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Analysis of the relationship between internet usage and allocation of time for personal travel and out of home activities: Case study of Scotland in 2005/6
Abstract
There is much debate among transportation researchers, practitioners, and policymakers regarding how the opening up of the online world is impacting on people's physical spatio-temporal patterns. This paper presents a novel analysis of the relationship between internet usage and time use, with time spent traveling (during the course of a 24-h day) and aggregate time spent at out-of-home activities analyzed separately. The empirical analysis draws on the Scottish Household Survey, which contains a unique combination of a one-day travel diary paired with a pseudo-diary of online behavior that captures three distinct dimensions of internet activity: the amount of time that respondents spend online per week, the types of tele-activities that they perform, and where they access the internet. The empirical findings include both ceteris paribus statistical association of specific dimensions of internet usage and aggregate (multi-dimensional) relationships. The latter suggest that (in the context of this dataset), internet usage correlates positively, net of confounding effects, with both time spent traveling and time spent at out-of-home activities.
... At the conceptual level, experts agree upon four ways by which ICT may influence activity and travel choice: substitution (replacement of actual activity with the virtual one), complementarity (generation of further need for travel due to the use of ICT), modification (modifying the travel that would not emerge without ICT), and neutrality (no influence) (Ben-Elia et al., 2014;Mokhtarian, 2003). Among these, views supporting substitution and complementarity effects have a dominant share among transportation scholars (Le Vine et al., 2016). These four types of effects may not be mutually exclusive (Mokhtarian et al., 2006). ...
... Even if previous studies account for the links between social media use, teleconferencing, distance learning, etc. and their travel-based counterparts (Dong et al., 2018;Mokhtarian, 2003), the only two ICT related activity durations we can pull from data were related to teleworking and online shopping. In addition to the key variables, we controlled for sociodemographics, personal attitudes, and built environment factors that were usually used as controls in the previous studies (Chakrabarti, 2018; Le Vine et al., 2016;Shin, 2019). The built environment variables we used cover land-use mixture, frequency of transit services during peak hours, pedestrian-oriented intersection density, and regional growth center designation. ...
There has been a growing interest in the association between online activities and daily activity-travel patterns. An analysis of this relationship is even more crucial considering the major disruptions to out-of-home activity participation and travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study contributes to the literature by exploring the relationships between Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use (focusing on telework and online shopping) and time spent traveling using different transportation modes. Using Tobit regression models, we investigate the impacts of ICT use on three travel alternatives: (1) automobile, (2) public transit, and (3) active travel. The results show that the effects of ICT use vary across these three travel modes. For example, all else being equal, respondents with higher durations of telework tend to spend less time on auto and transit. Respondents with higher durations of online shopping spend more time walking and bicycling. This study also explores whether the effects of ICT use on travel durations vary across groups with different socio-demographics and residential location characteristics. For instance, the study finds the greater the level of land-use mixture, the stronger the association between online shopping and time spent bicycling and walking. The research findings can inform planners and decision-makers on the relationships between ICT use and overall travel behavior in order to assess travel demand under different levels of ICT use.
... Due to the rapidly-changing nature of ICT, many of these studies took place before the proliferation of social media and smartphones. Instead, researchers have had to rely on imprecise proxies such as household internet penetration (Sivak and Schoettle, 2012) or some combination of total internet use, email and online chatting (Kenyon, 2010;Le Vine et al. 2014a, 2014b, 2016. ...
... In addition, the dependent variables of these studies tend to cover broad indicators of travel behaviour such as distance driven (Le Vine et al., 2014a), out-of-home activity (Le Vine et al., 2016), driver licensing (Sivak and Schoettle, 2012;Le Vine et al., 2014b) and even the impact on peak car (van Wee, 2015). ...
