VIRTUAL MOBILITY OF URBAN YOUTH:

ICT-BASED COMMUNICATION IN SWEDEN

EVA THULIN & BERTIL VILHELMSON
Department of Human and Economic Geography, Gothenburg University, PO Box 630, SE 405 30
Gothenburg, Sweden.
E-mails: Eva.Thulin@geography.gu.se, Bertil.Vilhelmson@geography.gu.se

Received: March 2004; revised October 2004

ABSTRACT
This study explores how urban youth fit the use of information and communication technologies
(ICT) into their everyday lives. Their virtual mobility may be lasting and have long-term effects
on activity patterns and socio-spatial structures. We focus on the types of activities that become
ICT based, and whether the extended networks fostered by virtual mobility affect local interaction,
physical mobility, and face-to-face meetings. The study is based on an indepth, two-wave panel
study of young people living in Gothenburg, Sweden, supplemented by national ICT-use survey
data. Results show that young people use computers for one and a half hours per day, and half
of this time is spent online. Time spent on ICT use is increasing, and ICT now encompasses a
broader range of activities. The Internet is mainly used to communicate with people already known
in ‘real life’. Contacts are both geographically far-flung and very local. ICT use is found to generate
additional contacts and communication rather than replace telephone calls and travel.

Key words: ICT use, virtual mobility, diaries, young people, activities, urban, Sweden

INTRODUCTION activities need close examination. To begin with,

Background – It is generally assumed that
increased access to information and communi-
cation technologies (ICT) will have far-reaching
consequences for people’s ways of life and thus,
in the long run, for the spatial structures of
society. As a space-transcending technology, ICT
can make everyday activity patterns – the loca-
tion, duration and sequence of work; shopping,
learning, information seeking, social contacts
and entertainment – more flexible in time and
less rooted, as well as more extended, in space.
In Sweden today over two thirds of the popu-
lation have Internet access from their homes
(Findahl 2004). However, high levels of access
to technology do not necessarily correspond to
high levels of use. To understand the possible
social and geographical consequences of ICT,
evolving patterns of ICT use and ICT-based
it is crucial to investigate how the rapid spread
of ICT access – not least among young people
– influences their daily activity patterns, that is,
their use of time for various activities at particular
locations and in different contexts (Vilhelmson
& Thulin 2001). Activities in various spheres of
life – productive, reproductive, consumption and
leisure – may become more, or less, ICT based.
Completely new virtual activities at home, the
work place or elsewhere may also be added to
people’s daily time budgets displacing other
activities and spaces.
The concept of ICT here refers to the com-
municative use of information technologies
to bridge geographical distances when people
interact with other people, activities and organ-
isations (see Table 1). When people are online
using ICT in this way, they are said to be ‘vir-
tually mobile’. Various modes of communication

Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie – 2005, Vol. 96, No. 5, pp. 477–487.
© 2005 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA
478 EVA THULIN & BERTIL VILHELMSON

Table 1. Defining the concepts ‘ICT’ and ‘ICT-based activities’.

ICT: Information and communication technologies: communicative use of IT,

Means of ICT:
Types of ICT-based activities:
virtual mobility
Telephones (fixed), mobile phones, faxes, computers (fixed, mobile),
online connections to the Internet, etc. for e-mail, chatting,
file transfers, etc.
Instrumental: Telework, teleconferences, teleservices, telemedicine,
e-shopping, etc.
Information: Web-based timetables, libraries, news sites, etc.
Social communication: Virtual interaction/communication with friends,
family, etc.
Entertainment: Web-based games, movies, music, art, radio, etc.

facilitate virtual mobility, including computers,
the Internet and mobile phones. Just as many
human activities became travel-based (and
spatially extended) as a consequence of revolu-
tions in transportation technology over the last
century, so some activities are now becoming,
or are expected to become, ICT based. The
main areas of change are likely to involve instru-
mental activities related to work, education and
the consumption of goods and services; these
could all be made more efficient by reducing
the monetary costs of and time spent in transac-
tions and travel.
Much research into ICT use has been directed
towards instrumental activities that governments
and industries expect will change, or in which
they are promoting change (see for example,
Rapp & Jackson 2003). On the other hand, social
research into the spread and adoption of new
communication technologies among households
has concluded that these technologies are often
‘domesticated’ or integrated into the everyday
life of people in unforeseen ways (see Bijker &
Law 1992; Lie & Sörensen 1996; Bakardjieva &
Smith 2001; Wellman & Haythornthwaite 2002).
Leisure activities, socialising, and entertainment
often, and to a surprising degree, play major roles
in the adoption and transformation of the use
of new artifacts. Often, however, too little atten-
tion is paid to the actual use of and the various
constraints on the use of new technology. Such
constraints include individual cognitive abilities,
existing household habits and routines, and
time budget restrictions.
The potential social effects of ICT use can be
compared with the effects of other widespread
space-transcending technologies such as the car
and the telephone. The car has had immense
effects in most spheres of human activity (work,
services, shopping, and, not least, socialising
and leisure) and on the networks and spaces of
households. The car has replaced slower modes
of transportation, extended people’s activity
patterns, and thus transformed the spatial
structure of society – while the allocation of time
for trips has hardly been affected (Vilhelmson
1999). Research into the social and geographical
consequences of the introduction of the tele-
phone tells another story. The telephone streng-
thened and intensified people’s existing social
networks and contact patterns, but had little
impact on trips or travel (face-to-face contacts)
(Fischer 1992). Furthermore, the use of the
telephone has evolved: in its initial phases it was
mainly used for instrumental and ‘efficient’
contacts (e.g., business calls), but in later phases
it came to be used predominantly for social
purposes (e.g. informal contacts, private talk).
By and large, the telephone seems to have
complemented other means of mobility and
contacts, thus adding to the total amount of
social interaction rather than replacing ‘older’
modes of contact. However, some short trips
and social visits within the local community
have probably been replaced by phone calls.
The history of the complex relationship between
space-transcending technologies, society and
space, indicates that the future outcomes of
widespread access to ICT among a population are
far from obvious. As argued by several authors,
see for instance Haythornthwaite (2001);
Vilhelmson & Thulin (2001); Visser & Lanzendorf
(2004), this emphasises the need for a continu-
ing and thorough examination of the actual use

© 2005 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

VIRTUAL MOBILITY OF URBAN YOUTH: ICT-BASED COMMUNICATION IN SWEDEN
of these new technologies, and of how people
integrate the use of computers, the Internet
and mobile phones into their everyday lives
and patterns of activity, before any firm conclu-
sions can be drawn as regards any ‘second-order’
structural effects (i.e. concerning physical ac-
cessibility and location decisions of households
and organisations) that are likely to appear.
Aim – In this paper we aim to explore empiri-
cally how urban young people in Sweden fit the
regular use of information and communication
technologies into their everyday activities. This
group was chosen as the focus of the study because
they are early adopters. They have high access
to ICT equipment and they frequently engage
in ICT-based activities – points easily demonstrated
by data concerning the computer experience of
the Swedish population (see Figure 1). The data
presented in this figure also suggest that the
so-called digital divide is largely a generational
gap that will gradually narrow over the years –
as has also been observed in the rest of Europe
and the United States (Castells 2001; Compaine
2001; Katz et al. 2001).
Young people now take ICT for granted and
use it routinely (Thulin 2004). Computers, the
Source : Swedish National ICT Use Survey 2001; data
processed by the authors.
Figure 1. Computer experience among the Swedish popu-
lation: an age-related digital divide. The proportions of the
Swedish population 15 – 84 years old that: (a) have used
PC; (b) have used e-mail; and (c) used PC day of survey.
479
Internet and mobile phones are used in many
everyday situations, not only at school or work,
but also at home and other places during leisure
hours. It is therefore reasonable to assume that
the preferences, emerging habits and norms of
young people as regards ICT will be long lasting
and will have long-term effects on society. It can
also be claimed that these young people domi-
nate the shaping of the technology and thus its
structural effects on such things as the urban
environment in which they live.
Organisation of the paper – In the next section
we develop the conceptual framework that guides
our investigation. Rather than seeking to form
an all-inclusive explanatory theory, the frame-
work stresses the need to focus on individual
ICT use and how it affects particular time–space
aspects of everyday life. In the third section these
aspects are developed into a set of questions to
be empirically explored. These questions con-
cern the purpose, duration of use, and spatial
extension of people’s virtual mobility and its
relationship to their physical mobility, out-of-
home activity, and face-to-face interaction. We
then describe our empirical study, comprising
an indepth panel study of young people living
in Gothenburg, Sweden, supplemented by
Swedish national ICT-use survey data. Our find-
ings are then presented in the fourth section
and briefly concluded and discussed in the
final section.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND
CONCERN
Our focus on the evolving role of virtual mobility
in people’s everyday lives recognises that any
spatial dimension of communication technology
use is socially embedded (Hanson 1998) and
closely integrated with people’s use of time for
various other activities (Hägerstrand 1970;
Vilhelmson 1999; Lenntorp 2003). Viewed from
the geographical perspective of people’s daily
activity patterns (for elaboration on this concept,
see e.g. Hanson & Hanson 1993; Fox 1995),
previous social research and tentative theorising
offer a number of broad insights into the poten-
tial outcomes of ICT use. A number of partly
overlapping propositions can be recognised.
A prime aspect is connected to the expected
increased use of virtual locations and contacts.
© 2005 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
480
ICT-based activities, virtual communities and
virtual services (teleworking, telebanking, online
shopping, etc.) will become common, perhaps
at the expense of real-world locations, events
and face-to-face interaction (Mitchell 1995;
Castells 1996; Cairncross 1997). At the indi-
vidual level such transformation will be observed
as an increased amount of time used for ICT-
based activities and communication (Gershuny
2002; Thulin & Vilhelmson 2004).
Close to this aspect are the proposed relation-
ships between physical and virtual mobility. It is
generally expected that there will be an inten-
sified interplay between various forms of spatial
mobility in late modern society (Castells 2000;
Urry 2000). At a more concrete level this means
that physical transportation and face-to-face
contacts may be replaced, complemented, or
even generated by virtual ones (for further
elaboration, see Mokhtarian 1990; Hanson
1998; Hjorthol 2002; Palm & Danis 2002). The
actual outcome of these processes is believed to
vary according to the type of activity, mode of
communication and segment of population
taken into consideration.
Another proposal concerns the contact spaces
of ICT use and the potential geographical
extension of virtual interpersonal networks and
social communication. It is commonly anticipated
that most people’s contact patterns and contact
spaces will increase and become more extended,
even global, in the information society. However,
it is disputed whether this extension will occur at
the expense of social interaction and involvement
in the local community (Wellman 1999; Castells
2000; Putnam 2000; Wellman & Haythornthwaite
2002; Hampton & Wellman 2003), reinforcing
a kind of networked individualism.
Opposing the trend towards spatially extend-
ing personal networks, but not inconsistent
with it, is the suggestion that people might
spend more time alone at home. Individuals
may become consumed by the computer and
the Internet, perhaps at the expense of social
interaction with family and friends, resulting in
less time spent on out-of-home activities in the
local community (Robinson & Godbey 1997;
Nie & Hillygus 2002). This leads to further
discussion of the disintegration of presence
and absence. People may be physically (or psy-
chologically) absent from certain places (e.g.
home or workplace) but may be virtually present
© 2005 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
EVA THULIN & BERTIL VILHELMSON
online (Hägerstrand 1992; Hampton & Well-
man 2001; Gustafson 2002).
Much social theorising, discourse, and specu-
lation centres on whether outcomes such as
the above propositions will be significant features
of an emerging informational society. Taken
together they underline the need for empirical
studies focusing on the ‘first-order’ conse-
quences of people’s ICT access – that is, how a
range of processes affects people’s everyday lives
considered from their use of time and space.
Clearly, radically transformed activity patterns
would eventually have far-reaching consequences
for urban structures as regards the location of
activities and networks.
In order fully to understand and evaluate any
structural impact ICT may have on society and
on people’s lives, questions about the actual use
of ICT must first be addressed and investigated.
It is only when people spend a great deal of time
online – making frequent use of ICT-based
activities and virtual options – that latent effects
on the social and geographical structure can
emerge. Further there is a need to broaden our
perspective and view ICT use in the context of
the complex and diverse everyday lives of indi-
viduals. It is important to take into account how
online time and ICT-based activities integrate
with other off-line aspects of people’s daily lives,
as argued by Haythornthwaite (2001) and
Valentine & Holloway (2002). This calls for
thorough empirical examination of current
developments using both extensive and intensive
methods and both quantitative and qualitative
approaches.
EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION
Specific purpose and questions – The purpose
of the empirical portion of the paper is to
explore how urban young people develop and
fit their use of ICT into their everyday lives. In
line with our theoretical framework and concerns,
the following specific questions concerning their
activity patterns guided our investigation:
• To what extent and for what purposes do
young people actually use ICT in everyday
life? What activities are becoming ICT based?
• What are the relationships between physical
mobility (face-to-face contacts) and virtual
mobility (ICT use) among young people?
VIRTUAL MOBILITY OF URBAN YOUTH: ICT-BASED COMMUNICATION IN SWEDEN 481

