Waiting for the revolution: The use of microcomputers by social scientists

A longitudinal analysis of one academic unit is employed to assess whether the “microcomputer revolution” has affected the work of academic social scientists. In the four years since all social scientists in the multidisciplinary unit received microcomputers, average use has increased steadily to twenty-four hours per week. There is remarkable consistency in the relative distribution of uses over time, with word-processing applications and research uses remaining dominant. The social scientists report that microcomputer use has moderately increased the quantity and especially enhanced the quality of their research and that the impacts of microcomputing on their interpersonal work environments have been very positive. The data in this analysis reveal clearly that, contrary to the rather hyperbolic claims and excited projections from some social scientists, microcomputers have had benign and incremental impacts on existing patterns of work and have not transformed the nature of social scientists’ work. His recent research has emphasized the social impacts of computing and telecommunications technologies. His most recent book (co-authored with Kenneth L. Kraemer) isPeople and Computers: The Impacts of Computing on End Users in Organizations (Columbia University Press, 1986). He currently is involved in an extensive longitudinal analysis of the uses and impacts of computing technologies in American local governments. He was honored in 1987 with UCI’s first Distinguished Faculty Lectureship Award for Teaching. The initial phase of this research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (IST 8317592).