Must see movie! "The Business of Being Born"

PLEASE copy & paste and spread around.
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Revolution begins in the womb!

If you think the movie SICKO had something to say about today's way of dealing with health, it's time to address something WE ALL have in common, being born.

California Association of Midwives is offering 3 screenings of 'The Business of Being Born' to fundraise and spread awareness. Friends in Northern California can purchase tickets from Kati or I, or go to Moonrise Herbs, Humboldt Herbals & Recycled Youth.


"Birth is a miracle, a rite of passage, a natural part of life. But birth is also big business. Compelled to explore the subject after the delivery of her first child, actress Ricki Lake recruits filmmaker Abby Epstein to question the way American women have babies. Epstein gains access to several pregnant New York City women as they weigh their options. Some of these women are or will become clients of Cara Muhlhahn, a charismatic midwife who, between birth events, shares both memories and footage of her own birth experience. Footage of women having babies punctuates THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN. Each experience is unique; all are equally beautiful and equally surprising. Giving birth is clearly the most physically challenging event these women have ever gone through, but it is also the most emotionally rewarding. Along the way, Epstein conducts interviews with a umber of obstetricians, experts and advocates about the history, culture and economics of childbirth. The film‟s fundamental question: should most births be viewed as a natural life process, or should every delivery be treated as a potential medical emergency? As Epstein uncovers some surprising answers, her own pregnancy adds a very personal dimension to THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN, a must-see movie for anyone even thinking about having a baby."
or who has been born :)

California Association of Midwives - www.californiamidwives.org
The Business Of Being Born Website - www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com
Buy the DVD at Netflix - www.netflix.com/Movie/The_...rn/70075502

Michael as guest on Voice of America's "Global Healing" radio show.

From: globalhealingvision.com/conten.../49/53/

"Michael Sonn's dedication to helping others began by volunteering with the American Red Cross, Search and Rescue and as a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician. Michael's commitment to this work is his service and devotion to the Divine.

With his discovery of Ayahuasca, a little over a decade ago, Michael has been in constant study with this visionary medicine. He hopes that participants will gain tools on his expeditions to successfully design their lives and happy futures.

Michael is committed to improving the standard of life for the impoverished local Shipibo community. Michael is the founder of amazonmedicinals.com, a sustainable source for Amazon herbals and Ronin Vichi, a women's cooperative clothing outlet for locally imported Shipibo Textiles."

Tribes Seek Klamath Dam Removal

Tribes Seek Klamath Dam Removal
By Steve Kadel, K-Falls Herald & News
April 7,2006
Leaf Hillman dreams of a Klamath River running red with salmon all the way to the upper Klamath Basin.
The Karuk Tribe member of California recalls an era when salmon freely negotiated the river's 350-mile northern reaches. Then, the Basin was the West Coast's third most productive salmon river system.

Escapement totals - fish that returned to their spawning grounds - averaged 660,000 to 1.1 million annually. Chinook, or king salmon, filled the Klamath's waters along with coho, chum and steelhead.

A series of dams built in the early 1900s changed everything. Since then - despite treaty rights allowing Klamath Tribes to fish for salmon - that key cultural and subsistence activity is only a memory because dams prevent passage upstream.

The Klamath Tribes, along with the Karuk and Yurok tribes of California, want that changed. And they got support this week from two powerful federal agencies.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries recommended that fish ladders and turbine screens be installed at four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River below the Oregon-California line. They want the additions to be required as part of PacifiCorp's re-licensing by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is pending.

However, PacifiCorp spokesman Dave Kvamme said that would cost about $200 million and require electricity rates to increase. He added that a hatchery at Iron Gate Dam already lures 20,000 salmon back to spawn each year.

Tribes see things differently. "The Klamath dams are poor producers of electricity, they do not provide flood control, they do not provide irrigation or drinking water - all they do is kill fish," Hillman said.

"This is destroying tribal cultures as well as the California and Oregon fishing economies. It's time to hold PacifiCorp responsible."

The Klamath Tribes stand with their California neighbors on the issue. Chairman Allen Foreman notes that Tribes members in Oregon haven't fished for salmon since the first dam was built in 1917.

"The Klamath generally favor removal of the dams," said Bud Ullman, water lawyer for the Klamath Tribes. "That's plainly what's best for the resource."

Neither NOAA Fisheries nor Fish and Wildlife went that far in their recommendations. However, tribes believe it is a good starting point.

Ladders and screens would not solve the problem of toxic algae blooms, according to Karuk water quality specialist Susan Corum. Such blooms in Klamath reservoirs last summer exceeded the World Health Organization standard for moderate risk by more than 100 times, she said.

The toxic blooms affect water quality and "threaten those of us who live downstream," Corum said. Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations agrees the dams should be taken out.

"We cannot restore salmonwithout improving water quality and providing access to spawning habitat," he said. "The only way to do that is by removing those dams."

Karuk Tribe spokesman Craig Tucker said removal is a better economic step, too. He estimates removal would cost half as much as building ladders, while allowing better fish passage.

Kvamme said PacifiCorp's license application does not address the issue.

