Közösségi terek, gyenge kötések, internethasználat
Communal spaces, weak bonds, Internet penetration

Summary/Abstract: In the past years Internet penetration has been developing in a rather ambivalent way in Hungary. While the number of broadband users is rapidly growing, the proportion of users among those living in smaller settlements is hardly increasing at all. According to the hypothesis of the author of this paper, weak bonds play a decisive role in the diffusion of the Internet and personal post offices, community centres, and tele-cottages which provide access to ICT equipment, play a key-role. Since these communal spaces in underprivileged and marginalized small settlements are, paradoxically, the first to fall victim to cut-backs, it can be argued exactly because of the containment of these weak bonds that the diffusion of ICT, including Internet penetration, is greatly hindered by the poor bondedness of Hungarian society.

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