WORLD INTERNET PROJECT

NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand Social Networking: Generational Differences as part of the OII Panel, Pt I: Global Research on Digital Dividesfor IR 9.0: Rethinking Community, Rethinking PlaceIT University of CopenhagenCopenhagen, Denmark16-18 October 2008

AuthorsKevin ShermanIan GoodwinCharles CrothersTeamAllan Bell Karishma KripalaniNigel SmithPhilippa Smith

Outline

Literature review Research Questions Methods Results Summary of Results Discussion Future Directions Appendix: Characteristics of Parent/Child Pair

groups

Literature Review: Youth and Internet Socialising

• Internet always had a social dimension• Now increasing ‘mainstream’ use by youth for social activities• Global phenomenon• Tied to the rise (1997+) of dedicated ‘social network sites’; some specifically targeted at young users. e.g. MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Twitter‘We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to

(1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view

and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system’

Boyd and Ellison (2008, p.210)

Youth and Internet Socialising (cont)

Also tied to broader ‘Web 2.0’ sites, features, and activities User generated content, info sharing, collaboration (‘people to people’)

Often other sites focused on user generated content (e.g. YouTube, blogging, wikis) incorporate functions of ‘social network sites’

Difficult to precisely demarcate social networking online (Beer, 2008)

Peer pressure of online comparable to the experience of a public figure (Ito, 2008)

Identity and relational issues

Impression management & identity performance

(Donath and boyd, 2004) Forming & maintaining relationships (McKenna et al, 2002) Online friendships and social capital (Ellison et al, 2007) Interactions between offline & online relationships (Ellison et al, 2007; Lampe et al, 2006) Ethnicity & intercultural communication (Gajjala, 2007); gender performance (Geidner et al, 2007)

Critical Issues

Critical issues emerging….e.g. Potential privacy concerns (Gross and Acquisti, 2005; Acquisti and Gross, 2006)

Engagement in socialising and the digital divide? e.g. adoption of services related to individual’s ethnicity & parental educational level (Hargittai, 2008)

Concerns over unwanted sexual solicitation & harassment overstated (Ybarra, 2008) but still generate intense, broader social concern and in some cases legitimate concern (Lenhart and Madden, 2007)

The New Zealand Perspective

So… an emerging area that clearly needs further analytical attention. New Zealand stats suggest prevalent:Hitwise Top 20 Rankings Aug 2008: Facebook 4, Bebo 7.

Alexa Top 20 Rankings Aug 2008: Facebook 7, Bebo 8, MySpace 20.

Yet in NZ we currently have very little understanding of (particularly youth) Internet use & online socialising

Research Questions 1. Overall, are there significant associations between age

and the degree of Internet-enabled socialising among New Zealanders?

2. More specifically, looking at a dyadic subsample of parents and children, are there significant differences between parents’ and their children’s social uses of the Internet?

3. Are there significant associations between parents’ and children’s social uses and attitudes re: the Internet?

4. Is the frequency of parent/child Internet use associated with importance to daily life, particularly social type use?

World Internet Project NZ Methodology

Telephone survey (landlines only)

Conducted September – October 2007

Random sample of 1200

Plus booster sample of approximately 300 for ethnic

minorities

Sample contains 72 pairs of 12-15 year olds and parents

Main analysis: 1430 New Zealanders (16+ years)

Plan of Analysis

Entire sample: Associations by age across a number of socializing-

related variables. Parent/Child Dyadic SubSample

Mean differences between parents and their children in terms of various socializing-related variables.

Associations between parents and various socializing-related variables and between their children and the same variables.

Results:Associations by age across entire sample

Associations by Age

Many socializing-related uses significantly negatively age graded: Importance of Internet to everyday life Frequency of social network, chat room and IM’ing use Ever made friends online Self rated ability to use Internet Contact via email, txting Frequency of Downloading or playing music or videos Freq of Looking for Humorous material, info on shows Freq of blog reading, working on blog Rating of Internet for entertainment AND info seeking

Base: Users (n= 1121) Source: Q26

Sig correlation: r=.347, p<.001

Associations by Age

Some socializing-related aspects are not significantly age graded: Meeting friends made online Number of weekly Internet hours at home or work. Whether or not have a website Effect of Internet use on contact with friends and

family.

Results: Parent/Child Subsample

Comparisons Parent/Child Groups We found significant differences between parents

and their children in terms of: Frequency of Internet Activities:

Children more frequent than parents: Playing games, downloading music/videos, looking for

jokes/cartoons, IM’ing, participating in social networking Parent/child difference largest for social networking

Parents more frequent than children: Looking for news, sending email attachments, checking

email There was no significant difference for: chat room and

MPOG participation.

We also found significant differences between parents and their children for: Ratings of Various Media in terms of

Entertainment and Info Seeking: Children rated the Internet higher than parents for

both Entertainment and Info-Seeking. Parents rated newspapers and radio higher than

children for both Entertainment and Info. Their ratings for TV were not significantly different.

Comparisons (cont)

Perceived impact of the Internet on social contact

Children and parents felt contact with family, friends, people in community and other Nzers remained same/slightly increased since connecting to Internet.

However, slight sign. differences between parents and children in terms of perceived impact of internet on family and friend F2F time, with parents having slightly more negative view.

No sign. differences in frequency of ways children and parents contact other people, including: meeting in person, calling on phone, emailing, writing a letter and txting.

Parent/Child Content-Related Activities

Results: Importance of Internet to Daily Life

Between Parents and Children, Importance of Internet to Daily Life was not significantly correlated.