"There are a number of reasons why we don't think any significant numbers of fish could be produced in the upper Basin," he said. "The water quality coming out of Upper Klamath Lake is not good.

"With the lake in the condition it is, and with runoff and other agricultural, logging and past mining activities we don't think it makes much sense."

The expensive fish ladders would include one at Iron Gate Dam stretching more than a mile, Kvamme said.

He challenged the contention that the dams - Copco No. 1, Copco No. 2, J.C. Boyle and Iron Gate - don't produce much energy. Their combined output is enough for 70,000 customers, he said.

"That's more than enough electricity to serve all our customers in California and many more," Kvamme said. "We don't think it's an insignificant amount of energy."

It would require burning 360 tons of coal or consuming 5 million cubic feet of gas to equal the lost power if dams were closed, he said.

Fish and Wildlife and NOAA Fisheries don't have authority to demand dams be removed or fish ladders be installed. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will make the final decision in its re-licensing agreement.

Meanwhile, a wide-ranging group of stakeholders has met for the past year in hopes of finding a collaborative solution. Talks have included representatives from the Klamath Water Users Association, four tribes, PacifiCorp, off-project water users, environmental groups, commercial fishing organizations, and Oregon and California state governments.

Greg Addington, president of the Klamath Water Users Association, said his membership might go along with dam removal if they won certain concessions.

Those include reliable and affordable electric power, certainty of water availability each year for irrigation, and a "safe harbor" as far as fish passage is concerned.

The latter means irrigators would be held harmless as far as water consumption by another endangered species - salmon - entering the upper Basin.

"We're a long way from getting that done," Addington said. "But if the parties at the table can help us achieve those things, then we wouldn't say no to dam removal."

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and as defined under the provisions of "fair use", any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment for non-profit research and for educational use by our membership

www.klamathforestalliance.org/New...html

Klamath Basin Fish Kill 2002

Dick Cheney Engineered Klamath River Fish Kill of 2002
by Dan Bacher

Wednesday Jun 27th, 2007 3:02 PM

This morning's article by Joe Becker and Barton Gellman in the Washington Post discloses how Dick Cheney engineered the Klamath Fish Kill of 2002, a move that inflicted irreparable harm on the lives of thousands of commercial fishermen, tribal fishermen and recreational anglers, as well as on the economy of Northern California and Oregon. While an angler will get cited for keeping a coho salmon or using a hook that isn't considered barbless enough, corrupt officials like Cheney and his underlings can kill thousands and thousands of fish with impunity. It is absolutely disgusting - and is just another example of how corrupt and ruthless the Bush administration is.

“Leaving No Tracks” By Jo Becker and Barton Gellman:
blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney...ex.html

This is Joel Achenbach’s column, “Dick Cheney: No Fish Left Behind, Or Alive,” commenting on the previous article’s relevations:
blog.washingtonpost.com/achenb...ar.html

The following is the article that I wrote in September 2002 as the adult fish kill took place. The adult kill was preceded by the massive juvenile salmon kill that spring, also spurred by low, warm conditions caused by the Rove/Cheney-instigated cut off of water to the river’s fish. The total of adult fish killed is now estimated to be 68,000 fish or more.

Meanwhile, river conditions are ripe for another die-off of juvenile salmon now. As Klamath River temperatures rise and the region’s below average snow pack continues to recede, the Klamath River’s salmon are again in trouble. These conditions, coupled with increased observation of disease, mortality, and average run size predictions, have prompted the inter-agency Klamath Fish Health Assessment Team (KFHAT) to increase its fish kill readiness alert level to "yellow."

The latest river conditions and the Washington Post's disclosures about Cheney's role in the fish kill underscore the need for everybody to support the battle by the Klamath River Tribes, fishermen and environmentalists to remove PacifiCorp's four dams so that salmon and steelhead can be restored to upriver tributaries!


Bush Administration Water Cuts Result In Massive Fish Kill On Klamath River

By Dan Bacher (September 24, 2002)

The decision by the Bush administration to divert water to subsidized farmers in the Klamath Basin this year, in spite of legal challenges by the Yurok and Hoopa Valley tribes, environmentalists and fishing groups, has resulted in a massive, unprecedented die-off of a large portion of the fall chinook salmon run on the Klamath River.

Nobody is sure exactly how many fish have died, but it is the worst fishery disaster to ever hit the Klamath watershed in recent memory, according to tribal representatives and recreational anglers. The salmon are apparently dying from disease caused by stress and warm water conditions reaching nearly 80 degrees.

“The fish kill is a lot worse than everybody thinks,” said a shaken Walt Lara, the Requa representative to the Yurok Tribal Council, in a phone interview with me on Monday, September 23. “It’s a lot larger than anything I’ve seen reported on the T.V. news or in the newspapers. The whole chinook run will be impacted, probably by 85 to 95 percent. And the fish are dying as we speak. They’re swimming around in circles. They bump up against your legs when you’re standing in the water. These are beautiful, chrome-bright fish that are dying, not fish that are already spawned out.”

