Untitled - socium.ge

The digital divide in Detroit 261discuss political and social issues. African Americas are less likely than nonblacksto participate in chat rooms. 6 (Note, however, that interactive discussionsand chat-room participation are low-volume activities on the Internet.)Overall, these findings suggest that the Internet may be a means to overcomeracial and residential barriers. Many activities, where racial prejudice orresidential segregation could interfere with access to important information orto the consumer market, do not exhibit significant differences by race or residence.Moreover, African Americans may be using the Internet to overcomebarriers in the labor market. Not only do the majority of African Americanswho use the Internet use it to access information about employment and careeropportunities, but they are much more likely to do so than non-blacks. Ofcourse, African Americans who are excluded from using the Internet do notenjoy these informational advantages.THE EFFECT OF COMPUTER AND INTERNET USE ONSOCIAL INTERACTION ACROSS SPACE AND RACEMost research on Internet use documents positive effects on social interaction,sociability, community participation, and political involvement (for reviews,see Castells, 2001: 118–25; DiMaggio et al., 2004). We consider the impact ofcomputer and Internet usage on two key indicators of social capital: whether arespondent has been in the home of someone of a different neighborhood (orhad them in his or her home) in the past twelve months, and whether a respondenthas been in the home of someone of a different race (or had them in hisor her home) in the same time period. These items are replicated from theSocial Capital Benchmark Survey (2000) “short form.”Neither race nor residence is a significant predictor of either form of socializing,controlling for gender, education, household income, employmentstatus, family structure, and computer and Internet usage (see table 11.5).African Americans are not more or less likely than non-blacks to have been inthe home of someone of a different neighborhood (or to have had them in theirhomes) or to have been in the home of someone of a different race (or to havehad them in their homes). Similarly, Detroiters are not more or less likely thansuburbanites to have been in the home of someone of a different neighborhood(or to have had them in their homes) or to have been in the home of someoneof a different race (or to have had them in their homes). Similarly, gender doesnot have significant effects on inter-neighborhood or inter-racial socializing.Age is a big predictor of both forms of social interaction. The young (ages18–25) are always much more likely than the old (ages 55+) to have engagedin both types of socializing. Those who are middle-aged (ages 26–54) aremuch more likely than the old to have been in the home of someone of another