• Are people’s contact spaces and patterns of in each person’s diary. The diary included infor-
communication for various purposes becoming mation about contacts: contact modes, purposes,
extended in space and time, and has this been locations and duration. The interview focused
at the expense of local social interaction? on the role and routines of ICT use in everyday
life, the development of habits and perceptions,
Our concentration on activity patterns urges us and how ICT use might affect the contact pat-
to make use of micro-level data that represent tern, activities, and lifestyle of the respondent.
how individuals actually use time and space for
various purposes by being physically or virtually RESULTS
mobile.
Access to ICT and associated usage time among
Descriptions of data – In attempting to answer the population – In the 1990s ICT use spread
our research questions, we drew on data from rapidly in Sweden, as in most other developed
large-scale population surveys and indepth countries. In 2001, 90 per cent of the Swedish
studies of a group of urban youth. The large- population aged 15 to 19 years had personal
scale surveys were the annual Swedish National access to mobile phones as well as home com-
Communication Use Surveys, 1997–2001, con- puters, and 80 per cent were connected to the
ducted by Statistics Sweden. These surveys Internet (see Figure 2). It is only among the
involved representative, cross-sectional samples elderly that access to the Internet is still at low
of the total population aged 15 to 84 years. Each levels: only 14 per cent of those aged 75 to 84
year, 2,500 people were interviewed (except had a computer at home, and only 10 per cent
in 1999, when only 1,300 were interviewed). of this group were connected to the Internet,
Respondents each received an introductory although almost 40 per cent had a mobile
letter and a diary in which they were asked to phone. These data seem to indicate that the
register all the contacts they made on the day digital divide in Sweden is primarily related to
of the survey. This information was then col- differences between generations (and to some
lected by telephone. Each respondent reported
all the contacts made on one day as well as their
access to and experience with computers and
ICT equipment. Contacts were defined as out-
going communication by mail, e-mail, phone,
mobile phone, Internet, fax, etc. For each con-
tact, information was requested as to the mode
of communication and the purpose, start time,
duration, and location of the contact. The
response rates were about 65 per cent for each
survey.
Detailed insight into the actual use of ICT was
obtained from an intensive two-wave panel study
of 40 high-school students living in the city of
Gothenburg, a medium-sized city of about
500,000 inhabitants (750,000 in the urban
region) located in western Sweden. This study
was first carried out in the autumn of 2000
when the respondents were 18 years old; it was
repeated two years later, in the autumn of 2002,
to capture trends in ICT use and habit formation
processes at the individual level (Thulin 2004). Source : Swedish National ICT Use Survey 2001; data
The data were collected through a communica- processed by the authors.
tion and travel diary for each person covering
one ordinary week, and through indepth inter- Figure 2. The spread of Internet access at home, Sweden
views that were partly structured by the entries 1997–2001.

© 2005 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

482 EVA THULIN & BERTIL VILHELMSON

Source : Swedish National ICT Use Survey 2001; data

processed by the authors.

