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Study on the Influence of Information Technology on Youth - Executive Summary

This study was carried out to investigate the impact of information technology on youth and their family. It takes the family as the unit of analysis so that information of how use of IT may affect family relationships can be collected from the perspectives of parents/guardians and youths. With multiple level analyses, the researchers are able to decompose the family and parent variables from the individual variables. Three sets of questionnaire were designed and administered to parents and their children. Data were collected from 1,218 parents and their children aged between 9 and 24. The youth sample included 1,384 students from primary to tertiary level and 329 working youths.

Summary of Findings

IT Usage Pattern and Access

  • Respondents were rather heavy users of computers (2 to 4 hours on average). The most frequent place of access computer is home. Though working youths spent four hours on computers every day, they mainly used the Internet for entertainment and leisure.
  • Parents had much less knowledge about computers than youths. Language ability was perceived as a barrier for learning IT by both parents and working youths.
  • Endorsements from teacher and older family members play a more important role in facilitating IT learning for youths between 9 to 12.
  • Respondents had very positive evaluations of IT with regard to impact on themselves except that using computer led to health deterioration. Nevertheless, they were worried about human workers being replaced by computers and people becoming too dependent on computers.
  • Newly arrived parents and youths had lower IT competence and less IT experience than their local counterparts. Local parents also had more favorable evaluations of IT than the newly arrived parents.
  • Attainment of IT competence depends on basic knowledge, accessibility to computers, and perceived benefits and enjoyableness. These variables together also predict IT usage.

Ethical Concerns

  • There is only a few youth reported that they have the experience of sending email bomb or virus to others. Youths tend to agree that sending email bomb and computer virus is a serious crime.
  • Youths also in general tend to agree that the behavior of viewing net pornography is not ethical. However, youths age 16 or above hold a neutral position about the behavior of sending net pornography.
  • Students age from 9 to 12 tend to agree that the behavior of using foul language on the net is ¡§absolutely wrong", whereas the other youths do not hold a strong position in this aspect.
  • Youths do not have much confidence in the protection of their on-line personal information. Youths in general tend to be neutral in the issues of whether one should use pirated software, use unauthorized password in software installation and download MP3 or graphics without checking the copyright.
  • Youths often chatted with friends they have already known off-line, and less so with people they became acquainted with on-line and even less so with strangers. Youths who liked communicating with strangers held more consent attitude towards the inappropriate on-line behavior.
  • Peer influence is the marked significant predictor in the estimation of youth's attitude towards different inappropriate on-line behavior.

The Impact of IT on Family

  • This study finds that Hong Kong parents are in general authoritative, i.e. both responsive and demanding in their general parenting behaviour. Authoritative parenting is found to be related positively with the general psychological well-being as well as lower levels of loneliness of youths.
  • Parental concern and responsiveness are exhibited in terms of both encouragement for positive uses of the Internet and discouragements towards negative (or socially less acceptable) uses.
  • Parents' knowledge about the youths' activities and friends on the Internet, or engaging in joint IT-related activities or discussions were generally very low. However, this aspect of parenting behaviour was found to be the only significant parenting factor correlated with better IT-related attitudes of youths and more discrete usage behaviour.
  • IT related parental demandingness in terms of controlling youths' access time on using computers was very low. Thus IT-related parenting behavior is typically very encouraging but otherwise non-responsive and non-demanding, that is, permissive.
  • IT specific responsive parenting behavior is found to be positively correlated with the IT competence of the parents as well as general parental responsiveness and parental demandingness.
  • IT specific responsive parenting behavior is found to be positively correlated with better attitudes of youths towards IT use (including respect for intellectual property rights) while IT specific parental control is found to be positively correlated with less socially acceptable attitudes of youths towards gambling and pornography on the web.

Recommendations

  • The focus or discussion should not be limited to IT-related behaviors but rather the user as a person and society as a whole.
  • The Government and educators should promote use of the Internet for productive uses among youths.
  • Educators should help to improve youths' language ability in general and with reference to IT. The Government and computer professionals may also want to come up with better translations for the technical terms so that they are easier to understand.
  • The Government needs to improve the accessibility to computing facilities in public areas such as libraries.
  • The Government and non-government organizations should offer short elementary IT courses to novices. These courses are particularly useful for parents to improve their IT self-efficacy.
  • The Government and schools should promote healthy use of IT.
  • The Government and schools should empower youths as proactive players in the Information Age
  • The Government and schools should develop IT-specific moral education curricula and teacher training courses on IT-related ethics and moral values.
  • The government should promote and help to consolidate the quality of our lives in the real world as we move into the knowledge-based economy and information world advocated by the government.
  • The government and non-governmental organizations should work closely in smart partnerships to re-build and strengthen family ties, and to create and build constructive and productive communities for youths and parents to enjoy positive support and sharing.
  • Parents should try to understand more about their children's activities on the computer, including their use for social and entertainment purposes.
  • Opportunities should be provided to parents to help them develop some baseline IT literacy and competence.
  • Opportunities should be provided to parents to help them understand the various aspects of IT use by youths and to help parents develop the ability to participate and guide youths in their IT related activities.
  • Schools and teachers should provide guidance and support to youths to help them develop more responsible, productive and pleasurable uses of the Internet.