Americans turned to e-mail for support after attacks, study finds

Associated Press

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.

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.

The recent random telephone survey, 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.

About 39 percent sent messages offering emotional support or expressing concerns about the recipients’ welfare, and 38 percent received such messages.

Eighteen percent wrote e-mails asking if the recipient was directly affected, and 16 percent asked about potential victims whom the recipient knew personally.

In addition, 23 percent of U.S. Internet users received e-mail messages of support or sympathy from another country.

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.

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.

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.

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.