Level Of Internet Use Research Articles

Relationship of Internet Health Information Use With Patient Behavior and Self-Efficacy: Experiences of Newly Diagnosed Cancer Patients Who Contact the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Information Service

ABSTRACT This study examines the relationship of Internet health information use with patient behavior and self-efficacy among 498 newly diagnosed cancer patients. Subjects were classified by types of Internet use: direct use (used Internet health information themselves), indirect use (used information accessed by friends or family), and non-use (never accessing Internet information). Subjects were recruited from callers of the National Cancer Institute's (NCI's) Cancer Information Service, Atlantic Region. They were classified by type of Internet use at enrollment and interviewed by telephone after 8 weeks. There were significant relationships among Internet use and key study variables: subject characteristics, patient task behavior, and self-efficacy. Subjects' Internet use changed significantly from enrollment to 8 week follow-up; 19% of nonusers and indirect users moved to a higher level of Internet use. Significant relationships also were found among Internet use and perceived patient–provider relationship, question asking, and treatment compliance. Finally, Internet use was also significantly associated with self-efficacy variables (confidence in actively participating in treatment decisions, asking physicians questions, and sharing feelings of concern). The results of this study show that patients who are newly diagnosed with cancer perceive the Internet as a powerful tool, both for acquiring information and for enhancing confidence to make informed decisions.

Internet Accessibility and Usage among Urban Adolescents in Southern California: Implications for Web-Based Health Research

The World Wide Web (WWW) poses a distinct capability to offer interventions tailored to the individual's characteristics. To fine tune the tailoring process, studies are needed to explore how Internet accessibility and usage are related to demographic, psychosocial, behavioral, and other health related characteristics. This study was based on a cross-sectional survey conducted on 2373 7th grade students of various ethnic groups in Southern California. Measures of Internet use included Internet use at school or at home, Email use, chat-room use, and Internet favoring. Logistic regressions were conducted to assess the associations between Internet uses with selected demographic, psychosocial, behavioral variables and self-reported health statuses. The proportion of students who could access the Internet at school or home was 90% and 40%, separately. Nearly all (99%) of the respondents could access the Internet either at school or at home. Higher SES and Asian ethnicity were associated with higher internet use. Among those who could access the Internet and after adjusting for the selected demographic and psychosocial variables, depression was positively related with chat-room use and using the Internet longer than 1 hour per day at home, and hostility was positively related with Internet favoring (All ORs = 1.2 for +1 STD, p < 0.05). Less parental monitoring and more unsupervised time were positively related to email use, chat-room use, and at home Internet use (ORs for +1 STD ranged from 1.2 to 2.0, all p < 0.05), but not related to at school Internet use. Substance use was positively related to email use, chat-room use, and at home Internet use (OR for "used" vs. "not used" ranged from 1.2 to 4.0, p < 0.05). Self-reported health problems were associated with higher levels of Internet use at home but lower levels of Internet use at school. More physical activity was related to more email use (OR = 1.3 for +1 STD), chat room use (OR = 1.2 for +1 STD), and at school ever Internet use (OR = 1.2 for +1 STD, all p < 0.05). Body mass index was not related to any of the Internet use-related measures. In this ethnically diverse sample of Southern California 7(th) grade students, 99% could access the Internet at school and/or at home. This suggests that the Internet is already a potential venue for large scale health communication studies. Adolescents with more psychosocial risk factors or detrimental health behaviors were more likely to use the Internet. Therefore, if used properly, Internet interventions could effectively address the high risk populations. Additional research is needed to gain a more complete understanding of the positive and negative consequences of Internet use among adolescents.