In an era of rapidly-expanding social media and smartphone use, there is much interest in understanding the impact that information and communication technology (ICT) can have on travel behaviour. In particular, some have conjectured that the prevalence of social media use among the millennial generation may be partially responsible for a shift away from car driving and toward more sustainable travel modes. This paper uses a purpose-designed survey to examine the relationship between physical and virtual social interaction. It quantified the frequency of interaction with members of one's social network through telephone, email, texting and social media and explored the association with face-to-face social interaction. Multiple regression and structural equation modelling revealed that in general, more frequent ‘virtual’ interaction was associated with more frequent face-to-face interaction, not less, even after controlling for income, age, gender, extroversion, and other covariates. The relationships differed in strength across different age groups; notably, social media interaction was only associated with face-to-face interaction amongst 18–29 year olds. This provides no evidence to support the hypothesis that social media use is reducing travel demand amongst the younger generation.
... Current studies show mixed results on overall ICT usage and travel behavior. While some studies have found that smartphone apps and Internet use complement daily travel (Kroesen and Handy, 2015;Le Vine et al., 2016;Srinivasan and Reddy Athuru, 2004;Wang and Law, 2007), others have shown no significant relationship between ICT use and daily travel (Kong et al., 2020), or a slightly stronger substitutional effect between the two (Konrad and Wittowsky, 2018). ...
In the digital era, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have provided inexpensive ways for older people to access daily activities; however, the relationship between ICTs and travel among older people has been insufficiently studied. Drawing on an online survey of 2,510 older Americans, this study used a series of structural equation models to examine the relationship between ICTs and travel among older people. The results show that ICT usage and daily travel for shopping, social and recreational, and healthcare purposes among older Americans are positively related. Of all the predictors, the difficulty of using the Internet is one of the most critical for lower ICT usage for all purposes, all else being equal. The study also provides user profiles for different ICT applications. For example, older people who were still relatively young used social media more. E-health applications were more widely used by people of color. The study also demonstrates racial disparities in e-shopping: African Americans tended to use e-shopping applications less frequently, and also generated fewer in-store shopping trips compared to non-Hispanic Whites. The study implies that there is significant potential in using ICTs to reduce travel difficulties for disadvantaged older people, and it is important to improve older people’s technology literacy.
... Although participating in work, social, and recreational activities online may not completely substitute out-of-home in-person activities, internet-mediated work from home and online shopping have increased rapidly. Prior studies have indicated that increased use of the internet might decrease both the time spent making a trip and time spent on out-of-home activities (He and Hu, 2015;Le Vine et al., 2016). Internet use, however, is also related to access to transit information and mobile device-based transportation services such as Uber and Lyft, both of which are related to increased trip likelihood (Velaga et al., 2012). ...
This paper investigated how daily trips are associated with multidimensional disadvantages in demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, transportation barriers, and internet use based on the 2017 U.S. National Household Travel Survey. We examined how these disadvantages affected weekday and weekend trips for work, recreation, and social participation purposes. Accounting for transit services and walkability at the metropolitan area level, the results of multilevel ordered and binomial logistic regression revealed that although the disadvantages were negatively associated with the likelihood of making any trips, their associations varied by the type of disadvantages, trip purpose, and trip day. Having a lower income was associated with a higher likelihood of making a weekday social participation trip and a weekend work trip. No internet use was more consistently related to a lower likelihood of making any weekday trips. A lack of car ownership was negatively associated with social participation trips, and the perceived financial burden of trips was negatively related to recreational trips. We discuss policy implications for reducing the effects of these disadvantages on trip likelihood.
... Virtual mobility allows people to communicate remotely quickly, cheaply and easily accessible, connecting them from one end of the world to the other. The two types of communication today coexist, influencing each other and, possibly, cooperate through ITS and systems (Le Vine et al., 2005)- (Konrad and Wittowsky, 2018). ...