Lara estimated that there’s at least 82 to 100 fish in each one-tenth mile, with probably up to 1,000 dead fish per river mile. “In the lower 40 miles of river, we’re looking at 40,000 dead salmon. In comparison, the allocation for the whole tribal fishery this year was 39,000,” he explained.

Lara said he had been fishing on the river for four days and was so disgusted by what he saw that he had to put up his net and fishing rod. “The water temperature was 78 degrees and rising when I left,” he said. “The fish were dying before my eyes!”

The majority of dead fish that Lara’s seen are chinooks, but he’s also seen lots of steelhead and coho salmon stranded along the bank. “Even the suckers are floating by dead,” he said. “And the stench is getting worse every day. The coming years, from 2004 to 2007, will be impacted by this run.”

While he was in Klamath Glen, Lara saw one of the tribal elders, an 82-year-old woman, with her grandson surveying the carnage. “She told me she had never seen anything like it in all her years,” stated Lara.

Tribal representatives and recreational anglers say the massive fish kill is the direct result of mismanagement of the Klamath River by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Last year, the Bureau, after considering evaluating water supplies, determined that there wasn’t enough to support both fish populations and farmers.

To protect Klamath River coho salmon, listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, the Bureau in the spring of 2001 cut off water to many Klamath Basin farmers. The farmers protested and filed legal action, supported by “wise use” organizations like the Pacific Legal Foundation, resulting in the release of water for their crops.

This year, Secretary of the Interior, Gale A. Norton, directed the Bureau to release the water to the farmers, resulting in unprecedented low and warm water conditions on the Klamath. The current die off is apparently the result of a tragic miscalculation by the Bureau in considering this as a normal year for water allocation, when in reality it was a drought year.

“In July, we had to reclassify the water year type from a normal to a dry year because of low precipitation in the watershed,” said Dave Jones, Bureau of Reclamation spokesman. “But we’re providing the water called for by the biological opinion of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Releases from Iron Gate Dam on the Klamath are now 760 cfs.”

The National Academy of Science in a draft report found that there was no biological justification for the cutoff last year. This politically motivated report is often cited by “wise use” movement leaders and right wing talk show hosts as backing for their claims that salmon don’t need the water that the tribes, environmental groups and commercial and sport fishing groups say they do.

Well, the incompetence of these federal “biologists” and the treachery of their supporters is demonstrated by the results of their biological opinion - an unprecedented fishery catastrophe of the Klamath River. It is clear that the “science” that they decided to practice was not “natural science” but “political science.”

Recreational anglers fishing the river were outraged by the fish kill. Dan Carter, a Klamath River fishing guide, said, “this favoring of farmers over fish has got to stop. Why can’t these farmers find some ways to conserve water, like turning their wells on for the first two month of the season, before they start diverting Klamath water. This would result in a reserve of water for the fish. There just has to be some happy medium between the water needs of farmers and fish.”

Carter attributed the fish kill to mismanagement by the Bureau of Reclamation. “Around September 4, the river level rose rose and the water temperature cooled to 62 degrees,” he said. “Thousands of salmon entered the river. Then the water managers dropped the flow to the low level it is now. The fish started dying in big numbers around September 19. The fish kill will continue unless they put some water in the river.”

Jim Martin, spokesman for the Recreational Fishing Alliance(RFA)-NorCal, was likewise appalled by this man-made fish disaster. "This appalling and totally preventable fish kill is a slap in the face to conservation-minded salmon anglers, who make every effort to abide by the law,” he said. “RFA-NorCal protests this illegal take of fish by welfare farmers who place their own private interests above all else. Unfortunately, a call to 1-800-CALTIP can do nothing to bag these wasteful poachers who have taken a significant portion of this year's salmon run on the Klamath.”

As tribal biologists and the state and federal governments continued to assess the damage on the Klamath, one thing is clear: this fish kill will have an impact on the region’s economy for years to come.

Brian Long, a Yurok tribal fisherman and former BIA agent, said he is essentially finished for the season. “From the Indian point of view, we have lost the run this year, we have lost the market, since nobody wants to buy our fish,” he said. “I went to a fish buyer in Weaverville with 44 salmon this week and they said, ‘No, we don’t want to buy your fish,’ after hearing of the fish kill on the Klamath.”

He emphasized, “not only are the Indian and sport fishermen hurt by the die off, but all of the related businesses, including trailer parks, grocery stores and gas stations, will suffer economically. It’s a big chain of loss where everybody loses except the Klamath Basin farmers.”

The scene of carnage contrasts dramatically with the “wise use” rhetoric of the Pacific Legal Foundation and other groups who are attempting to gut environmental laws, such as the Endangered Species Act, and to halt releases of Klamath River water for fish. In a legal challenge in February to overturn the federal government’s listing of Klamath Basin salmon as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, Russ Brooks of the Pacific Legal Foundation proclaimed:

"We expect that victory in this case will go a long way toward restoring environmental balance to the Klamath Basin. The Fisheries Service is guilty of using junk science to advance a political agenda. Our rivers and streams are teeming with salmon, yet farmers have been pushed into bankruptcy, businesses are closing, and a way of life is being destroyed while government officials explain away listing fish that really aren’t endangered at all.”

