Sam Tilden just wrote: "Most of the research in CMC seems to "assume" differences between CMC and other media such as telephone and letter-mail. I have been unable to find research that clearly delineates this difference. Can anyone help me here." Someone once wrote that whenever someone asks for something, Barry replies: "We did a paper on this." In reply to Sam's Q: Several papers, but mebbe not quite what he wants. 1. We have a bunch of papers in the past decade, showing differences in the frequency of CMC vs phone vs FTF use -- and who uses it. Go to my site, and see the National Geographic paper with Anabel Quan-Haase, the organizational analyses with Anabel Quan-Haase (surprised at how few on the AoIR list seem to study organizational use); the Netville stuff by Hampton and Wellman; the Pew "Strength of INternet Ties" by Boase, et al; the Connected Lives paper by Wellman & Hogan; the Networked Households paper by Kennedy and Wellman. 2. However, we don't have much (yet) on how it is used, and nothing on differences in content and cognition. 3. Sam also asks for letter-mail. Basically, it's only used by individuals for greeting cards and a rare perfumed love note. When we have data on it, it's at the bottom of the Y-axis. OTOH, those studying weak ties should take greeting cards seriously, even if they've gone back to postal, instead of e-greetings (Why?). As I recall, there was a paper in ASR or AJS about this. Barry Wellman _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology NetLab Director Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman for fun: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _____________________________________________________________________