People have always moved guided by the need to carry out various activities in different places, including that of meeting and communicating with other people. Over the past two decades, the concept of “communication” has significantly evolved given the introduction of multimedia digital technologies, which have enabled people to communicate without necessarily their physical presence. During the COVID-19 pandemic, “virtual mobility” (or “virtual communication”) played a crucial role in ensuring communications between people in different contexts of social life, growing in few months to previously unforeseeable levels and demonstrating that it can substitute physical movements in many occasions. A smart management of mobility that combines the ability to virtually communicate and the use of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) to support physical mobility, can therefore strongly influence people's choice to move or not, and how. Starting from the analysis of physical mobility and virtual communications trends before and during the health emergency in Italy, this paper analyses the relationships between these two forms of communication, evaluating how virtual communication affected the different segments of Italian mobility during the pandemic and how it will affect the way people move in the post COVID-19 period. A SWOT analysis of virtual mobility is performed for each communication segment, with the aim of highlighting its pros and cons, but also future opportunities and possible threats. Some policy indications are also provided in relation to different mobility segments, governance levels (urban, regional and national) and congestion/pollution scenarios, highlighting how virtual mobility can help regulate physical movements, with the ultimate goal of pursuing a safe, sustainable, effective, efficient and connected mobility.
... They concluded that social media use could not reduce travel demand among younger people. In addition, Vine et al., (2016) indicated that internet usage correlated positively with time spent at out-of-home activities and travelling. Finally, it should be noted that new theoretical and methodological advances are employed for discussing the interrelationship between ICT, activity, time use and mobility (Ben-Elia et al., 2018). ...
Information and communication technology (ICT) has revolutionized almost all aspects of human life. Thus, examining the effect of this technology on social problems such as traffic congestion, environmental pollution, urban design, land use etc. is of immense importance for transportation planning. Using 303 questionnaires completed correctly by residents of Tehran, this study applied Structural Equation Modelling to investigate the effect of ICT usage in a broader definition on 27 types of out-of-home activities, which were classified into three categories of subsistence, maintenance and leisure activities. The results showed the complementary/generation effect of ICT usage on travel demand. The use of ICT was also found to increase the time spent on subsistence activities and decrease the time spent on maintenance activities, as out-of-home maintenance activities can be carried out more easily and rapidly by Internet, and so people naturally prefer to follow this approach.
... Ben-Elia et al. (2014) use data gathered in 2007, when social network usages were much lower, to investigate the relationships between use of ICT nomadic devices, activity, and travel. Le Vine et al. (2016) focus on the relationship between internet use and time spent traveling or in out-of-home activities. To the best of our knowledge, the most recent studies take a different perspective, since they rather assess the possibility of ''harvesting transport-related information from social media'' (Gal-Tzur et al. 2014) for example to better monitor traffic flows (D'Andrea et al. 2015), incidents (Zhang et al. 2015;Gu et al. 2016), service disruptions (Pender et al. 2014), transit performances (Dey et al. 2014), mode choice (Mondschein 2015), O/D matrices (Lee et al. 2016) or activity locations (Hasan and Ukkusuri 2014;Maghrebi et al. 2015). ...
Internet is capturing more and more of our time each day, and the increasing levels of engagement are mainly due to the use of social media. Time spent on social media is observed in the American Time Use Survey and recorded as leisure time on Personal Computer (PC). In this paper, we extend the traditional analysis of leisure activity participation by including leisure activities that require the use of a PC. We study the substitution effects with both in-home and out-of-home leisure activities and the time budget allocated to each of them. The modeling framework that includes both discrete alternatives and continuous decision variables allow for full correlation across the utility of the alternatives that are all of leisure type and the regressions that model the time allocated to each activity. Results show that there is little substitution effect between leisure with PC and the relative time spent on it, with in-home and out-of-home leisure episodes. Households with more children and full-time workers are more likely to engage in in-home and PC related leisure activities (especially during weekends). Increments in the travel time of social trips result in significant reductions in leisure time during weekdays.
Nowadays internet usage increasing every day and caters to a wide audience. It is easier to use and access the Internet from anywhere in the world with the use of high technology and through the development of mobile communications. Especially correct and active use of the Internet can provide an important contribution to education. In this study, the student's internet usage trends in vocational high school, engineering and social science in different programs were investigated. With this research, Internet usage levels and the contribution of education to students were evaluated with a questionnaire. The research samples are composed of the students Sciences. The questionnaire data were evaluated with the relevant software's and research the validity of the hypothesis tested. It was concluded that the student groups and levels of internet usage trends have differentiation of contributions to education depending on criteria such as; the frequency of internet use, level of knowledge and access to the internet.
This paper explores the impact of smartphone apps on discretionary travel by utilizing a survey of smartphone users in the Canadian city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Both subjective and objective measures of discretionary trips are analyzed. A number of attributes such as smartphone use for different purposes, individuals’ perceptions and attitudes towards smartphone use and travel, and built environment measures are examined along with socio-demographic characteristics. Overall, results suggest that greater use of smartphone apps increases the number of discretionary trips. Perceptions and attitudes toward app use and travel also affect the number of discretionary trips. The results suggest that those who agreed that smartphone use has improved their daily life are more likely to make fewer social, shopping, and entertainment-related trips. The impact of socio-demographic and built environment attributes is low compared to the other variables considered in the analysis.
This paper examines the influence of the smartphone-based social networking and transport-support application usage intensity on travel behavior, specifically on vehicle kilometer traveled during weekends. It utilizes data from the ‘Smartphone Use and Travel Choice Survey 2015’, which was exclusively conducted on smartphone users in Halifax, Canada. One of the unique features of the study is that it explores the direct and indirect effects of individuals’ attributes, including socio-demographic, neighborhood and attitudinal attributes, on weekend travel and smartphone application usage intensity. Model results suggest that higher usage intensity of social networking applications and pro-environmental attitude decrease individuals’ probability of higher weekend vehicle kilometer traveled. While lower age group people tend to have higher social networking and transport-support application usage and lower weekend vehicle travel, middle age individuals more likely to have lower social networking application usage and higher weekend vehicle kilometer traveled. Interesting results are observed in relation to the direct and indirect effects. For instance, positive direct effect of land-use index on weekend vehicle kilometer traveled indicates individuals’ tendency to perform higher weekend travel by vehicles while living in higher mixed land-use areas. However, negative indirect effect suggests that individuals living in higher mixed land-use areas may indirectly decrease their probability of higher weekend vehicle kilometer traveled due to lower transport-support application usage intensity and pro-environmental attitude.
The adoption and use of digital technologies (DTs) in rural communities have an impact on several aspects of the society. Using empirical evidence from selected villages of Beitbridge district in Zimbabwe, this study examines the relationship between DTs and youth mobility. The different types, causes, and motifs associated with youth mobilities are explored using qualitative research methods including focus group discussions and community visioning workshops. Study findings reveal challenges facing youths in trying to be mobile including social (mainly gender) inequalities. Thus, women were found to be less mobile. Lack of infrastructure was found to be another key challenge impacting youth mobility. The study however found that DTs are being adopted and this has led to virtual mobilities, which is redefining youth mobility. The opportunities and challenges of integrating virtual mobilities and physical mobilities were explored. The study findings are critical to various actors including ICT, education, and other sectors in that they show opportunities that need to be expropriated to enhance youth mobility, which is key to socioeconomic well-being of youths, as well as the challenges that can be faced through the ubiquity of DTs.
There is growing interest amongst both practitioners and researchers in the correlates of young adults' driving-licence-acquisition. One aspect of the ongoing scholarly debate is whether taking part in online (i.e. virtual) activities may be associated with young adults feeling less need to drive and hence to acquire a driving licence. This paper addresses this issue by drawing on analysis of two distinct datasets. Both contain rich pseudo-diary instruments in which people indicate detailed characteristics of their unique online-activity profile. This includes both indicators of the types of online activities in which respondents participate, and a separate metric of internet-use intensity. The latter is defined in one dataset as the amount of time/week spent online, and in the other dataset the frequency of their internet use. On the basis of a set of multivariate regression analyses, a positive (i.e. complementary) cross-sectional relationship between young adults' online activity and licence-holding was found. We find that young adults who use the internet are, net of confounding effects, more likely to hold a driving licence than otherwise identical young adults who do not use the internet. Both datasets show this type of effect, and it is robust across a range of model specifications, including multi-stage estimations to address cross-correlation between indicators of internet usage. In addition to the positive net statistical association, we also report several other noteworthy effects. Of the six effects associated with online-activity types that are directly comparable between the two datasets, we find that the correlation in the parameter estimates across the two datasets is 0.63. This suggests similar types of relationships across the two datasets. Also, in several (but not all) of our analyses we found an inverted 'U' shaped ceteris paribus relationship between intensity-of-internet-use and licence-holding. The positive net statistical association between internet use and licence-holding is a different relationship than previously reported in the literature, and therefore further research is needed to reconcile the differences (which are likely due at least in part to different methodological approaches and data resources). Further research is also needed to continue to resolve between the relative saliency of other hypothesised determinants of licence-holding (e.g. economic and socio-demographic explanators, as well as licence-acquisition regimes that vary by time and place).
This study examines the connection between the built environment, perceived safety from crime and walking behaviour by conducting a travel survey in King County, Washington State, U.S. and employing a two-stage least squares model. We seek to answer two research questions: how does the built environment affect perceived safety from crime and walking behaviour; and how does one's perception of safety from crime affect his/her walking behaviour. Our results show that the built environment is not only significantly related to walking behaviour, as previous research has identified, but also correlated with people's perception of safety. In addition, a significant association between perceived safety from crime and walking behaviour is found, revealing possible indirect impacts of the built environment on walking. In specific, people living in neighborhoods with good accessibility and pedestrian facilities tend to perceive their neighborhoods safer while density has an opposite impact. Moreover, residents in safe and high-density areas are more likely to walk.
Telecommuting is on a rising trend as one of the most important alternative work arrangements. This paper explores whether telecommuters conduct more out-of-home activities than their non-telecommuting counterparts. More importantly, this paper investigates activity differences between low- and high-income telecommuters. This study draws a sample of approximately 7,500 workers from the 2007 Chicago Regional Household Travel Inventory. We use a Poisson model to estimate the number of out-of-home activities, and use an instrumental-variables (IV) approach to address the potential self-selection issue of telecommuting. We also identify workers who worked at home (WAH) during the survey days. Results show that telecommuting status and whether the respondents WAH on survey days affect out-of-home activities. During the survey days, low-income workers were less likely to telecommute than high-income workers, but those who actually telecommuted were similarly likely to conduct a higher number of total trips, pick-up/drop-off trips, and maintenance/discretionary trips, but fewer commute trips than the high-income telecommuters. Even on the days when telecommuters went to workplaces, telecommuting status is still associated with more trips. The behavioral difference between telecommuters and non-telecommuters on commuting days suggests that such disparity stems from unobserved differences between the two groups of workers rather than from the saved commute time through telecommuting.
This paper introduces a conceptual framework for the systematic analysis of multitasking behavior, and the corresponding degree of preference for doing multiple activities simultaneously (polychronicity). A typology of
multitasking is developed along the two dimensions “share of time” and “share of resources” allocated to each
task. We discuss the heterogeneous nature of resources and the importance of the time scale and time granularity
used for measuring multitasking, among other considerations. An illustrative library of examples of multitasking
situations is provided. Finally, we discuss the measurement of polychronicity as a time- and context-dependent
vector, rather than as a single score.
This paper analyses the effect of information disseminated by the Internet on voting behavior. We address endogeneity in Internet availability by exploiting regional and technological peculiarities of the preexisting voice telephony network that hinder the roll-out of fixed-line broadband infrastructure for high-speed Internet. We find small negative effects of Internet availability on voter turnout, and no evidence that the Internet systematically benefits single parties. Robustness tests including placebo estimations from the pre-Internet era confirm our results. We relate differences in the Internet effect between national and local elections to a crowding out of national but not local newspapers.
The investigation of teleactivities and their impacts on travel behavior received much attention in the transportation literature. Toward further teleactivity research, this paper reviews previous research and analyzes the findings regarding the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in personal activity and travel patterns. This review of about 100 studies of teleactivities impacts maps reviewed studies according to whether the type of personal activity is mandatory, maintenance, or leisure, the nature of the research is conceptual or empirical and, if empirical, tabulates the ICT impact and the modeling approaches. Telecommuting, enabling mandatory personal activities, has been the most investigated teleactivity (by more than 50% of reviewed articles). Teleshopping and several other teleservices (e.g., telebanking), enabling maintenance personal activities, have received less attention in the literature. Teleleisure, enabling discretionary personal activities, has been the least studied. Of the four major direct impacts of ICT on travel, i.e., substitution, complementarity, modification, and neutrality, substitution has been the most prevalent impact for telecommuting, with complementarity most prevalent impact for teleshopping and teleleisure. More recent empirical have applied more advanced modeling approaches.
Suburban sprawl has been widely criticized for its contribution to auto dependence. Numerous studies have found that residents
in suburban neighborhoods drive more and walk less than their counterparts in traditional environments. However, most studies
confirm only an association between the built environment and travel behavior, and have yet to establish the predominant underlying
causal link: whether neighborhood design independently influences travel behavior or whether preferences for travel options
affect residential choice. That is, residential self-selection may be at work. A few studies have recently addressed the influence
of self-selection. However, our understanding of the causality issue is still immature. To address this issue, this study
took into account individuals’ self-selection by employing a quasi-longitudinal design and by controlling for residential
preferences and travel attitudes. In particular, using data collected from 547 movers currently living in four traditional
neighborhoods and four suburban neighborhoods in Northern California, we developed a structural equations model to investigate
the relationships among changes in the built environment, changes in auto ownership, and changes in travel behavior. The results
provide some encouragement that land-use policies designed to put residents closer to destinations and provide them with alternative
transportation options will actually lead to less driving and more walking.
This research identifies the commuting mode choice behaviour of 3537 adults living in different types of transit oriented development (TOD) in Brisbane by disentangling the effects of their “evil twin” transit adjacent developments (TADs), and by also controlling for residential self-selection, travel attitudes and preferences, and socio-demographic effects. A TwoStep cluster analysis was conducted to identify the natural groupings of respondents’ living environment based on six built environment indicators. The analysis resulted in five types of neighbourhoods: urban TODs, activity centre TODs, potential TODs, TADs, and traditional suburbs. HABITAT survey data were used to derive the commute mode choice behaviour of people living in these neighbourhoods. In addition, statements reflecting both respondents’ travel attitudes and living preferences were also collected as part of the survey. Factor analyses were conducted based on these statements and these derived factors were then used to control for residential self-selection. Four binary logistic regression models were estimated, one for each of the travel modes used (e.g. public transport, active transport, less sustainable transport such as the car/taxi, and other), to differentiate between the commuting behaviour of people living in the five types of neighbourhoods. The findings verify that urban TODs enhance the use of public transport and reduce car usage. No significant difference was found in the commuting behaviour between respondents living in traditional suburbs and TADs. The results confirm the hypothesis that TADs are the “evil twin” of TODs. The data indicates that TADs and the mode choices of residents in these neighbourhoods is a missed transport policy opportunity. Further policy efforts are required for a successive transition of TADs into TODs in order to realise the full benefits of these. TOD policy should also be integrated with context specific TOD design principles.
The links between online activity and physical mobility are of wide and growing interest to researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. This paper presents the results of an analysis of microdata from the Scottish household survey. The survey provides a unique, large-scale, nationally representative data set that includes both a travel diary instrument and a pseudodiary of participation in online activity. Multivariate regression models were estimated to relate people’s online-activity profiles with their car driving mileage. The models included demographic and spatial characteristics to control for potential confounding effects. The analysis found that, net of other effects, compared with nonuse of the Internet, Internet usage was associated with a higher level of car use. The marginal effect of time spent online was, however, found to be negatively linked with car use. In other words, spending large amounts of time online is, all else equal, associated with less car driving mileage. The paper co
The new era of Information and Communication Technologies ICT enables people to communicate and interact with each other in different manner, changing the way they conduct their lives. This change has significant implications on their physical travels. The relationship between ICTs and travel is complex and sometimes indirect. This paper aims to better understand this complex relationship by empirically analyzing the substitution versus additive effects of phone calls on physical distance traveled by individuals. This is done by analyzing the phone call elasticity of physical travel. The analysis also studies the relevance of social ties in Ahmedabad, India, as a source of explanation of social activity, thus travel, undertaken by individuals. Social Network Analysis (SNA) allows capturing social determinants that affect travel in a way socio-demographics do not capture. The phone call elasticities show a variation among different people which can be connected to the type of trips that are substituted. The substituted trips are related to the social networks of individuals which can be used to target transport and ICT policies better.
