community of place and two virtual communities on the Internet. This
group was one of the latter. The paper was recently accepted for
publication in the international journal 'Behaviour Change' and will
appear in a special issue on the psychology of the Internet later this
year.

I just want to say a big mahalo nui loa to those of you who helped
with the study by completing the PSOC questionnaire.

In case anyone is interested, in the paper I described some background
to the psychology of virtual communities. Then I reported results that
showed that internet groups such as SCH do contribute to people's
overall PSOC. My next step will be to dig into the details of that and
to see what benefits it produces for people.

Thanks again

Peter Forster
University of the South Pacific, Emalus Campus PMB072, Port Vila,
Vanuatu

You mean... what benefits it produces for people who have money to buy a
computer or two or three or four....

-------------------------------------------

Check out these websites please:

http://www.HawaiianWannaBes.com
http://www.RealHapas.com
http://www.AmerasianFoundation.org

Mahalo!

I suppose the odds are that those who participate in newsgoups do
indeed own
their own computer. But is that necessarity true? When I worked I
participated in newsgroup from work (of course I am sure my employer
did not
appreciate that one bit).

:"Peter Forster" <moanakane@yahoo.com> wrote in message :news:1088654708-sch@news.lava.net... :
:> My next step will be to dig into the details of that and
:> to see what benefits it produces for people.
:
:You mean... what benefits it produces for people who have money to buy
a
:computer or two or three or four....

Not all people in THIS ng own one computer, much less 2, 3 or 4. Heck,
not all in SCH even have a home to live in. This is a very diverse ng.
There are frugal ways (even free!) to access the internet. Peter's been
an active, respected member of this ng for as long as I can remember
and I've been here since the beginning. I, for one, will be very
interested in his "details". YMMV.

Have a look at my address. I live and work in a third world country -
Vanuatu - and try to help them get some of the benefits of the first
world.

Perhaps you would like to share with this group your work to improve
internet access to the disadvantaged.

Peter Forster
Port Vila, Vanuatu

I don't think I'd be breaking any copyright laws if I sent a
pre-publication draft to anyone who is interested. Just e-mail me.

Best wishes

Peter
On a cold, wet day in the south pacific, wishing I was in Kona...

True, true. Besides, when I was living on my land on the Big Island,
I didn't even have a place to plug one in.

I'm thinking of coming back this fall, and was dismayed to learn
that the Hilo public library only allows two hours internet access
per -week-. How about public access at the UHH? Anybody know?

Me too. FWIW, I'm a charter member of SCH, participating on and off
under this and another pseudonym. (they'll never take me alive! :^)

I don't know of anything public at UHH... there are some "cybercafe"
type places around... and the other libraries (Keaau, Pahoa, Mt. View)
I would expect to also have some kind of access.

-Dan

--
Dan Birchall, Hilo HI - http://dan.birchalls.net/ - images, words,
technology