Dr Kevin Dixon, a sociologist from Teesside University’s School of Social Sciences, Business & Law, is researching how we conduct relationships through our smartphones, computers and tablets and the role screens play in our day to day lives. He is also interested in why men and women engage with the internet and technology differently and what our reliance on screens says about society.

COMPUTERS and portable devices have changed the way we live. Whether at home, in shops, on public transport, in fact in any private or public environment, we are interacting with others not in our immediate environment. We now conduct relationships through smart phones, computers, tablets and other interactive devices promised for the future. All share one common feature - screens.

“We spend more of our waking lives staring at screens, transmitting and receiving messages, but with who and with what consequences? These are the fundamental questions that we hope to answer with the Screen Society project.

“It sets out to examine the way we use, and perhaps depend on digital media and television from the moment we wake until we go to bed and, in many cases, we are finding that people wake up in the night to check email and social media.

“One participant recalled routinely checking eBay auctions to make sure he didn’t get outbid by people in different time zones. Others were checking emails to appease work demands, raising the question – as our working style becomes ever more flexible, are we ever off duty? Insomniacs of course, were thankful for the web because it never sleeps.

“As part of the Screen Society project we are inviting people to reflect and speculate what our use of digital technology is doing to us, and by implication, to society.

“We have already had over 1,300 responses from internet users across the world. As well as the UK, we have also received positive responses from people in America, Australia, Africa and from across Europe.

“Today, you look around you in any public space and notice practically everybody staring at a screen,” added Dr Dixon, whose book Studying Football was published last year.

“We seem more preoccupied with what’s going on in our phones than anything else.

“But is it dangerous? The team is sceptical about many of the scare stories about the internet. We’ve combed through the research and found warnings about how our web-gazing will shorten our attention spans, damage our ability to form relationships, lead to family breakdown - the list is almost endless.

“What’s usually lacking are the opinions of the users. It has become too easy to make pronouncements without discovering what people themselves think. We aim to find out.”

Professor Ellis Cashmore of Aston University, is also part of the Screen Society project. He believes there are parallels between the reaction to screen-based media and the response to television in the 1960s.

“There’s an understandable reluctance to embrace any new technology that offers so much. Television was met with suspicion at precisely the time we accepted it in our millions.

“The fascination with television has never faded and it remains a presence, while the scares have disappeared. It remains to be seen whether it will be the same with smartphones and tablets.”

Dr Dixon added: “One surprise that the research has thrown up so far is the huge difference in engagement between men and women and the different types of responses between genders. It has led us to ask further questions; is the internet sexist? Do men and women experience the internet differently? Does the internet challenge or reinforce gender stereotypes?

“It could be that the response ratio reflects a healthy and understandable scepticism among women, who tend to be targeted more by trolls and other cyber wrongdoers. One woman who loved the project and thought it to be thought-provoking, took the precaution of checking us out beforehand. She explained that women are naturally more cautious of strangers.

“With any research you expect surprises, but this is peculiar because none of the questions are loaded in favour of one gender or the other and there is an important question about whether social media has had any effect on gender relations. Women use social media as much as men, but maybe they are more suspicious.

“We want as many people as possible to take part in the research and would encourage Northern Echo readers, especially women, to take a little bit of time to complete the survey. It is a fascinating project and should help us shed some light on our obsession with screens and where we are heading as a society seemingly obsessed with technology. Perhaps in the future we will all be setting our alarms to wake up in the middle of the night to check email and update our Facebook status?

• Dr Dixon is conducting the research with Dr Jamie Cleland, from the University of Adelaide, and Professor Ellis Cashmore, of Aston University. He is also interested in why men and women engage with the internet and technology differently and what our reliance on screens says about society. You can have your say and take part in the research survey at http://bit.ly/ScreenSociety