In search of the Internet‐banking customer

The focus on new technologies in service situations is growing and is of particular importance in financial‐services contexts. It is argued that there is mutuality of benefit for both bank and customer through the adoption of self‐service technologies (SSTs), of which e‐banking is but one example. Having established problems in the use of conventional segmentation methods, this paper reports on a study into Internet banking that focuses on the extent to which 480 retail‐bank customers can be clustered according to an adapted decision‐making framework. How such clusters can help influence the adoption of the Internet‐banking interface is explored. Findings show an encouraging match between the four sample clusters identified from the case bank and the a priori classification of decision styles. This raises opportunities for the case bank's marketing strategy in terms of offering greater insight into the motivations for the adoption of e‐banking solutions within the customer base. High levels of Internet use at work are seen to positively influence e‐banking registration.

Internet use by university academics: a bipartite study of information and communication needs

In Bangladesh, there are only 0.2 million Internet users out of a population of 140 million. Because there is a lack of academic research on Internet usage, the prime objective of this study is to report the level of Internet use by university academics for their information and communication needs. The study also sought to find out whether differences exist among the various levels of academics in terms of their use of the Internet. Six categories of information and communication needs were identified and a survey conducted among the lecturers of Rajshahi University where the Internet was introduced in 2001. Findings showed that Internet use by academics is useful for some common needs and that the academic rank of users is an important factor in determining the priority of needs. It also showed that there are some barriers to adequate use of Internet resources. Suggestions are made for increased use of the Internet, to benefit the nation as a whole.

Internet over-users' psychological profiles: a behavior sampling analysis on internet addiction.

What kinds of psychological features do people have when they are overly involved in usage of the internet? Internet users in Korea were investigated in terms of internet over-use and related psychological profiles by the level of internet use. We used a modified Young's Internet Addiction Scale, and 13,588 users (7,878 males, 5,710 females), out of 20 million from a major portal site in Korea, participated in this study. Among the sample, 3.5% had been diagnosed as internet addicts (IA), while 18.4% of them were classified as possible internet addicts (PA). The Internet Addiction Scale showed a strong relationship with dysfunctional social behaviors. More IA tried to escape from reality than PA and Non-addicts (NA). When they got stressed out by work or were just depressed, IA showed a high tendency to access the internet. The IA group also reported the highest degree of loneliness, depressed mood, and compulsivity compared to the other groups. The IA group seemed to be more vulnerable to interpersonal dangers than others, showing an unusually close feeling for strangers. Further study is needed to investigate the direct relationship between psychological well-being and internet dependency.

The costs and benefits of the Internet as a marketing and communications tool: the attitudes, perceptions and experiences within the non‐profit environmental sector in Scotland

Discusses the findings of a study investigating the attitudes, perceptions and experiences of Scottish non‐profit environmental organisations and the costs and benefits of the Internet as a marketing and communications tool. Aims to ascertain whether the size of the organisation and the level of Internet use determines the perceptions and beliefs of non‐profit organisations within the environmental sector in Scotland and whether these factors also determines the costs and benefits experienced by Internet users. Finds that regardless of size or the level of use, organisations believe the Internet is a cost‐effective way to market their organisations and promote awareness. However, attitudinal factors affect the level of use by small organisations. Overall the organisations within the sample have indicated that the Internet is a low cost, high benefit marketing solution.

Internet use and its relationship to lonelines.

The association between Robert Weiss's bimodal theory of loneliness and Internet use was examined. The degree of social and emotional loneliness was assessed using the Social and Emotional Loneliness scale. This was compared with self-report measures of Internet use and the breadth of one's network of friends, both online and on a face-to-face basis. Low levels of social and emotional loneliness were both associated with high degrees of face-to-face networks of friends, while high levels of Internet use were associated with low levels of social loneliness and high levels of emotional loneliness. This supports recent research that has found that the Internet can decrease social well-being, even though it is often used as a communication tool.

