Networks of personal acquaintances serve as ‘bridges’ between islands of other close groups of friends, workers, business associates, or research communities. Bridging these islands of personal relationships through acquaintances broadens one’s knowledge of the world, expands horizons of opportunity, and helps in career advancement or changing jobs in a weak economy … This phenomena is taken for granted by Internet users … These resource connections often lead one to new acquaintances and relationships associated with them … Internet mail has been found to be a highly effective means of establishing and maintaining personal acquaintance networks.
Predictor: Civille, Richard
Prediction, in context:The 1995 book “Public Access to the Internet,” edited by Brian Kahin and James Keller carries the chapter, “The Internet and the Poor” by Richard Civille, executive director of the Center for Civic Networking, a non-profit organization dedicated to the application of information infrastructure to community and economic development. He writes: ”The range and quality of personal acquaintance networks has been shown to affect individual success in the job market … Networks of personal acquaintances serve as ‘bridges’ between islands of other close groups of friends, workers, business associates, or research communities. Bridging these islands of personal relationships through acquaintances broadens one’s knowledge of the world, expands horizons of opportunity, and helps in career advancement or changing jobs in a weak economy … This phenomena is taken for granted by Internet users. Indeed it is the basis of hypertext systems, such as the World Wide Web that provide the user an ability to spontaneously link to previously unknown information resources through a novel connection suggested in the material being browsed. These resource connections often lead one to new acquaintances and relationships associated with them … Internet mail has been found to be a highly effective means of establishing and maintaining personal acquaintance networks. It is fairly clear to an Internet user that having access to ‘distributed lists in e-mail systems greatly reduces the costs to the individual of discovering others with common interests.'”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Communication
Subtopic: E-mail
Name of publication: Public Access to the Internet (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: The Internet and the Poor
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 181
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne