Summary: Web users earn more than those of nonusers, but it is not simply the high-tech skill or work productivity that makes it possible. Computer users have advantage when workers are connected to networks, the best earnings show among those online at work and at home, according to Paul DiMaggio and Bart Bonikowski (American Sociological Review, April 2008).

Between 2000 and 2001, U.S. workers using the Internet increased their earnings at a faster rate than those offline. The study analyzed the net use and wage effects of 9,446 American adult workers with the Current Population Survey, Bureau of Census. The earnings of web surfers grew more than those who don’t. Particularly intriguing is that those online “at work and home in both years” and “at work or home in 2000 but both locations in 2001” did even better than connected only at work.

DiMaggio and Bonikowski say some web skills and behaviors were rewarded in the labor market. Internet users may have benefited from their access to better job information or from signaling effects from using fashionable technology. Digital divide is not just an access gap. Apparently, the split creates income inequality and beyond doubt a lot more. -C.S.

Summary: Watch out for news reporting on weight gain and health crisis – you might be blaming yourself for recent weight gains more than you should. While the news media and medical science publications share much in their reports on obesity and health, news media dramatize the issue more, highlight our individual responsibilities more, and blame particularly the poor, racial minorities, and women more, Saguy and Almeling (Sociological Forum 2008) find. The exponential growths of reports on obesity and weight since 1980 are the same in both medical and news publications, but the news media have continued to beat the medical publication in the article counts since the mid-1990s. The expansion of media coverage and the preferred use of sensational words like “crisis” and “epidemic” might be flaring the issue of fat in the fire.