Poster #241 - Teens’ Online Activities: The Role of Various Contexts

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Technology, Media & Child Development

Integrative Statement

The purpose of this research was to examine the influence of various contexts (i.e., late night surfing, school day, feeling sad, friend present) on teens’ use of the internet for pornography, romance, educational information, social media, entertainment, gaming, and violence. We conducted a naturalistic study of 468 females aged 12-15.
Teens were provided Apple MacBook Laptop computers equipped with special software designed to record their internet activity and quantify URLs for adult and sexual content over a 4 week period. The software is non-disruptive to teens’ use of the internet and it continuously uploads data to a secure server. Consistency of keystrokes were obtained in the lab and used to ensure that recorded internet activity was teens’ own activities and not another user on the computer. Teens’ use of the internet for pornography, romance, educational information, social media, entertainment, online games, and violence were recorded through the software, and then these activities were coded by research staff based on teens’ use of the internet after 11pm, before 11pm, on a school day, not on a school day, and when a friend was present and not present. The software also recorded keywords of videos watched on YouTube.
Means and standard deviations are displayed in Table 1. The means of online pornography viewing, social media use, and Youtube keyword risk were higher when teens surfed the internet after 11pm versus before 11pm, on a school day versus not on a school day, and when a friend was present versus when a friend was not present. Such patterns were similar for entertainment and online gaming, except that the means were higher for when a friend was not present versus when a friend was present. The means of romance and educational information were higher for surfing the internet before 11pm versus after 11pm, on a school day versus not on a school day, and when a friend was not present versus when a friend was present. Very few teens engaged in online violence in any of the contexts.
Some contexts might increase teens’ online activities more so than other contexts. For instance, online pornography viewing might be considered a “solitary activity” but teens’ consumption of pornography was greater when a friend was present than when a friend was not present. In addition, teens utilized the internet more so for educational information on school days than not on school days. Such a finding might indicate that limiting teens’ online activities on school days might hinder their ability to access educational information. Our results have implications for individuals concerned with online risk prevention to consider the contexts that impact teens’ online activities. Researchers concerned with online risks should also consider similarly designed and innovative methods to objectively assess teens’ online activities.

Authors

• Michelle F Wright, Penn State University
  Presenting Author

• Jennie Noll, Penn State University
  Non-Presenting Author