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246 Manuel Castells et al.The six types of projects of autonomy observed in the Catalan populationare the following:Component 1 Project of professional development, related to the selfpromotionand initiative of the person in his/her work-related career.Component 2 Project of communicative autonomy, characterized by theindividual’s distance vis-à-vis the mass media.Component 3 Entrepreneurial project, expressed in a predisposition tobusiness initiatives.Component 4 Project of autonomy of the body, manifested in a predispositionto control information concerning his/her own health.Component 5 Project of sociopolitical participation (including participationin political institutions, social movements, and civil society activities).Component 6 Project of individual autonomy, characterized by the selfaffirmationof individual personality.Of course, the large majority of our population does not display any projectof autonomy. However, there is a minority (between 10 and 20 percent ofthe population depending on which type) that ranks high in the values of thevariables indicative of each type of autonomy. Therefore, we can analyzethe relationship between these indicators of the different types of autonomyand the use of the Internet. In a nutshell, what we find is that the higher thelevel of autonomy, for each project, the higher the proportion of Internetusers, as well as the frequency and intensity of Internet use. Furthermore,in the one case in which we can measure a temporal sequence – the projectof professional development – we find that the use of the Internet does havea positive effect on the practice of the project of professional development.On the other hand, there is statistical independence between the differentgroups engaging in specific projects of autonomy. So that those who have ahigh level of sociopolitical project are not the same as those with an entrepreneurialproject; or, alternatively, those with a project of individual autonomyare not the same as those displaying a project of communicativeautonomy.These findings are highly relevant because they mean that the Internet is,indeed, a tool for the expression of autonomy, and in the cases in which wecan observe a feedback effect it reinforces this autonomy. But the contentof the autonomy is independent of the use of the Internet: it is linked to thesocial characteristics of the actors, underlying each project of autonomy.The Internet seems, indeed, to be a technology of freedom and a mediumfor the construction of autonomy, but the content of this freedom and thehorizon of this autonomy are determined by the social structure, as well asby the dynamics of the actors in the process of their self-affirmation.