For both parents and children, sending email attachments (r=.25, p <.05 and r=.26, p <.05) and contacting others via email (r=.24, p <.05 and r=.38, p <.01) were pos. associated w/ the Internet’s importance.

Results: Importance of Internet to Daily Life

For children, frequency of: MPOG use (r=.27, p <.05) and checking email (r=.29, p <.05) were both positively significantly associated with importance of the Internet to their daily lives.

For parents, frequency of IM-ing was positively significantly associated (r=.25, p <.05) with importance of the Internet.

Notably absent for children: frequency of IM-ing and use of SNS were not significantly associated with importance.

Results: Parent/Child Associations

We found the following positive, significant associations between parents and children in terms of social uses of the web:

Playing MPOGs (r=.48, p <.05) Making Friends Online (r=.34, p <.01) NOTE, non-sig: Meeting Online Friends in Person (r=.38, p >.05) (n=8)

Also, frequency of online purchasing was significantly associated between parents and children (r=.37, p <.01)

Results: Parent/Child Associations (cont)

Rating of media for entertainment value: Internet (r=.23, p <.05) Television (r=.29, p <.05) Newspaper (r=.34, p <.01) Radio, n.s.

Rating of media for information value: Internet—n.s. Television—n.s. Newspaper (r=.29, p <.05) Radio (r=.26, p <.05)

Summary of Results

Summary of Results There is a clear association between age and socializing

related activities and opinions on the Internet. Similar findings also occurred with parent-child

subsample. Overall, children more than their parents have more

dynamic use of and stronger attitudes towards the Internet. Significantly higher levels of socialising behavior for

children than parents.

Summary of Results (cont) While children focus on social networking and parents emphasise reading news online and using email, there was no sig. difference in playing MPOGs between the two groupsChildren rate the Internet significantly higher than their parents in terms of both entertainment and information.Parents are more concerned about the impact of the internet on F2F contact

Summary of Results (cont)Preliminary analysis indicates surprising associations, or lack thereof, between frequency of social uses and the importance of the Internet to everyday life:For example...1.While children are relatively frequent users of SNS and IM (compared to their parents), their frequency of SNS and IM is not associated with their ratings of the importance of the internet to their everyday lives.2.Despite relative low levels of IM-ing among parents, their frequency of IM-ing is significantly associated with their rating of the importance of the Internet.

Summary of Results (cont)While many child/parent variables are not associated with one another, e.g. Content creation, information seeking behaviors, socialising behaviors, some notable associations do exist:

1.Making online friends2.Playing MPOGs3.Frequency of online purchases.

Discussion

Discussion1. Clearly, New Zealand youth use the Internet far more

dynamically than do older generations. This also held true for the parent/child dyadic subsample.

2. Knowing this, we looked at the parent/child subsample to begin to make inferences as to the deeper questions behind such use:

--For one, does frequency equate with importance—in other words are the things that children and parents do on a frequent basis associated with perceived importance of the Internet to daily life?

Discussion

-- Not in all cases. Surprisingly, for children frequency of SNS and IM use is not associated with their perceived importance of the Web—while other things like email use and MPOGs are.

-- And for parents, IM (which is a rarity among parents) is associated with importance.

-- One possible reading: social pressure vs utility

Discussion• For another—are there associated uses and attitudes

between parents and children? And if so, how can we understand these associations?• Our findings indicate that the Internet does

provide children with a space for learning, socialising and identity building.

• Yet it is unclear, based on the data, the degree to which these are beyond the purview of adults.• First of all, it is noteworthy that children rate

the Internet above all other media as a source of information, except other people like family and friends.

Discussion• So if children are influenced by what parents (and

friends) say, perhaps they are also influenced by what they do.• Consider these significant associations between

parents and children:• Making online friends• Frequency of online purchases• And possibly even meeting those online

friends in person

Future Directions • Need to expand and randomize dyadic sample for

generalisability.

• Also, more sophisticated dyadic analyses planned for future (e.g. path analysis) to help in determining which group predicts which.

• Need for qualitative research to interrogate issues surrounding importance of Internet to Daily Life, among others.• e.g. Why isn’t social networking and IM use

associated with importance for these children?

Future Directions (cont)We are also interested in exploring the impact of parental web-control on a number of issues related to their children•What (unintended?) consequences might such control have on their children?

-- e.g. social contact with peers...-- potential educational impacts: e.g. Use of Internet

in learning—school research, knowledge building, idea sharing etc...

• Pursuit of cross-national comparisons with member partners

Funders

(please note: funders are not responsible for the findings of the team)

n=72, (i.e. 72 child/parent pairs from same household) Ages

Children: 12-15 (mean 13.75, SD 1.24) Parents: 29-59 (mean 42.4, SD 8.71)

Combined Household Income (NZ$): Less than 65k: 32% 65k to 99k: 38% 100k+: 30%

User/Non-Users Children: 96%-users; 4%-non-users | Parents: 93%-users; 7%-non-users

Appendix 1: Descriptives of Parent/Child Group

Descriptives of Parent/Child Group

Children % Parents %

Male 44 Male 32

Female 56 Female 68

European 62 European 74

Maori 14 Maori 7

Pasifika 11 Pasifka 8

Other 14 Other 11

Wkly Hours Used at Home (mean) 6.05 Wkly Hrs Used at Home 6.2

Hours at School ~2 Hours at School ~1

Hours at Work -- Hours at Work ~8

Self Reported Ability Rating (5 pt scale) Self Reported Ability Rating (5 pt scale)Mean (3.48)=Avg to Above Avg Mean (3.24)=Avg to Above Avg