Figure 3. Time spent daily using computer, 1999 and 2001. Source : Swedish National ICT Use Survey 2001; data
processed by the authors.
extent between the sexes) rather than to differ- Figure 4. Daily computer use duration and gender, 1999 –
ences between socio-economic groups. It is, of 2001. Young people 15–19 years old, Sweden.
course, possible that this only holds true as
regards crude access, but that other factors such
as type of connection (e.g., broadband) and Table 2. Purposes of computer use among young people
15–19 years old, Sweden 2001.
associated costs of use may show a different
pattern of distribution. Purpose Men Women
ICT is clearly present in the everyday lives of min/day min/day
most young people. But to what extent is it
really used? The amount of time spent per day School/studies 42 30% 9 18%
using a computer, both off and online, gives a Free time 88 64% 28 62%
first and comprehensive indication. Over the Other 9 6% 12 11%
ten years from the early 1990s until 2003, the Total 138 100% 49 100%
average amount of time spent using a computer
Source : Swedish National ICT Use Survey 2001; data
has increased from almost zero to one hour and
processed by the authors.
ten minutes per day. A completely new activity
has entered people’s daily time budgets, in the
same way as watching TV did in the late 1950s offline. To understand the potential and actual
and early 1960s (in Sweden). Young people effects of computer use, there is a need to inves-
between the ages of 15 and 19 year spend, on tigate the purposes for which people use com-
average, almost one and a half hours per day using puters and to determine what activities are
their computers (see Figure 3). This amount becoming ICT based. National survey data gives
more than doubled between 1999 and 2001. a crude picture of this (see Table 2). A large pro-
Apart from purely age-related variations, there portion – two-thirds – of computer use is related
are also major differences between young women to free-time activities and various private uses,
and young men in terms of the average amount while about one-third of use is related to school-
of time spent at the computer (see Figure 4). work and studies. Play and entertainment seem
Young men, on average, use computers for to dominate people’s time at the computer.
slightly over two hours each day, while young This outline needs to be elaborated on. We will
women use them for a little under one hour. therefore turn to our intensive data and findings
However, there are considerable individual extracted from the time diaries of and interviews
variations in computer use. For example, on an with forty young people in Gothenburg, Sweden.
average day 43 per cent of all young women do
not use a computer at all, while the figure for The purpose of ICT use at the individual level –
young men is 27 per cent. While the people investigated here were not
Using a computer is seldom an end in itself. representative of the total population of young
The computer, like any piece of equipment, is Swedes, the total time they spent using comput-
used for purposeful actions – both on and ers was similar to that of the total population.

