IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/chinre/v14y2021i4d10.1007_s12187-021-09805-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Personal and Family Sociodemographic Correlates of Types of Online Activities in School-Aged Children: a Multicountry Study

Author

Listed:
  • Jennifer Chun-Li Wu

    (National Taipei University of Education)

  • Sandra B. Sebre

    (University of Latvia)

  • Roma Jusienė

    (Vilnius University)

  • Vilmantė Pakalniškienė

    (Vilnius University)

  • Anika Miltuze

    (University of Latvia)

  • Yi-Fan Li

    (National Research Institute of Chinese Medicine)

Abstract

The Internet has become an integral part of everyday life, but analytical and systematic investigation of school-aged children’s online activities is lacking. This study aims to describe children’s Internet use according to types of online activities and examine the personal and family sociodemographic correlates of types of online activities within different sociocultural contexts. Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 840 children aged 8–10 years and their parents in Latvia, Lithuania and Taiwan. Children reported the frequency of using the Internet for ten specific activities, which were classified into the three distinct types of online activities, namely, information seeking, social interactions and entertainment, through multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. Overall, school-aged children used the Internet most frequently for entertainment and least frequently for social interactions, and Latvian children engaged the most frequently in all types of online activities. The multiple linear regression results show that in all three countries, children’s device ownership and use of the Internet to cope with negative emotions were the two most salient correlates of engagement in different online activities. Although family socioeconomic (e.g., parent’s education, financial status) differences in Internet usage types were not evident, there were country variations in the association of online activity types with family demographic factors (e.g., living arrangement, child’s number of siblings). This study identifies personal and family sociodemographic correlates of the types of activities children perform online and highlights differences in the comparison countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer Chun-Li Wu & Sandra B. Sebre & Roma Jusienė & Vilmantė Pakalniškienė & Anika Miltuze & Yi-Fan Li, 2021. "Personal and Family Sociodemographic Correlates of Types of Online Activities in School-Aged Children: a Multicountry Study," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 14(4), pages 1415-1434, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:chinre:v:14:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s12187-021-09805-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s12187-021-09805-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12187-021-09805-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12187-021-09805-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicole Zillien & Eszter Hargittai, 2009. "Digital Distinction: Status‐Specific Types of Internet Usage," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(2), pages 274-291, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ake-Kob, Alin & Blazeviciene, Aurelija & Colonna, Liane & Cartolovni, Anto & Dantas, Carina & Fedosov, Anton & Florez-Revuelta, Francisco & Fosch-Villaronga, Eduard & He, Zhicheng & Klimczuk, Andrzej , 2021. "State of the art on ethical, legal, and social issues linked to audio- and video-based AAL solutions," EconStor Research Reports 248470, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    2. Bartikowski, Boris & Laroche, Michel & Jamal, Ahmad & Yang, Zhiyong, 2018. "The type-of-internet-access digital divide and the well-being of ethnic minority and majority consumers: A multi-country investigation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 373-380.
    3. Lamberti, Giuseppe & Lopez-Sintas, Jordi & Sukphan, Jakkapong, 2021. "The social process of internet appropriation: Living in a digitally advanced country benefits less well-educated Europeans," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1).
    4. Jessica M. Sautter & Rebecca M. Tippett & S. Philip Morgan, 2010. "The Social Demography of Internet Dating in the United States," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 91(2), pages 554-575, June.
    5. Ji Liu, 2021. "Bridging Digital Divide Amidst Educational Change for Socially Inclusive Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(4), pages 21582440211, November.
    6. Esther Brainin & Efrat Neter, 2014. "Inside Technology: Opening the Black Box of Health-Website Configuration and Content Management," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-27, December.
    7. Ren, Wei & Zhu, Xiaowen, 2024. "The age-based digital divides in China: Trends and socioeconomic differentials (2010–2020)," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(3).
    8. Meng Qi & Bei Zhang & Junjie Li & Bangfan Liu, 2023. "The Three-Dimensional Analytical and Governance Logic of China’s Digital Divide Bridging Policy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-24, April.
    9. Guo, Congbin & Wan, Boshen, 2022. "The digital divide in online learning in China during the COVID-19 pandemic," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    10. Tirado-Morueta, Ramón & Rodríguez-Martín, Alejandro & Álvarez-Arregui, Emilio & Ortíz-Sobrino, Miguel Ángel & Aguaded-Gómez, José Ignacio, 2021. "Understanding internet appropriation among older people through institutional supports in Spain," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    11. Maximilian Weber & Birgit Becker, 2019. "Browsing the Web for School: Social Inequality in Adolescents’ School-Related Use of the Internet," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(2), pages 21582440198, June.
    12. Castillo-Tellez, Luis Carlos, 2023. "Bibliometric Analysis of European Research on Digital Divide: An Exploration of the Corporate Landscape," 32nd European Regional ITS Conference, Madrid 2023: Realising the digital decade in the European Union – Easier said than done? 277949, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    13. Lissitsa, Sabina & Kol, Ofrit, 2016. "Generation X vs. Generation Y – A decade of online shopping," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 304-312.
    14. Lopez-Sintas, Jordi & Lamberti, Giuseppe & Sukphan, Jakkapong, 2020. "The social structuring of the digital gap in a developing country. The impact of computer and internet access opportunities on internet use in Thailand," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    15. Anca Elena-Bucea & Frederico Cruz-Jesus & Tiago Oliveira & Pedro Simões Coelho, 0. "Assessing the Role of Age, Education, Gender and Income on the Digital Divide: Evidence for the European Union," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-15.
    16. Volker Lang & Steffen Hillmert, 2016. "Differential trends in households’ connection to the Internet: An actor-centered explanation," Rationality and Society, , vol. 28(2), pages 141-171, May.
    17. Moran, Rachel E. & Bui, Matthew N., 2019. "Race, ethnicity, and telecommunications policy issues of access and representation: Centering communities of color and their concerns," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(5), pages 461-473.
    18. Liu, Chun & Liu, Hao & Zhang, Huiping & Yuan, Qin, 2023. "The impact of internet use on the perceptions of class boundaries and life trajectories: A report from a representative survey in China," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(10).
    19. Anca Elena-Bucea & Frederico Cruz-Jesus & Tiago Oliveira & Pedro Simões Coelho, 2021. "Assessing the Role of Age, Education, Gender and Income on the Digital Divide: Evidence for the European Union," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 1007-1021, August.
    20. Swapnil Singh & Uma Shankar Singh & Malgorzata Nermend, 2022. "Sustainability in a Digitized Era Analyzing the Moderation Effect of Social Strata and Digital Capital Dependence on Digital Divide," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-22, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:chinre:v:14:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s12187-021-09805-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.