. This effect was larger for men (113%), for those in the higher socio-economic groups, heavy Internet users, and those who were employed. In contrast, those who were unemployed were 70% less likely to purchase music if they downloaded. Interestingly the positive link was found in the UK, Germany and Norway but the opposite (substitution) effect was found in Italy and Israel. Social capital and social software We have used the longitudinal data to show that one of the most important factors affecting people’s overall quality of life is their satisfaction with communication with friends and family. Those who have more active social lives also tend to use ICTs more frequently and use them to support and manage these social networks. This provides them with access to resources through the network of people they know (social capital). Our analysis shows that whilst ICTs do not seem to be generating new social contacts they are crucial to maintaining existing ones. We see that meeting friends more frequently (UK, Norway, Bulgaria) and engaging in outdoor leisure activities with them (Germany) or perceiving more free/leisure time (all except Bulgaria) and increased sport/physical exercise activities (Bulgaria) are all associated with an increase in satisfaction with social contacts and thus with quality of life. Here then is an interesting opportunity for the “social capital” industry – the telecommunications sector – to apply what it knows about supporting informal social interaction to support European social policy efforts in the context of social capital and quality of life and to make money whilst doing so. Conclusion These kinds of results are already being used by the e-Living partners to influence the direction of both commercial strategy and public policy whilst the freely available data is being used by a range of academic and other researchers to produce new results. Overall, the project has demonstrated the value of addressing the question “What difference does ICT make?”, using a longitudinal survey approach. Even with only two years of data collection we have generated insights that have corrected a number of mistaken assumptions in the commercial and public policy ICT arenas about the nature and scale of the impacts of ICTs on everyday life. Change is not revolutionary but evolutionary and some things have not turned out the way the pundits expected. Since mistaken assumptions about users/customers/citizens can bankrupt companies and produce costly and ineffective policies, investing in this kind of research clearly pays off. For more information on the e-living project and its results see www.eurescom.de/e-living/ Project Partners
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