The Klamath is indeed “teeming” with fish now - dead chinook and coho salmon, steelhead and suckers! And the “way of life” that is being destroyed is that of the Yurok and Hupa tribes, sportfishing guides, commercial fishermen, charter boats and all of the North Coast businesses that depend upon Klamath River salmon for their survival.

Recreational anglers and members of the Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa Valley tribes were at press time recovering from the shock of the fish kill. It is clear that the tribes, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen and environmental activists must unite and massively protest the Bush administration’s favoring of unsustainable, subsidized welfare farmers in the Klamath Basin at the expense of everybody else. All of those impacted by this catastrophe should be compensated in full by the federal government, since it is the U.S. Department of Interior that is responsible for the deaths of thousands and thousands of salmon on the Klamath River.

www.indybay.org/newsitems/...8431074.php

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Cheney and the Klamath salmon kill

Oregon's Rep. Peter DeFazio and a House committee must get to the bottom of the vice president's role in the devastating 2002 fish die-off Saturday, June 30, 2007

T he Washington Post concluded an amazingly detailed series on Vice President Dick Cheney this week with a disturbing revelation involving Oregon and California.

Cheney, the paper said, played a key role in events leading to the 2002 die-off of more than 70,000 salmon in the Klamath River near the border of the two states. He reportedly did it by getting Interior Department bureaucrats to override government biologists and divert water from the river to irrigate farms, dooming the protected fish.

If true, the political interference may have broken laws under the Endangered Species Act. The allegations call for a serious inquiry, and they're going to get just that in the form of a congressional hearing.

Credit Rep. Darlene Hooley, D-Ore., for responding quickly to The Washington Post disclosure. She and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., circulated a letter Wednesday and got 34 colleagues, including Oregon Democrats Peter DeFazio, Earl Blumenauer and David Wu, to join in asking the House Resources Committee to investigate.

The panel's chairman, Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., agreed, and that's welcome news. Also welcome is the fact that Oregon's DeFazio is a senior member of the committee and a close longtime ally of Rahall, so we can hope for a sincere and vigorous inquiry.

The four-part Post series was deeply troubling even before it wrapped up with the Klamath fish-kill revelation. Most Americans who follow the news were already aware that Cheney possesses unprecedented power as vice president, but the Post's investigation exposed in astonishing and sometimes chilling detail just how extensive that power is, and how he wields it.

The series showed, in painstaking depth, how Cheney aggressively employs the broad authority handed to him by a complaisant President Bush to bend the decision-making process to meet his own political or ideological objectives. Cheney uses that power like no vice president before him, steamrolling Cabinet officers, undermining department heads and reinterpreting treaties, laws and executive orders to meet his own ends and purposes, even to the extent of reshaping the definition of torture.

One of his favorite tools, the Post series showed, is secrecy -- pulling strings in ways unseen by the public, Congress or even other administration insiders. "Stealth," the series concluded, "is among Cheney's most effective tools."

His use of that tool was a central theme of the series' fourth and final installment, on the Klamath fish kill. A midlevel Interior Department official told the Post about getting a phone call from Cheney in 2001, setting in motion a secret move to undermine the science of federal biologists who had said diverting water from the Klamath would violate the Endangered Species Act and devastate two imperiled species of fish.

Cheney's Machiavellian tactics worked. He reportedly strong-armed the National Academy of Sciences into providing the Interior Department a murky justification for overruling the Bureau of Land Management, and the Klamath water was diverted.

That led to the largest adult salmon die-off in the modern history of the West, and the biggest commercial fishing closure in the history of the country.

Outraged critics complained of possibly unlawful political meddling at the time but couldn't prove it. The Washington Post's series offers strong evidence they may have been right.

Oregon's DeFazio, and colleagues Rahall & Co., have many good questions to ask.

www.oregonlive.com/editoria...index.ssf

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I caught my first Steelhead - Trinity River 9-6-07

I am a happy boy.

Shipibo Expedition

Greetings Everyone,

I am pleased to formally extend this invitation to come explore yourself, our planet, and the Peruvian and Shipibo cultures in the heart of the Amazon.

These expeditions are not for the average tourist, yet if you are seeking new experiences, foods and medicines this is your opportunity. Our journeys are intended to provide a broad view and experience of ancient Shamanism in its modern living context, and to expose participants to an overall broadening experience. We will work with a variety of Shipibo Onayas (Shamans), in order to provide participants with a panoramic view of style and practice in the Shipibo world of Ayahuasca. This journey will expose you to Indigenous healing practices as they exist today.

I aim to diligently guide you through the various trepidations of life in the jungle. Participants will be carefully chosen in order to provide a harmonious and complementary experience for all parties involved. The jungle is wild, spontaneous and unpredictable, our journey will reflect this living design.

