Extract from our free publication (Open Access), with link to publication (download) see: https://vdf.ch/on-off.html In ON/OFF, Sarah Genner assesses the risks and rewards of the anytime-anywhere Internet, focusing on digital divides, social relationships, physical and mental health, and data privacy. She discusses implications for a variety of decision-makers in the world of work, in education, in families, and in politics. The author deconstructs the online/offline dichotomy and suggests the ON/OFF scale as a new theoretical framework for researchers and practitioners.

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ON | OFF
Risks and Rewards of the
Anytime-Anywhere Internet
Sarah Genner

2. This work was accepted as a PhD thesis by the Faculty
of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Zurich in
the spring semester 2016 on the recommendation
of the Doctoral Committee: Prof. Dr. Daniel Süss
(main supervisor, University of Zurich, Switzerland)
and Prof. Dr. Urs Gasser (Harvard University, USA).
Published with the support of the
Swiss National Science Foundation.
Bibliographic Information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.
Cover photo: flickr.com/photos/zuerichs-strassen
© 2017, vdf Hochschulverlag AG an der ETH Zürich
ISBN 978-3-7281-3799-9 (Print)
ISBN 978-3-7281-3800-2 (Open Access)
DOI 10.3218/3800-2
www.vdf.ethz.ch
verlag@vdf.ethz.ch

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Table of Contents
Preface....................................................................................................................................5
Introduction ............................................................................................................................7
Methodology.........................................................................................................................13
1 Digital Connections & Digital Divides..............................................................................21
1. Space & Time..................................................................................................................................23
2. Access, Skills, & Participation.......................................................................................................28
3. Generations, Gender, & Race.......................................................................................................30
4. Motivation & Personality ..............................................................................................................36
5. Culture..............................................................................................................................................40
2 Blurring Boundaries ..........................................................................................................45
1. Mediatization & Domestication ...................................................................................................45
2. The Internet in Our Daily Lives...................................................................................................47
3. Productivity & Distraction............................................................................................................57
4. Life Domain Balance .....................................................................................................................63
5. Blurred Lines Between Online & Offline...................................................................................67
3 Social Relationships .........................................................................................................68
1. Connected But Lonely Cyborgs?..................................................................................................68
2. What Do We Get Out of Digital Social Connections? ............................................................72
3. Mobile Devices in Social Settings ................................................................................................77
4. Disconnected Subcultures: The Amish & Mennonites ............................................................79
4 Health ................................................................................................................................83
1. Health Benefits & Resilience ........................................................................................................83
2. Sleep..................................................................................................................................................86
3. Traffic...............................................................................................................................................90
4. Burnout & Information Overload...............................................................................................93
5. Addiction .......................................................................................................................................107
6. Other Physical Health Effects....................................................................................................112
5 Privacy & Data Security ..................................................................................................114
1. Tensions Between Privacy & Utility..........................................................................................115
2. Big Data & The Internet of Things...........................................................................................116
3. Location & Data Privacy.............................................................................................................118
4. Privacy in the Post-Snowden Era ..............................................................................................120
6 Institutions .......................................................................................................................131
1. Companies & Organizations.......................................................................................................131
2. Schools & Higher Education......................................................................................................137
3. News Organizations.....................................................................................................................144
Extract from: Sarah Genner, ON/OFF: Risks and Rewards of the Anytime-Anywhere Internet © vdf Hochschulverlag 2017

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7 Responses & Responsibilities........................................................................................150
1. Who Is Responsible?....................................................................................................................150
2. Corporate Responses ...................................................................................................................155
3. Connectivity Policies in Education............................................................................................158
4. Technological Answers................................................................................................................161
5. Post-Privacy & Disconnectionist Movements.........................................................................165
6. Mindfulness & Relaxation...........................................................................................................169
7. Offline Day & Digital Detox......................................................................................................172
8. Tech-Free Zones ..........................................................................................................................174
9. Movies, Humor, & Rants ............................................................................................................176
8 Beyond Digital Dualism ..................................................................................................178
1. Is Being Offline More Real? .......................................................................................................178
2. Distinguishing Online & Offline................................................................................................180
3. ON/OFF Scale.............................................................................................................................181
Conclusion..........................................................................................................................187
1. Key Findings .................................................................................................................................188
2. Reflecting Common Assumptions.............................................................................................195
3. Reflecting Implications for Decision-Makers ..........................................................................197
Acknowledgements ...........................................................................................................208
Bibliography........................................................................................................................210
Extract from: Sarah Genner, ON/OFF: Risks and Rewards of the Anytime-Anywhere Internet © vdf Hochschulverlag 2017
Free Download: http://vdf.ch/on-off-e-book.html