Geographers and others have long since examined the distribution of paid work, childcare and housework within households and have more recently begun to explore the various effects of Internet use on everyday life and digital inequalities along lines of gender and other social markers. These lines of inquiry have so far remained largely separate and this paper brings them together by analysing the interrelations between the Internet and the gender division of household labour. Multi‐group structural equation modelling is applied to dedicated survey data collected among heterosexual couples in Columbus (Ohio, USA). The results demonstrate that Internet use is gendered in many ways. Variations in Internet use are explained by a broader range of factors for women than for men, and an unequal division of domestic responsibilities within the household constrains women's Internet use but not men's. Overall, however, the relations between Internet use and the gender division of household labour are modest. The latter is related in different ways for women and men to the residential location, the household situation, the employment situation and gender‐specific interactions among paid work, childcare and housework.
Mobility, one of the key concepts to evaluate the effect of a transportation policy such as TDM and mobility management as well as to analyze the problems such as social exclusion, must be measured by how much of an intention to make a trip can be realized, not merely by how many trips are available. The advent of new communication tools such as the Internet and mobile phones has allowed one to accomplish certain tasks that previously required a trip. This new situation has brought up a discussion over the necessity to incorporate telecommunications as an aspect of mobility. Aware of such discussions, we analyzed the relationship between the number of trips and telecommunications based on the data we collected on trips, telecommunications, and activities, and found some significant correlations. Our study which used an ordered regression model found several significant relationships between the individual attributes and the number of trips/telecommunications. We formulated a model which assumes the latent factors among the trips and telecommunications. In addition, we found that the latent factors construable as intentions to trips and telecommunications could be measured better by e-mails than by trips. These results indicate that measuring mobility requires the inclusion of information about telecommunications.
The question of the relationship between the spread of communication tools and the physical mobility of individuals is not new and arose with the arrival of the fixed telephone and, more recently, the development of the Internet and especially e-commerce. The extraordinary spread of individual, especially portable, communication tools like the mobile phone, has recently generated new interest in this topic in the fields of transportation economics, geography and sociology. This article discusses the main topics that have been explored, from the debate between complementarity and substitution to analyses in terms of interactions with the spatiotemporal organization of daily activities, the size and maintenance of social networks, and, finally, perception of travel and spaces. We then identify several issues that we think merit further exploration.
The first wave, conducted in 2002–2003, of an in-depth panel survey in Quebec City, was used to compare the out-of-home activities of adults who had the use of mobile phones, or of internet at home, to those who did not. A unique feature of the survey was the inclusion of respondents’ perceptions of the both the temporal and the spatial flexibility of all executed activities. We find, after statistical controls for other factors, that mobile phone use was positively associated with activity and trip levels, while internet access was negatively associated. These two ICTs also had mostly opposite relationships with the routinisation and pre-arrangement of activities and with some conventionally defined sub-classes of activity.
The advent of the Internet has added another medium in which people can engage in sexual behavior. This ranges from the passive consumption of online pornography to the interactive exchange of sexual content in cybersex chat rooms. It is believed that access, affordability, and anonymity are critical factors that make the Internet viable for the acquisition, development, and maintenance of online sexuality. For some, sexual behaviors online are used as a complement to their offline sexuality, whereas for others, they serve as a substitute, potentially resulting in Internet sex addiction, which can be conceptualized as the intersection between Internet addiction and sex addiction. The current literature suggests that there does not appear a clear dividing line between these psychopathologies. The aim of this review was therefore to provide a comprehensive overview of the empirical studies that have investigated Internet sex addiction in adults. Based on the five qualitative and nine quantitative studies conducted in Western countries that were identified, it was concluded that engaging in sexual behaviors on the Internet can go awry and result in Internet sex addiction, as it can lead to a wide variety of negative consequences for the individuals affected. Particular attention is drawn to the implications for future research in order to establish the pathological status of Internet sex addiction as a sub-form of Internet addiction, that shares characteristics of real life sex addiction, but that is not to be equated with it. Accordingly, the need for a clear diagnostic framework to clinically assess Internet sex addiction is emphasized as the first step toward understanding the potentially psychopathological qualities and repercussions of sexual behaviors on the Internet.