Regards,

Michael Sonn


amazonmedicinals.com/journey/index.htm

Expedition@AmazonMedicinals.com



__________________________________________________________________________

www.AmazonMedicinals.com - www.RoninVichi.com

"Why has something perceived as being so social had such an anti-social impact on its users? "

From: homenet.hcii.cs.cmu.edu/progre...el.html

"Carnegie Mellon Study Reveals Negative Potential of Heavy Internet Use on Emotional Well Being

Contact: Teresa S. Thomas, 412-268-3580 or Anne Watzman 412-268-3830


PITTSBURGH--The Internet has the potential to make us socially isolated, lonely and depressed, according to the unexpected results of a study of home computer users by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University.

The findings are gathered from HomeNet, the first study to look specifically at the impact that the Internet is having over time on the social involvement and psychological well being of average Americans.

Published this month in The American Psychologist, a publication of the American Psychological Association, the findings provide a consistent picture of the downside of using the Internet extensively as a source of information or setting for friendship and or social support.

"We were surprised to find that what is a social technology has such anti-social consequences," says Robert Kraut, a professor of social psychology and human computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon who is the lead author of the article for The American Psychologist.

Even though people in the study heavily used electronic mail and other communication services on the Internet, the research found that spending time on the Internet was associated with later declines in talking among family members, reductions in the number of friends and acquaintances they kept up with, and increases in depression and loneliness.

Because the research studied the same people over time, it could rule out the possibility that people who are initially socially isolated, lonely and depressed were drawn to the Internet. Rather, according to Kraut, using the Internet seems to cause isolation, loneliness and depression.

"Our results have clear implications for further research on personal Internet use. As we understand the reasons for the declines in social involvement, there will be implications for social policies and for the design of Internet technology," he adds.

Various scientific and marketing reports say that more than 50 million Americans are using the Internet, a number that is rapidly growing. Given widespread use and with more growth expected, Kraut says the Internet could change the lives of Americans as much as the telephone did in the early 20th century or as television did in the 1950s and 1960s.

"We want to help make these changes good ones," he says.

HomeNet studied 169 personal computer users in Pittsburgh, whose communications on the Internet were monitored during their first years online. The home computer users are families with a wide range of demographic backgrounds whose common bond was a high school age student or membership in a community development group. The families used electronic mail, the World Wide Web and computer games, among other normal home computing uses. Time spent online varied a great deal among the subjects.

Members of the research team are part of Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute and include Kraut and Sara Kiesler, a professor of social and decision sciences; Tridas Mukophadhyay, a professor at Carnegie Mellon's graduate business school; William Scherlis, a senior research scientist and director of the Information Technology Center in the School of Computer Science; Vicki Lundmark, a post-doctoral fellow, and Michael Patterson, a graduate student in Social and Decision Sciences.

"We hope our findings help make things change on the Internet. We are not talking about Internet addicts, just regular people," Kraut says. "These are not just results that occur in the extremes. And these are the same people who, when asked, describe the Internet as a positive thing."

The technology that has allowed people to keep in touch with distant family members and friends, to find information quickly and to develop friendships with people around the world apparently is also replacing vital, everyday human communication.

"Many users may be substituting weak online friendships for their stronger, real-life relationships," Kiesler says. "You don't have to deal with unpleasantness, because if you don't like somebody's behavior, you can just log off. In real life, relationships aren't always easy. Yet dealing with some of those hard parts is good for us. It helps us keep connected with people."

Greater use of the Internet was associated with statistically significant declines in the social involvement that Kiesler refers to. Decreases in social involvement were indicated by a drop-off in communication within a participant's families, the size of a person's social networks and reports by participants of increases in loneliness and depression, psychological states associated with reduced social involvement.

In all, the study uses data on 169 people in 73 families. A little over half the subjects are female users, a quarter of them belong to minorities. The subject pool also represents a fairly wide income range.

Of the different demographic groups, teenagers seem the most vulnerable to potential negative effects. What's more, teenagers used the Internet for more hours than did adults.

Mukhopadhyay offers the following advice to parents: "The basic objective is to maintain open communication and to stay vigilant. As far as the computer and Internet go, you can put the machine in a public place - in the living room or kitchen rather than the basement or the kid's room. This will automatically ensure that your teen does not use the Internet too much."

Carnegie Mellon's scientists believe the findings will spark a debate, not only for Internet users and researchers, but also for government agencies looking at growth of the Internet and for companies that write Internet software.

Scherlis notes, "We are not branding the Internet as either socially good or bad. The Internet is a complex and multi-faceted social phenomenon and it is evolving rapidly. It was created more than 20 years ago for sharing technical information among scientists. It's really only recently that the Internet has become a public resource, and the average citizen who uses the 'Net has largely inherited this set of services. Our results show that there may be real benefits from greater research and development to the broad area of user level communication and information services. Both industry and government can foster this growth through research into new services, experimentation, evaluation and standards development."

The research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Markle Foundation, and a consortium of computer companies (Apple Computer, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Panasonic), software companies (Lotus Development Corporation, Interval Research), and communications companies (AT&T Research, US Postal Service, Bell Atlantic, Bellcore, US West Advanced Technologies, NTT, CNET) and others (NPD).


