INTERNET AND YOUTH

Internet and Youth



Abstract

In the field of computers and Internet, children are often more comfortable, informed and educated than their parents. Today, children learn, play, communicate, work and form groups with very different social order than their parents. Internet access in schools contributes largely to tackling inequalities, because it shows very little variation with social status. It is perhaps for this reason that children are more likely to become compulsive users of Internet than their parents. More and more families are connected to the Internet. This could be explained by the fact that Parents think their children have the need for Internet access at home to keep up with their friends. This proposal outlines the research design which will be conducted to examine the use of internet among young children and their parents.

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Research Question3

Research Instrument3

Research Procedure4

Literature Review4

Offensive Content6

The Role of Parents7

Methodology8

Statistical analysis9

Result and its Interpretation9

Ethical Issues10

Limitations, Directions for Future Research11

Conclusion11

References12

Internet and Youth

Introduction

A research indicates that children spend more time watching television, computer or video game consoles. They spend about six hours daily in front of the computer screen. According to researchers the Web activity is causing barriers between parents and children, while a third of young people insist they cannot live without their computer (Young 2008, pp. 173). According to the study of children aged 5 to 16 years, children build multimedia centers in their rooms that consist of consoles, Internet access and MP3 players from the age of seven. This includes those children who wake in the morning and sleep at night. Girls, especially, tend to chat online with friends at night. 38% children take their consoles to bed instead of a book.

Research Question

Building on the convenient conceptual and empirical base, we focus on the following research question and this from a long-term perspective. The latter implies that we consistently check what trends can be observed over time:

•To what extent does the Internet use of children and young adults reflect unreliable Internet use?

Research Instrument

The research instrument used is the questionnaire survey which consisted of two sections: a section for children and young adults and a section for their parents. The questionnaire of children and young adults gathered background information (age, gender), information about the quantity and nature of 'children's computer and Internet use at home, school or any other place where they access the Internet, the degree of computer and Internet supervision at home and school and information about unsafe computer use at home.

Research Procedure

The survey research method will be used for this study. The survey will consist of the questionnaire for both children and young adults also their parents. The questionnaire will consist of both open and closed-ended questions. Open-ended questions are conversational; the interviewer records everything the respondent says.

Open-ended questions are very costly in survey time to administer and analyze by researchers; for these reasons, closed-ended questions are much more common in survey research. Closed-ended questions provide response options for a respondent to identify and select. There are many ways of structuring the response ...