© 2005 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

VIRTUAL MOBILITY OF URBAN YOUTH: ICT-BASED COMMUNICATION IN SWEDEN
Source : Thulin (2004).
Figure 5. Time used for virtual mobility (on Internet)
among a panel of urban young people, Gothenburg, Sweden,
autumn 2000 and 2002.
The general differences between males and
females found in the total population were also
evident in the intensive study.
The one-week diaries revealed the amount of
time the respondents spent online, being
virtually ‘on the move’. Young men spent, on
average, about 85 minutes a day using the net,
while young women spent under 25 minutes
a day. As shown in Figure 5, as the respondents
aged, between the first and the second wave of
the panel study, the amount of time spent on-
line substantially increased, especially among
the male users. The intensive study, by means
of diaries and indepth interviews, showed that
access to broadband and the amount of free
time available were two main factors explaining
increases in the amount of time spent on-line
(Thulin 2004).
The intensive study further revealed that the
virtual mobility of these young men and women
comprised three major activity categories: leisure
and entertainment, schoolwork and studies,
and social (interpersonal) communication. A
fourth category, e-services (including e-shopping
and information services), was still at a very
low level in terms of time use. This is shown in
Figure 6. As the respondents grew older, between
2000 and 2002, the amount of time spent on all
four categories of online usage increased. The use
of the Internet also became more complex, coming
to include a broader spectrum of activities.
483
Source : Thulin (2004).
Figure 6. Time used for ICT-based activities on the Internet
among a panel of urban young people, Gothenburg, Sweden,
autumn 2000 and 2002.
The leisure and entertainment category comprises
such activities as visiting websites associated with
specific interests (sport, music, fashion, etc.),
downloading music, listening to MP3 music files
or Internet radio, playing games, working on a
personal website or just surfing the Internet.
In this category there are profound differences
between male and female respondents. ICT-
based leisure and entertainment activities were
very common among young men, but were
generally much less important among young
women, at least with respect to the amount of
time devoted to them.
A large proportion of the respondents’ com-
puter use was related to schoolwork and studies,
clearly reflecting the role of computers in doing
homework and seeking information.
Social communication is here defined as
contacts and person-to-person interactions with
friends and family. E-mail was the most popular
form of social communication, but students also
used instant messengers1 (such as ICQ), chat-
ting, and text messaging (such as SMS) between
computer and mobile phone. In particular, the
amount of time spent on instant messaging
substantially increased between 2000 and 2002.
Only a small fraction of the respondents’ time
was used for various types of e-services and e-
shopping. During the week for which they kept
the diary, only a few students used the Internet
to order tickets, access banking services, or visit
sites offering information about products, job
opportunities, timetables for public transporta-
tion and the like.
© 2005 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
484
Source : Thulin (2004).
Figure 7. Social communication using various means of
communication among a panel of urban young people,
Gothenburg, Sweden, autumn 2000.
The case of social communication – The dif-
ferent areas of ICT-based activity considered
above may have various social and geographical
implications. Here we have chosen to concentrate
on only one of those areas, namely ICT-based
social communication, and to present some
significant further findings from our indepth
study of young people.
The first major observation is that computer-
based communication (or the Internet) plays a
minor, yet significant, role compared to other
modes of communication (such as the telephone
and physical transportation). Figure 7 shows the
proportions of social communication that took
place using various modes of communication
involving both virtual and physical mobility. The
proportion of computer-based social communi-
cation remained relatively stable between the
two waves of the panel study (Thulin 2004).
The indepth studies revealed great variation
in individual use of computer-based social com-
munication: for some students it was of central
or even dominant importance, while for others
it was of marginal importance or even non-
existent. Most respondents did not use computers
for personal communication on a day-to-day
basis, the average contact frequency being every
fourth day.
Second, the Internet was almost exclusively
used for communication with people who are
already known from ‘real’ life. Virtual contacts
via the Internet were used to maintain and
strengthen already existing relationships with
other people; they were rarely used to establish
contacts with ‘new’ or unknown people. Further,
seeking new contacts online was found to have
declined among students over the years.
© 2005 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
EVA THULIN & BERTIL VILHELMSON
Third, it is clear that the respondents’ networks
of virtual contacts were both geographically
far flung and very local. Our findings also showed
that the use of various forms of Internet-based
social communication was very specialised and
segmented:
• Almost all the young people regularly used
e-mail. It was the most common computer-
based form of communication and was often
used for long-distance communication, to
maintain contacts with friends and family in
other countries. After finishing high school,
many of the respondents chose to travel or
live abroad for a year or two. As a result, their
local networks of social relations became
extended geographically. Virtual mobility,
primarily by e-mail, was used to maintain
contact with friends and family when face-
to-face meetings were no longer possible and
phone calls were prohibitively expensive.
• Undue focus on the Internet’s ability to
connect people globally often results in
neglecting to examine how it is used locally.
However, our indepth study showed that
many respondents used the Internet for
local as well as global communication. Instant
messengers were primarily used to interact
with people whom the students already
knew – close friends, classmates, people met
at parties – and regularly met face-to-face.
These contacts were mainly local although
there were examples of ICQ exchanges
involving friends in separate countries as well
as ‘cyberfriends’ who had never met face-to-
face. Chatting with real friends in the local
community was much more popular than