Contact: Teresa S. Thomas, 412-268-3580 or Anne Watzman 412-268-3830



Background: Q&A Explores Social Implications of Internet Use for Families

PITTSBURGH--There are many issues related to use of the Internet - from loneliness and depression caused by too much online time to what can be done to make the Internet a more social place. These questions and answers deal with these issues in greater depth. The comments are based on recent findings gathered from HomeNet, the first study to look specifically at the impact that the Internet has on general emotional well being, particularly the emotional well being of families. Those findings were generally negative.

Respondents include Carnegie Mellon's Robert Kraut, a professor of social psychology and human-computer interaction; Sara Kiesler, a professor of social and decision sciences; Tridas Mukophadhyay, a professor at Carnegie Mellon's graduate business school; and William Scherlis, a senior research scientist and director of the Information Technology Center in the School of Computer Science. Vicki Lundmark, a post-doctoral candidate, and Michael Patterson, a graduate student in Social and Decision Sciences, contributed to the research findings.

QUESTION. Why has something perceived as being so social had such an anti-social impact on its users?

Kiesler: For many people, the Internet is wonderfully convenient and fun. No need to dress up to "meet" new people, join a group discussion, or get in touch with your brother in Alaska. So talking on the Net is fun and rewarding. But talking on the Net takes time and attention away from your "real life." Think of the teenager avidly typing away in his room instead of playing a pick-up game of softball with his friends, and avoiding that party where he doesn't know anyone. Friends in real life are sometimes more troublesome, but they are the people who play a bigger role in one's life-- the people who know you as a person and who are there to give the most all-round social support. Of course, if there *is* nobody around for you, then the Internet might be a lifesaver. But even so, maybe it would be better if the Internet helped people find local friends rather than far-flung people who may disappear from their lives as easily as they entered them This is exactly the paradox we are trying to understand, and we have to admit we don't yet have all the answers.

Kraut: We're starting to think that the problem isn't with what people get when they go on- line, but with what they give up in their real lives to achieve it. It is likely that the social contact people get on the Internet is of lower quality than the social contact they get when they talk to members of their family, go to church groups or clubs, or have dinner parties. In some ways, it's easier to get on-line social contact than to get the real thing. You don't have to be at the same place at the same time, and can communicate when it's convenient for you. With the strangers you meet in chat rooms, you can always drop the relationships they don't work out, without having to run into them again and again. The problem may be, though, that the easy is driving out the good.

Mukophadhyay: It's true that the Internet allows us to get to know a lot of people we would not meet otherwise. People can use email, go to chat rooms, subscribe to distribution lists or newsgroups. You have many ways to meet many people. Of course, you can also surf the Web as much as you want. However, the key point is that cyber-friendship may be good if you have no opportunity to meet people. But it's not a good substitute for real-life friendship. In fact, if you like someone you meet on the Internet, chances are that you would want to meet that person face to face.

QUESTION: Did the findings surprise the research team?

Kiesler: Yes, the findings surprised me for two reasons. First, many studies of work communication, including our own, were showing positive effects of electronic communication on such things as knowledge of the organization or participation in organizational life. Second, many anecdotal studies that preceded ours suggested there would be only positive effects. Third, we expected measures such as depression and social involvement to be very stable, and not to be affected by a single technology.

Kraut: When we started this research, we weren't sure whether the Internet was going to be used more like the telephone or the TV, the other important information technologies heavily used at home. Our own research had shown that for the people we were studying, the phone-like uses were more important. They used the Internet to keep in touch with friends and family and to make new friends on-line. Teenagers rushed home from school to exchange mail with kids they saw an hour earlier. Both teens and adults also started to have chitchat and to exchange information with people they met on distribution lists or in chat rooms. These social uses were more important to them than finding impersonal entertainment and information on the World Wide Web. So we were shocked when we discovered that as people used the Internet more, they became more socially isolated and lonelier. And using the Internet primarily for communication purposes didn't seem to prevent these negative effects.

Mukophadhyay: I was not surprised that the Internet had some negative effects. It's only natural that a powerful new technology like the Internet will have some unexpected consequences. What is surprising is that it seems uniformly and negatively to affect a bunch of measures of social involvement and emotional well being.

QUESTION: How can you be showing that using the Internet leads to less social involvement when common experience and your own data show that it is used heavily for keeping up with old friends and making new ones?

Kraut: To draw conclusions about the consequences of using the Internet, one needs to have comparisons. One needs to compare people who are using the Internet heavily with people who are not using it or using it very little. People can only report on what they have experienced, and many of us have experienced using the Internet for social purposes. But people can't easily report on what they are giving up, what economists call opportunity costs. For example, I find the Internet very convenient for keeping up with colleagues from my old job. The question is, does the time and energy I devote to these email messages hinder me from forming strong friendships with people in my current work setting or community? The best way to see what is being given up, is by comparing heavy and light users.

QUESTION: Why should readers take this research more seriously than many other studies on consequences of using computers and the Internet?

