Access to social support has become more important as the technology has penetrated new sec-tors of the population. Anecdotal evidence suggests that early Web users were embedded in dense
DiMaggio and Hargittai: Digital Inequality ---12---
networks of technically sophisticated peers. By contrast, more recent converts to the Internet are often less sophisticated and more isolated. We would suggest the utility of exploring the distrib-ution and impact of at least three kinds of support: formal technical assistance from persons employed to provide it (for example, office staff in workplaces, customer support staff in businesses, librarians, and teachers); technical assistance from friends and family members to whom the user can turn when he or she encounters problems; and emotional reinforcement from friends and family, in the forms of both commiseration when things go wrong and positive interest in sharing discoveries when things go right.