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Preface
I cannot think of a more fascinating technology than the Internet and its related technologies that
allow us to connect and communicate in a faster and more global way than ever before. As a
child in the late 1980s, when nobody I knew had a mobile phone or had ever heard of the Inter-
net, I wished for a ring on my finger that would let me talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere. Back
then, it was unimaginable to be able to communicate with someone on another continent almost
for free while sitting in the subway or walking in the street. If I pause to think about it, I am sur-
prised how much I take this communication for granted today, even when I clearly remember the
seeming impossibility of my childhood wish. The effects of digital information and communica-
tion technologies on individuals and society have been my major personal and academic interest
for the past 15 years. The smartphone boom happened while I was already working on this pro-
ject, and has made this research timelier. The more people own smartphones, the more resources
they can access from anywhere and anytime, the more they are hyper-connected. We can send selfies
from the Eiffel tower in real-time to our grandmother in Chile, we can look up a fact during an
argument at the dinner table to see who is right, we can scroll through our Facebook newsfeed
during a face-to-face conversation, we can livestream our Boston marathon experience to the
world, we can be rescued by a helicopter in the Swiss mountains by activating an app, we can
read and send work emails from the beach. There is a tremendous amount of both opportunity
and risk involved in being hyper-connected.
The possibility of being “always on” is a new and a moving topic. While I have been con-
ducting this research, not only has online connectivity become ever more intertwined with our
lives, but also a number of new studies on specific aspects have been published. There has been a
public debate and much speculation on the effects of hyper-connectivity—by politicians who
suggested new laws to protect employees from workplace connectivity and to prevent burnout
and by scholars and journalists who wrote highly influential books about social alienation be-
tween hyper-connected people, distracted and information-overloaded multitaskers, and massive
privacy challenges in the era of Big Data and the Internet of Things. Academics have pointed out
that there is no “pure offline” anymore and that the “disconnectionist” movement tends to turn
“real life” into a fetish instead of accepting that Facebook is real life.
The ON/OFF study is a technology assessment of hyper-connectivity, also known as the
anytime-anywhere Internet. Technology assessments traditionally take a new technology and ex-
plore its risks and opportunities using an interdisciplinary approach. Technology assessments
generally have two goals. The first goal is to set research priorities by identifying the main oppor-
tunities and risks—usually with a focus on the risks. These priorities can be very broad depending
on the technology and context, which is why an exploratory and interdisciplinary approach is so
important. For this study, I interviewed 26 experts from various fields: health specialists, privacy
activists, education and communication professionals, and business people. I combined the inter-
views with the results of my three surveys and a lot of additional data and research by others in
various scientific fields.
The second goal of the technology assessment is to serve decision-makers—politicians
and other leaders—by helping them make informed choices regarding emerging technologies that
Extract from: Sarah Genner, ON/OFF: Risks and Rewards of the Anytime-Anywhere Internet © vdf Hochschulverlag 2017

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already affect their field. For this study, I am targeting a number of groups. First, business leaders
who think about the impact of digital technology on employees, their health, their focus at work,
their flexible work schedules, and their data privacy. Second, leaders in education—school head-
masters, teachers, and professors—who care about their students’ attention span and health while
teaching them digital and social skills. Third, hyper-connected individuals and their families who
might or might not think about how their online connectivity behavior affects their attention
span, their sleep, their social relationships, and their data privacy. As for academia, I suggest the
ON/OFF scale as a new theoretical framework to describe connectivity that goes beyond the
online/offline dualism and as a potentially useful tool for further research.
While keeping an eye on the big picture and the global state of hyper-connectivity, the
ON/OFF study largely focuses on Switzerland, Germany, and the United States, because these
are the countries I know best personally and through my research. Luckily, these countries hap-
pen to be particularly interesting places when it comes to the Internet. They are among the most
connected countries worldwide, and their current state is likely to be a glimpse into the future of
currently less connected countries. Yet each of these countries has their own characteristics. The
United States is at the center of the digital economy worldwide with large and very powerful and
influential global corporations like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. Germany
is the biggest European market and at the center of global discussions about data privacy. Some
German companies also made international headlines by introducing connectivity regulations.
Switzerland is a tiny nation, but one of the most connected countries worldwide. The World
Wide Web invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in Switzerland and—while global Internet
governance is being reconfigured—Geneva hosts offices of ICANN, a key institution for global
Internet governance.
I appreciate both of my advisors’ commitment to underlining the positive aspects of the
Internet while not neglecting the risks. I deeply admire their approach of using academic research
as a tool to advance current public debates on media and technology in society and their efforts
to share scientific insights with a larger audience rather than staying only within academic circles.
With the ON/OFF study, I am hoping to make a research contribution in this same spirit.
Cambridge, MA, USA, in August 2015
After returning from the United States, I added more recently published data and studies to the
manuscript. Thanks to the vdf Hochschulverlag AG at ETH Zurich and the SNSF Swiss Nation-
al Science Foundation, I have been able to publish this book open access. I think scholarly pub-
lishing should always be open access.
Zurich, Switzerland in August 2016
Extract from: Sarah Genner, ON/OFF: Risks and Rewards of the Anytime-Anywhere Internet © vdf Hochschulverlag 2017