anonymous online interaction.
• Most of the respondents had visited chat
groups, communities, and websites on the
Internet where they had met and talked to
strangers, most often people from Sweden.
Yet almost none of them still visited such sites.
They described such chatting as a ‘childish’
activity that had been popular while they were
in middle school, but had now lost its appeal.
Instant messengers have replaced such chat
groups and communities, which are more
structured and controlled forms of instant
virtual social interaction.
• A small group of respondents regularly com-
municated with people whom they had first
VIRTUAL MOBILITY OF URBAN YOUTH: ICT-BASED COMMUNICATION IN SWEDEN
met on the Internet and seldom met face-
to-face. These people, mainly young men,
normally had deep and specialised interests
in such areas as politics, sports, music, and com-
puting, and used the Internet to exchange
experience and advice. Furthermore, relation-
ships established online generally remained
virtual – they did not generate physical or
‘real-life’ interactions – and tended to be very
short term in duration.
A fourth finding is that the total volume of
Internet-based social communication is increas-
ing among students. How has this affected
other modes of communication? A general
observation is that ICT is used primarily as a
complementary mode of communication, influ-
encing neither telephone use nor face-to-face
interaction and travel. E-mail is used to intensify
interaction between more important telephone
calls and face-to-face meetings, both for local
and distant interaction. However, the one con-
text in which e-mail is not a complementary mode
of communication is as regards traditional
surface mail: e-mail is simply replacing it. Instant
messaging also complements existing forms of
communication. Often it is an ongoing, parallel
activity while a person is online for other reasons
(e.g. downloading music or playing games).
Such communication is often spontaneous and
consists of small talk and ‘fooling around’.
On the whole, it seems that for this group of
young people the Internet has increased the
amount of contact and intensified interaction
rather than replaced older modes of communi-
cation. The respondents do not see virtual
communication as threatening or replacing face-
to-face communication and real-world interac-
tion. For most of them, e-mail, instant messaging,
and chatting are things to be done in spare
moments – after school, while waiting for dinner,
or before going to bed. The Internet seems to
have generated a need for more communica-
tion among young people: it has increased
young people’s access to each other and created
new opportunities for interaction.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
In the same way as earlier space-transcending
technologies such as the car radically trans-
formed, and are still transforming, the spatial
485
and temporal structures of our everyday activi-
ties and material environment, so common and
extensive use of ICT is likely to affect our everyday
lives and urban environments. Contacts and activ-
ity spaces may become more extended in space,
travel-based activities (e.g. banking, shopping)
may be replaced by virtual activities, and may
replace older types of mobility. All these changes
will have long-term effects on the spatial loca-
tion of activities.
This study of the actual habits and evolving
use of ICT among young people in Sweden
revealed that for them computers and the
Internet are indeed a growing part of everyday
life. On average they spend one and a half hours
each day at the computer, and almost half of
that time they are online being ‘virtually mobile’.
There are profound gender differences in level
of use, young men spending much more time
online than do young women. This probably
indicates the shaping of ICT into a gendered
artifact, something that warrants further
investigation.
Most of the time young people spend online
is used for social communication, leisure activ-
ities and play; however, online time is also used
for instrumental activities such as studies. E-
services and e-shopping are, however, less com-
mon. Panel data show that the Internet use
became more complex and came to include a
broader spectrum of activities over the two-year
period covered.
Further results from the study contradict the
common assumption that ICT use will expand
people’s contact space at the expense of local
social interaction. Virtual contacts and social
communication among urban young people
are both geographically far flung and very local.
The Internet is used to sustain and reinforce
contacts with friends and family, both locally
and at a distance. It is seldom used to establish
completely new contacts elsewhere in the world,
or as a substitute for face-to-face meetings. This
challenges the common assumption that ICT
radically transforms people’s contact behaviour
so that they seek new friends based on common
interests rather than through place-bound asso-
ciations and local ties.
Another conclusion that can be drawn from
our findings is that among the young people
studied, ICT is used primarily as a complemen-
tary mode of communication, affecting neither
© 2005 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
486
the volume of telephone calls, nor face-to-face
interaction and travel. In general, more con-
tacts are added by the use of the Internet, thus
generating more communication and intensi-
fied interaction rather than replacing ‘old’
techniques with new ones. This is consistent
with the findings of other recent studies, but
contrary to initial expectations concerning an
emerging information society.
On the whole and given that these conclusive
tendencies are valid for larger segments of the
population, our study indicates that the long-
term consequences of increased virtual mobility
for urban structures and the location of daily
activities may not be particularly profound. This
stands in contrast to earlier grand speculations
and discourses on ‘the death of distance’, ‘the
end of geography’, and the like. At the same
time, however, it is crucial not to view the
evolving roles of ICT and its impacts on society
as being determined by prevailing behaviour.
People’s usage patterns could be influenced
in certain ways in order to release the potential
effects embedded in technology, some more
desirable than others.
Acknowledgements
This paper is based on research enabled by grants
from the Swedish Research Council (VR) and the
Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems (Vinnova).
We also thank two anonymous referees for their
valuable comments.
Note
1. Instant messengers enable a defined group of
people to communicate while online. A list indi-
cates which members of the group are online at
any given time.
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