The widespread use of the Internet for conducting various types of activities may be leading to considerable change in people’s activity–travel patterns. Past studies, however, have left many issues unaddressed. Using an Internet-activity diary dataset and multi-group structural equation modeling, this study examines the complex interactions between different types of Internet and physical activities, with a special focus on gender differences and Internet maintenance and leisure activities. The results indicate that the impacts of Internet activities on people’s activity–travel patterns are significantly different across gender. In general, Internet use for maintenance purposes has a greater impact on women’s activity–travel in the physical world, while Internet use for leisure purposes affects men’s physical activities and travel to a greater extent. Further, breaking Internet activities down into different categories reveals some hidden patterns that would not have been detected if these different types of Internet activities were lumped together as a single category.
This article examines the conceptual, theoretical, and empirical evidence with respect to the impact of telecommunications on travel. The primary focus is on passenger travel, but goods movement is addressed briefly. I argue that although direct, short-term studies focusing on a single application (such as telecommuting) have often found substitution effects, such studies are likely to miss the more subtle, indirect, and longer-term complementarity effects that are typically observed in more comprehensive analyses. Overall, substitution, complementarity, modification, and neutrality within and across communication modes are all happening simultaneously. The net outcome of these partially counteracting effects, if current trends continue, is likely to be faster growth in telecommunications than in travel, resulting in an increasing share of interactions falling to telecommunications, but with continued growth in travel in absolute terms. The empirical evidence to date is quite limited in its ability to assess the extent of true causality between telecommunications and travel, and more research is needed in that area. At this point, what we can say with confidence is that the empirical evidence for net complementarity is substantial, although not definitive, and the empirical evidence for net substitution appears to be virtually nonexistent.
This paper highlights key questions regarding information and communication technology that have the greatest potential for collaborative and comparative research between the US and Europe. The paper begins with a brief summary of information and communication technology relevant to transportation and of key differences in the US and Europe that make collaborative and comparative research rewarding. It then turns to an analysis of the impact of information and communication technology on travel behavior, i.e. transportation use broken down by type of activity. Finally, potential research questions regarding the impact of information and communication technology on industrial organization, spatial form, and transportation networks are examined.
The Internet is a critically important research site for sociologists testing theories of technology diffusion and media effects, particularly because it is a medium uniquely capable of integrating modes of communication and forms of content. Current research tends to focus on the Internet’s implications in five domains: 1) inequality (the “digital divide”); 2) community and social capital; 3) political participation; 4) organizations and other economic institutions; and 5) cultural participation and cultural diversity. A recurrent theme across domains is that the Internet tends to complement rather than displace existing media and patterns of behavior. Thus in each domain, utopian claims and dystopic warnings based on extrapolations from technical possibilities have given way to more nuanced and circumscribed understandings of how Internet use adapts to existing patterns, permits certain innovations, and reinforces particular kinds of change. Moreover, in each domain the ultimate social implications of this new technology depend on economic, legal, and policy decisions that are shaping the Internet as it becomes institutionalized. Sociologists need to study the Internet more actively and, particularly, to synthesize research findings on individual user behavior with macroscopic analyses of institutional and political-economic factors that constrain that behavior.
Mobilitatsmuster in der Schweiz: Hat die nutzung des autos auch in der Schweiz den hochtstand erreicht?
- Ciari
Prepared by Ipsos Mori for Scottish Executive
- S Hope
The relationship between internet use, online and printed newspaper reading in Finland: investigating the direct and moderating effects of gender
- Taipale
What are we not doing when we’re online? In: Economic Analysis of the Digital Economy
- S Wallsten