Watching from the Sidelines: Suspended Internet Use of 17 – 22 Year Olds in Britain

Author(s):

Rebecca Eynon(presenting / submitting)Anne Geniets(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

16. ICT in Education and Training

Format:

Paper

Session Information

16 SES 04 B, Young People and ICT

Parallel Paper Session

Time:

2012-09-19

09:00-10:30

Room:

FCT - Aula 13

Chair:

Karl Steffens

Contribution

Recent data suggests that as many as 10% of young people aged 17-22 in Britain stop using the Internet or only use it at a very low rate. This is surprising given the generally high Internet usage of a so called ‘digital’ generation (e.g. Prensky, 2001). Who are these young people who stop using the internet? And why do they stop? What impact does their Internet non-use have on their education and job prospects?

This presentation will address these questions using quantitative and qualitative data to create a typology of lapsed and low Internet users aged 17-22. The presentation will build on the existing research findings from across Europe (e.g. Broos and Roe, 2006; Livingstone et al., 2011; Tsatsou, 2011) in order to develop the existing work in this area, and explore the implications lapsed Internet use has for education research and practice.

Method

The analysis for this paper was conducted in two phases. In the first phase the data from two large representative surveys on Internet use and non-use was carried out. Both surveys were nationally representative face to face surveys, one focused on the general population in Britain aged 14 and up (conducted in 2011) and the other focused on young people in Britain aged 8, 12, 14 and 17-19 (conducted in 2009). In the second phase 20 in-depth qualitative interviews with young people aged 17-22 who were lapsed or low Internet users were carried out in order to explore and develop the findings from the quantitative data.

Expected Outcomes

Using the quantitative data we compare the profiles of young lapsed internet users with people in the same age group who are current Internet users. Early indications suggest that this group of young people tend to have left school, have low to middle levels of education, are from mix of low and high SES households, and tend to think that the Internet makes life easier. The emerging findings from the qualitative data suggest that rather than stop using the Internet permanently, these young people are often in a transitory phase where they have only suspended their Internet use temporarily due to changes in their life circumstances, such as leaving their families and school, starting work or having children. This often has negative implications for learning, job seeking and engagement in other opportunities; and these young people often plan to begin using the Internet again once their circumstances have changed. At the same time, there are some young people who make a deliberate ideological choice not to use the Internet. In this paper we will present an overview of these findings and highlight the implications lapsed Internet use has for education research and practice.

References

Broos, A. and K. Roe (2006) The digital divide in the playstation generation: Self-efficacy, locus of control and ICT adoption among adolescents. Poetics, 34: 306-317. Prensky, M. (2009). H. sapiens digital: From digital immigrants and digital natives to digital wisdom. Innovate 5 (3), online, accessed 31 October 2011 Tsatsou, P. (2011). Digital divides revisited: what is new about divides in their research. Media Culture and Society, 33(2): 317-331.

Author Information

Rebecca Eynon (presenting / submitting)

University of Oxford

Oxford Internet Institute

Oxford

Anne Geniets (presenting)

University of Oxford, United Kingdom

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