Kraut: First, this is one of the few pieces of research that has looked at all at the social and psychological consequences of using the Internet. Second, unlike some national surveys, this research measures actual usage. Our data tell us that there is a lot of error in people's reports about how much they use the Internet. Third and most important, we measure Internet use, social involvement and psychological well being at multiple time points. As a result, we can rule out the possibility that being socially isolated, lonely and depressed causes people to use the Internet more, and can discover what the consequences are of using the Internet once initial social and psychological state are taken into account.

QUESTION: Society survived the introduction of the telephone and television. Do you think we'll survive the Internet?

Kiesler: We humans are very confident, very smart and very adaptive. So of course we will survive the Internet. But we can make changes in technology, too. We made changes in the telephone (automated switching, privacy protections, universal service) and in television (Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street, and rating systems). We expect changes in the Internet. We hope the basis for these changes will be research rather than hyperbole or scare tactics based on anecdotes.

Mukophadhyay: Society changes. But the Internet is changing faster and will continue to do so for some time. It'll be a while before we come to terms with the Internet.

QUESTION: There are lots of other technologies that distract people from their social relationships. Is the Internet worse than them?

Kraut: When people watch TV, play video games, or even read, they are withdrawing from social interaction. We can't directly compare whether spending an hour on the Internet is better or worse than spending it watching TV. Other researchers have shown effects of watching TV that are similar to the ones we see for using the Internet. My personal opinion is similar to those expressed by some of the parents in our study. They think that much of what their kids do on-line is a waste of time, but it's a better waste of time than watching TV, because its more personally engaging, active, social and literate.

Mukophadhyay: There are two issues here. First, it's too early to have a definitive opinion about the Internet. Second, there is a fundamental difference between the Internet and TV or any other household technologies. The Internet is so flexible and has so many possibilities. We would probably see a wide range of impact from the Internet.

QUESTION: If the Internet is having these negative effects, why are people using it so much?

Kraut: It's important to remember that we have only looked at a small set of the possible effects that the Internet is having. We haven't investigated whether using the Internet provides job-relevant skills for people, gives them useful information for work or school, allows them to organize their home lives or purchases more efficiently, changes their self-esteem, or had any number of compensating benefits. It is possible that, all things considered, the Internet is actually good for people.

On the other hand, we have many other examples of people engaging in behavior that is bad for them, either because the immediate experience is pleasurable even though the long-term consequences are bad or because the cost to gain some pleasure is so low. TV is the classic example. Adults watch over two hours of TV per day and spend less than 60 minutes visiting with friends and conversing with them, even though they much prefer socializing to watching TV. The reason sees to be that watching TV is easier than socializing, even though adults don't like watching TV that much.

Mukophadhyay: People believe that the Internet is here to stay. It is the way to go for the future. They do not want to miss the boat. Let us also not forget that the Internet is a valuable tool for getting information and even for communication.

QUESTION: We're just not talking about Internet addicts are we? Should we ALL be concerned about the findings?

Kiesler: We didn't see a sudden drop in psychological well being or social involvement when people reached a certain number of hours of usage. Our results show a "linear" effect, which means the more Internet, the more the negative results. It is important to emphasize that this research report doesn't apply to educational and learning effects of the Internet. Our data suggest that there may be a tradeoff here, with more usage leading to better computer skills or worldly knowledge, and even self-esteem enhancements, even while social involvement declines somewhat.

Mukophadhyay: We're talking about average people who use the Internet heavily and experience negative consequences. The lesson is that one should not run away from friends and families and escape into cyberspace.

QUESTION: How can we recognize susceptibility in ourselves -- in other words, when can we, as individuals, recognize that we may be entering a danger zone of Internet usage?

Kiesler: Many people do things "too much." Eating quarts of ice cream at night, smoking three packs a day and sitting at the computer 10 hours at a time. Many people know very well when they are in a danger zone, and they must decide to change their behavior themselves. Most people probably do. We are planning to analyze our sample over a somewhat longer time period to see who drops and who doesn't and how their own behavioral changes affect their well being.

QUESTION: If teens are afflicted more by loneliness and depression brought on by Internet use, do you have any useful advice for parents, schools or college counselors?

Kiesler: Send them to camp, encourage them to play sports, help them be with real life friends.

Kraut: My teenaged kids have access to the Internet, which I pay for, so obviously I think that the Internet can be valuable for them. But we've put limits on how much they can use the computer. I've also talked to my kids about this research and its implications, and tried to encourage them to monitor how they use it. I try to encourage them to get involved in real social activity -- after school clubs, temple youth group, visits to friends, volunteer work. As parents, we refused to allow them to put a computer in their bedroom, so we could monitor how much they use it.

Scherlis: It would be an overreaction to stop Internet use altogether, since the educational and learning benefits would also stop. Our point is that use of the Internet has many kinds of social effects (just like the telephone and TV). We should consider all these effects in making judgments about its use for ourselves and as parents. We should also recognize that this technology is evolving rapidly, and its social impacts will also change. Finally, there are many different ways the Internet can be used (again, like the telephone and TV). Parents and teachers should focus their attention on the nature of the Internet use as well as the amount of the use.

Mukophadhyay: The advice is simple. Maintain open communication and stay vigilant. As far as the computer and Internet go, the best thing to do is to put the machine in a public place - in the living room or kitchen rather than the basement or the kid's room. This will automatically ensure that your teen does not use the Internet too much.

