Task Seven: Societal Implications of Virtual Worlds

Culture, age, and income effect the societal implications of virtual worlds. In other words, how people are raised, what time period they were raised in, and how much money their family had influences how much people use virtual worlds. Use of mediated technology is definitely connected with social exposure to it. There are feelings that encourage or discourage its use. “ The digital revolution has been accompanied by both optimism and pessimism about its ultimate impact on individuals, society and the global community.” (Jackson, Barbatsis, von Eye, Biocca, Zhao, Fitzgerald, 2003, p142).

Studies prove that culture differences influence media use because personal contact is either more or less important in certain cultures. For example the African American culture is an extremely high context culture, because they need to express themselves both physically and verbally. Therefore they tend to use the media less frequently than other cultures. “African Americans earning less than $40,000 annually, and African Americans at all levels of education, use the Internet less than do comparable European Americans. Similarly, Jackson and colleagues found race differences in Internet use among college students who had similar access to the Internet (Jackson et al. 2001a).” (Jackson, Barbatsis, von Eye, Biocca, Zhao, Fitzgerald, 2003, p143). European cultures are somewhat less high context so they would use the media more often for communication than the African American culture. Asians are most likely to use the media because of their low context culture. “Asians/ Pacific Islanders and European are more likely to use the Internet (71% and 70%, respectively).” (Jackson, Barbatsis, von Eye, Biocca, Zhao, Fitzgerald, 2003, p142).

Age is another factor that determines media use. People who have grown up with the media available to them are more likely to use it. This applies to most of the younger generation. The baby boom generation had been exposed to the media for half of their lives. Most of this exposure was work related and forced on them as a replacement for the old way of doing business. For the generation that lived before the baby boomers the media remains a matter of choice. They had very little exposure to the media in the work place and were never forced to use it. If they find it fascinating they would use it, but if they find it intimidating they would never use it. “Younger people still use the Internet far more than do older people; Internet use rates are highest between the ages of 12 and 50, and fall off precipitously after age 55.” 9Jackson, Barbatsis, von Eye, Biocca,Zhao, Fitzgerald, 2003, p142).

All three factors discussed point towards the part of the social information theory that says people’s social influence has a large effect on the use of technology. Whatever social class people are in determines how much they will use the media that is available to them. Also whatever age, race and income bracket a person falls into also determines their media use.

References

Jackson, Barbatsis, von Eye, Biocca, Zhao, Fitzgerald. (2003, Summer). Internet use in low-income families: implications for the digital divide. It&Society, 1(5), 142 &143.