Internet Skills, Sources of Support, and Benefiting From Internet Use

This study added communication Internet skills to an existing skill framework of operational, formal, information, and strategic skills. The study investigated how people deal with inadequate skill levels by identifying support sources. Furthermore, we investigated which of the Internet skills actually matter for attaining beneficial Internet outcomes and whether support sources employed moderate these effects. Results of a large-scale survey revealed three support patterns: independents, social support seekers, and formal help seekers. The newly added communication skills prove to be an important addition because they have an independent effect on beneficial Internet use. The group of independent Internet users benefited more from Internet use than formal help seekers and much more than social support seekers. Internet communication skills hold the potential for achieving a high degree of independence in using the Internet by compensating for information skills so as to attain beneficial Internet outcomes.

[1]  G. Batchelor,et al.  An Introduction to Fluid Dynamics , 1968 .

[2]  J. Sinacore.  Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions , 1993 .

[3]  Yair Amichai-Hamburger,et al.  Experiments in Digital Literacy , 2004, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[4]  N. Selwyn,et al.  Adult learning in the digital age , 2005 .

[5]  Alexander van Deursen,et al.  Proposing a Survey Instrument for Measuring Operational, Formal, Information, and Strategic Internet Skills , 2012, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[6]  James Stewart,et al.  Local Experts in the Domestication of Information and Communication Technologies , 2007 .

[7]  Brad Cahoon,et al.  Teaching and Learning Internet Skills , 1998 .

[8]  C. Haythornthwaite.  Introduction , 2001 .

[9]  G. A. Watson.  A treatise on the theory of Bessel functions , 1944 .

[10]  Bianca C. Reisdorf.  NON-ADOPTION OF THE INTERNET IN GREAT BRITAIN AND SWEDEN , 2011 .

[11]  N. Draper,et al.  Applied Regression Analysis , 1966 .

[12]  Pippa Norris,et al.  The Bridging and Bonding Role of Online Communities , 2002 .

[13]  James E. Katz,et al.  Motivations for and barriers to Internet usage: results of a national public opinion survey , 1997, Internet Res..

[14]  Philip Calvert,et al.  Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide , 2004 .

[15]  Michael R. Ward.  The Effect of the Internet on Political Institutions , 1996 .

[16]  Rosamund Sutherland,et al.  What's the Point of Using Computers? , 2001, New Media Soc..

[17]  Joseph A. Diaz,et al.  Patients’ use of the internet for medical information , 2002, Journal of General Internal Medicine.

[18]  R. Dejaiffe.  Greenspan, H. P. - The theory of Rotating Fluids , 1968 .

[19]  Patti M. Valkenburg,et al.  Who Visits Online Dating Sites? Exploring Some Characteristics of Online Daters , 2007, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[20]  John P. Robinson,et al.  NEW SOCIAL SURVEY PERSPECTIVES ON THE DIGITAL DIVIDE , 2003 .

[21]  Henry Jenkins.  Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century , 2006 .

[22]  Amit Bhatnagar,et al.  Segmenting consumers based on the benefits and risks of Internet shopping , 2004 .

[23]  Alexander van Deursen,et al.  Internet skills and the digital divide , 2011, New Media Soc..

[24]  Yannis Bakos,et al.  The emerging role of electronic marketplaces on the Internet , 1998, CACM.

[25]  Kimberly Merritt,et al.  AN INVESTIGATION OF SELF-REPORTED COMPUTER LITERACY: IS IT RELIABLE? , 2005 .

[26]  M. Hindman.  The Myth of Digital Democracy , 2008 .

[27]  Sanna Talja,et al.  The social and discursive construction of computing skills , 2005, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[28]  P. Norris.  Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide , 2001 .

[29]  Johannes A.G.M..  The deepening Divide: Inequality in the information society. , 2005 .

[30]  Hans Martens,et al.  Evaluating Media Literacy Education: Concepts, Theories and Future Directions , 2010, Journal of Media Literacy Education.

[31]  Alexander van Deursen,et al.  Using the Internet: Skill related problems in users' online behavior , 2009, Interact. Comput..

[32]  A. V. van Deursen,et al.  Internet skills and the digital divide , 2011 .

[33]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[34]  Richard Frost,et al.  Measuring the acquisition of media‐literacy skills , 2003 .

[35]  Malcolm R. Parks.  Making Friends in Cyberspace , 1996, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[36]  P. Resta,et al.  Toward Digital Equity: Bridging the Divide in Education , 2002 .

[37]  M. Warschauer.  Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide , 2003 .

[38]  Eduardo Di Petta.  Henry Jenkins (2006), Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, Chicago: The MacArthur Foundation , 2012 .

[39]  Stacey J T Hust,et al.  Evaluation of an American Legacy Foundation/Washington State Department of Health Media Literacy Pilot Study , 2005, Health communication.

[40]  B. Wellman.  Physical Place and Cyberplace: The Rise of Personalized Networking , 2001 .

[41]  S. Livingstone,et al.  Internet literacy : Young people's negotiation of new online opportunities , 2011 .

[42]  T. Lang.  The effect of the Internet on travel consumer purchasing behaviour and implications for travel agencies , 2000 .

[43]  Alexander van Deursen,et al.  Measuring Internet Skills , 2010, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[44]  Colin Lankshear,et al.  Introduction: digital literacies: concepts, policies and practices , 2008 .

[45]  Ellen Helsper,et al.  Does Advertising Literacy Mediate the Effects of Advertising on Children? A Critical Examination of Two Linked Research Literatures in Relation to Obesity and Food Choice , 2006 .

[46]  Ulla K. Bunz,et al.  The Computer-Email-Web (CEW) Fluency Scale--Development and Validation , 2001 .

[47]  E. Hargittai,et al.  Digital Inequality , 2008, Commun. Res..

[48]  Alexander Johannes Aloysius Maria van Deursen,et al.  Rethinking Internet skills: The contribution of gender, age, education, Internet experience, and hours online to medium- and content-related Internet skills , 2011 .

[49]  V. Neuhaus,et al.  Latent Class Analysis , 2010 .

[50]  R. Eynon,et al.  Distinct skill pathways to digital engagement , 2013 .

[51]  C. Fountain,et al.  Finding a Job in the Internet Age , 2005 .

[52]  Eszter Hargittai,et al.  Survey Measures of Web-Oriented Digital Literacy , 2005 .

[53]  William Tally,et al.  Investigating Children's Emerging Digital Literacies , 2002 .

[54]  E. Hargittai.  Digital Na(t)ives? Variation in Internet Skills and Uses among Members of the “Net Generation”* , 2010 .