NEW YORK - Internet users found a new reason to send e-mail - for emotional support - following the Sept. 11 attacks, and a UCLA study suggests that the discovery may transform use of the communications tool. <br>
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Jeff Cole, director of the UCLA Center for Communication Policy, likened the change to how Americans found new uses for telephone answering machines - for screening calls, instead of merely recording messages. <br>
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The random telephone survey, released Thursday, found that more than 57 percent of e-mail users - or more than 100 million Americans - received or sent messages related to support or concern in the week following the attacks. <br>
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About 39 percent sent messages offering emotional support or expressing concerns about the recipients' welfare, and 38 percent received such messages. <br>
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Eighteen percent wrote e-mails asking if the recipient was directly affected, and 16 percent asked about potential victims whom the recipient knew personally. <br>
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In addition, 23 percent of U.S. Internet users received e-mail messages of support or sympathy from another country. <br>
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Based on focus groups conducted afterward, researchers found that many of the contacts - particularly with those outside the immediate circle of friends and family - wouldn't have been made by telephone, even if phone lines had not jammed on Sept. 11. <br>
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Cole also said some Americans used e-mail as an opportunity to reconnect with someone with whom they had lost contact or had a fight. <br>
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Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, said his group's surveys found that although e-mail was used for emotional support before Sept. 11, the attacks provided a jolt. The shift, he said, would have happened anyhow, just not as quickly. <br>
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The UCLA study was based on random telephone calls to 1,200 Americans from Jan. 3-12. It has a margin of sampling error or plus or minus 3 percentage points. The study is a supplement to the annual UCLA Internet Report, last conducted over the summer and released in November.
