Sociology of the Internet

The sociology of the Internet, also known as the social psychology of the Internet, studies how sociological and social psychological theories and methods apply to the Internet as a source of information and communication. It examines the social implications of technology, including new social networks, virtual communities, online interactions, and issues such as cybercrime. A related field, digital sociology, focuses on understanding digital media as a part of everyday life and its influence on social relationships, behavior, and identity.

The Internet, as a major information breakthrough, is of interest to sociologists both as a research tool and as a subject of study. It enables online surveys, discussion platforms, and other methods of data collection. The sociology of the Internet focuses on online communities, virtual worlds, and organizational changes driven by digital media, as well as broader social transformations from industrial to information societies. Researchers examine online communities using statistical methods, such as network analysis, and qualitative approaches, including virtual ethnography. Social change is studied through demographic data or the interpretation of evolving messages and symbols in digital media.

The Internet is a relatively new phenomenon. As Robert Darnton wrote, it is a revolutionary change that "took place yesterday, or the day before, depending on how you measure it." The Internet developed from the ARPANET, dating back to 1969; as a term it was coined in 1974. The World Wide Web as we know it was shaped in the mid-1990s, when graphical interface and services like email became popular and reached wider (non-scientific and non-military) audiences and commerce. Internet Explorer was first released in 1995; Netscape a year earlier. Google was founded in 1998. Wikipedia was founded in 2001. Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube in the mid-2000s. Web 2.0 is still emerging. The amount of information available on the net and the number of Internet users worldwide has continued to grow rapidly. The term 'digital sociology' is now becoming increasingly used to denote new directions in sociological research into digital technologies since Web 2.0.

The first scholarly article to have the term digital sociology in the title appeared in 2009. The author reflects on the ways in which digital technologies may influence both sociological research and teaching. In 2010, 'digital sociology' was described, by Richard Neal, in terms of bridging the growing academic focus with the increasing interest from global business. It was not until 2013 that the first purely academic book tackling the subject of 'digital sociology' was published. The first sole-authored book entitled Digital Sociology was published in 2015, and the first academic conference on "Digital Sociology" was held in New York, NY in the same year.

Although the term digital sociology has not yet fully entered the cultural lexicon, sociologists have engaged in research related to the Internet since its inception. These sociologists have addressed many social issues relating to online communities, cyberspace and cyber-identities. This and similar research has attracted many different names such as cyber-sociology, the sociology of the internet, the sociology of online communities, the sociology of social media, the sociology of cyberculture, or something else again.

Digital sociology differs from these terms in that it is wider in its scope, addressing not only the Internet or cyberculture but also the impact of the other digital media and devices that have emerged since the first decade of the twenty-first century. Since the Internet has become more pervasive and linked with everyday life, references to the 'cyber' in the social sciences seems now to have been replaced by the 'digital'. 'Digital sociology' is related to other sub-disciplines such as digital humanities and digital anthropology. It is beginning to supersede and incorporate the other titles above, as well as including the newest Web 2.0 digital technologies into its purview, such as wearable technology, augmented reality, smart objects, the Internet of Things and big data.

According to DiMaggio et al. (1999), research tends to focus on the Internet's implications in five domains:

Early on, there were predictions that the Internet would change everything (or nothing); over time, however, a consensus emerged that the Internet, at least in the current phase of development, complements rather than displaces previously implemented media. This has meant a rethinking of the 1990s ideas of "convergence of new and old media". Further, the Internet offers a rare opportunity to study changes caused by the newly emerged—and likely, still evolving—information and communication technology (ICT).