QUESTION: The Internet was first created for sharing scientific information and not for social activity. Would it be better if it went back to being that?

Kiesler: The Internet (it wasn't called that) was first created so engineers and computer scientists could share computers. Even in those early days, it was used extensively for communication. You aren't going to change that, and you wouldn't want to. Society depends on communication, and grows stronger with more communication. Perhaps it would be better if people talked more with local family and friends rather than chatting away on the Internet with strangers. But we don't know for sure what led to our effects, so this is just speculation on our part.

Kraut: Absolutely not. I have confidence that we can shape service on the Internet so that it will have beneficial influences. I've seen many cases where people are able to reconnect to a long-lost friend, share problems and get advice, pleasurably pass the time and provide social support on-line. Our goal should be to make this style of interaction increase and to make the likelihood of wasted interaction decrease.

QUESTION: If not, what needs to happen to make email a socially useful tool for communication -- one that brings people with strong supportive ties together in positive ways?

Kiesler: One thing preventing people from using the Internet to support local strong ties is that everyone close to them that they know doesn't have email or is wary of the technical complications. Email has to be more accessible to everyone locally and it should be as easy for grandpa as for his teenage grandson.

Kraut: I think there are ways to use the Internet that will improve how it influences lives. For example, in our study, some of the kids who graduated from a local high school created distribution lists to keep in touch with their classmates after they moved on the college. They are able to share news, and to arrange activities when they came back to town for vacations. This seems to me to be a healthier use than one that encourages discussions with strangers. Even better would be services that support communication among already existing social groups. For example, schools could have after- school clubs and homework sessions on-line. If kids find electronic communication fascinating, then channel it so that they communicate with people with whom they already have ties.

Mukophadhyay: Unfortunately, most people still do not have access to the Internet. We found how families were excited when a close friend or a distant relation went online. As the Internet becomes more widespread and it becomes easier to use, it will take its place beside the telephone, cellular telephone and beeper as a powerful medium for interpersonal communication.

QUESTION: As consumers, what should we tell government regulators, Internet providers and software companies about what we want?

Kiesler: The Internet is too often fodder for political debates and grandstanding. Policy-making should be based on careful empirical research. We don't hesitate to do evaluations of educational interventions and medical technologies. We should do much more empirical evaluation of the massive social intervention called the Internet.

Scherlis: Issues related to content have triggered much of the policy debate on the Internet. But, like the telephone, the Internet itself, along with the user-level services it supports (such as email and the Web), is neutral with respect to the content it conveys. So we should avoid simplistic appraisals and focus on understanding the issues through careful research.

QUESTION: What are the implications of this study on policy and technology development related to the Internet?

Scherlis: For more than 20 years, the Internet served primarily to support the sharing of technical information among professionals working in offices. Most of the Internet services we use today -- email, the Web and newsgroups, for example, were designed to support this technical exchange. Only recently has the Internet become a public resource, and the average citizen who uses the 'net has largely inherited this set of services. These services constitute the user experience of the Internet.

There has been a lot of attention paid to the huge improvements in the capacity and connectivity of the network. But (except for multimedia support) the actual user-level services they support have not evolved very much since their introduction. (Packet-switched email was introduced in 1972, and the email systems we use today are similar to those of a quarter-century ago. The Web was invented in 1989 to help physicists share data and scientific results, and has evolved primarily in technical respects.) Our results suggest that this set of services is not well adapted, for example, to increasing the social involvement of network users.

Historically, government research sponsorship and policy initiatives have been the major force behind the development of the Internet. Without the sustained government involvement over the past two decades, there would be no Internet today. But this attention has generally focused on network infrastructure.

Our results suggest that there may be real benefits from greater R&D attention to the broad area of user-level communication and information services. Both industry and government can help foster this growth, through research into new services, experimentation, evaluation and standards development.

QUESTION: Does this report end the debate about the social value of the Internet?

Kiesler The debate will continue as more data come in.

Kraut: No, for several reasons. First, we don't know how these results generalize and how stable these results are. Will the results be the same at different eras, with more socially isolated people, using different services? We doubt it. And second, we don't really understand the mechanisms that produce the negative effects, even in the sample we've studied. One must understand both the limits of the results and the mechanisms behind them before designing solutions or making policy recommendations.

Scherlis: Beware of monolithic characterizations of the Internet as socially "good" or "bad." The Internet is a complex and multi-faceted social phenomenon, and it is evolving rapidly. It is as diverse both in form and in content as the existing and established popular media. Any debate and subsequent policy setting must recognize this complexity.

Mukophadhyay: This report really jump-starts the debate. We will next examine how stable or generalizable these results are. We'll also try to understand the mechanisms that cause these results.

QUESTION: As your study progresses, what will you look at next?

Kiesler: Do negative effects continue or do they dissipate as people get less enamored of the Internet? Are the effects we found the same for different kinds of people and different samples? Are the effects better or worse than the effects of television? Is there a tradeoff of positive educational effects or skill for negative social effects? "