Understanding Internet Use And Dependency
Author(s)
Ch.-H. Soh & R Murali
Abstract
Since the 1950s, the Uses and Gratifications approach has been widely applied to
explaining the use of the media, such as the radio and newspapers. Recently, this
framework has also been applied to the Internet, a new media and has helped in
the understanding of how the motivations of individuals affect their Internet
usage patterns and their consequences.
The Internet is arguably very different from the conventional media, with
salient features like interactivity, anonymity, chameleon of features, rich
multimedia, censorship, the wide breadth and depth of information provided.
More importantly, the Internet is a medium used mostly by the young and hence,
the role of supervision should perhaps not be ignored. However, only limited, if
any empirical studies on the role of supervision on internet usage and
dependency. On the other hand, studies that have been conducted on parental
supervision and adolescent behaviour such as delinquency, alcohol and drug use
and these have concluded that parental supervision is an important factor in
deterring deviant adolescent behaviour.
This paper proposes a modification of the widely supported Uses and
Gratification framework to better understand Internet usage and the dependency
of adolescents. The proposed framework could help raise the awareness on risk
mitigation on the Internet.
Keywords: Internet, addiction, youth, parental supervision, deviant behaviour.
1 Introduction
Since the 1950s, the Uses and Gratifications approach has been widely applied to
explaining the use of the media, such as the radio and newspaper. Recently, this
framework has also been applied to the Internet, a new media and has helped in
the understanding of how the motivations of individuals affect their Internet
usage patterns and their consequences. Many empirical studies use this
Keywords
Internet, addiction, youth, parental supervision, deviant behaviour.
Related Book
Other papers in this volume
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