Dis"Like": How Race and Education May Influence the Perceived Costs of Internet Use in the U.S

The social diversification hypothesis (SDH) examines the benefits of internet communication for disadvantaged individuals. In a novel application, we use it to explore the perceived costs of internet use, particularly Facebook across two different analyses. First, in-depth interviews with 45 socio-economically and racially diverse participants from a midwestern college town revealed that People of Color and those without 4-year degree were more suspicious of Facebook and more likely to have been the victim of an online scam. In contrast, Whites and those with four-year degrees were often overwhelmed by, but resigned to using, Facebook, expressing instead frustration with the perceived socio-emotional limitations of communicating online. Qualitative findings were then triangulated with a 2018 Pew survey of 2,002 U.S. adults: disadvantaged groups perceive greater social and personal costs of being online while advantaged groups are more dependent on the Internet. Findings suggest that the costs of internet use vary by access to social capital. In addition to a novel theoretical application of the SDH, we discuss the need for demographic-specific digital literacy design and corporate policy changes that can help mitigate these costs.