Urban girls, internet use, and accessing health information

Background: With the burgeoning growth of the Internet, many have raised concerns over whether and how underserved populations might be included in the Information Revolution. This study examines how urban adolescent girls access the Internet and whether it is a viable source for health information.Methods: During Fall 1999 in New York City, 176 girls completed an anonymous survey where half were from a private high school (N = 86) and the other half were patients at a health clinic serving ethnically diverse and disadvantaged youth (N = 90). Data were analyzed to provide information on how urban girls use the Internet.Results: Internet use was widespread; 99% of the high school and 83% of the clinic girls said they used this medium (p < .001). On frequency, 32% of high school girls compared to 13% of the clinic girls used the Internet 6–7 days/wk (p < .001). Among the high school girls, 30% indicated that they used the Internet less than 30 min/wk and another 18% reported using the Internet more than 5 hrs/wk. Among clinic girls, 51% used the Internet less than 30 min/wk while 9% reported more than 5 hrs/wk. Comfort levels differed with 20% of the high school compared to 10% of the clinic girls reporting “extreme” comfort using the Internet (p < .001).Urban girls accessed the Web from multiple locales. Almost all (98%) of the high school girls compared to 45% of the clinic girls reported that they used the Internet from home (p < .001). Most high school girls (82%) used the Internet at school compared to 63% of the clinic girls currently in school (p < .05). More clinic girls used the Internet at another family member's house (28% vs. 14%, p < .05). Similar percentages of high school and clinic girls used the Internet at a friend's house (46%), the library (31%), or a community center (3%).With similar rates among high school and clinic girls, 44% reported that they had tried to get health information from the Web. Of these (N = 74), 50% said that they got information on different diseases, 43% on diet/nutrition, 34% on fitness/exercise, 26% on sex, 24% on alcohol/drug abuse, 20% on mental health, 14% on medicines, 12% on violence among peers, 10% on parenting, 8% on violence among dating partners, 7% on tobacco and smoking, 7% on emotional or physical abuse, 3% on sexual abuse, and 1% on illness support groups. Clinic girls were more likely to have tried to get information on sex (p < .001) and parenting (p < .001) from the Web. Many girls (59%) indicated that it was “very” or “extremely” worthwhile to have general health information on the Web, with no significant differences between high school and clinic girls. As well, 71% and 62% said it was “very” or “extremely” worthwhile to have access to contraceptive and diet/nutrition information, respectively.Conclusions. High school girls, as anticipated, were technologically savvy. Somewhat surprising, however, were the clinic girls' high levels of Internet use and access. Significant differences revealed that the high school girls were more on-line than clinic girls, but clinic girls were still using the Web frequently. A considerable number or urban girls had tried to get a range of health information from the Internet. This study offers promising statistics on how urban adolescent girls are accessing and using the Internet, especially for health information.

Level of Internet Use Among Science Teachers Involved in a Professional Development Project

This study examined the level of instructional use of Internet among science teachers involved with an in-service professional development project. An instrument on Level of Use of innovation was modified for the study. A criterion sample of teachers to be interviewed via telephone was randomly selected from a pool of 347 K–12 teachers. Somers' d and contingency coefficients were determined to see whether any relationship exists between a teacher's Level of Use and the following categories: (a) amount of experience with the Internet; (b) availability of resources support and access to the Internet in classroom and at home; (c) number of teacher and student users at school, (d) gender; and (e) type of school. Results of step-wise multiple regression indicate that classroom access, instructional experience of using Internet with students, availability of resource support and number of teacher users at school are the best predictors of teacher's Level of Use. Chi square test for comparisons between groups of completers and noncompleters of On-Line West Virginia K–12 RuralNet courses also revealed that a lack of classroom access to Internet and lack of resource/technical support at school contributed significantly to lower level of use among noncompleters.

Raiding the net: Is there a need for an information highway patrol?

The public debate on the regulation of the Internet and on cryptography policy during the last years has shown a conflict between the authorities’ goal of crime prevention and the net users’ need for privacy and net security. In this paper, this conflict is examined from an economic point of view. The paper starts with a short description of the different needs and goals of private users and the authorities. Then the state-of-the-art of encryption technology and its implications for illegal and criminal use of the Internet are discussed. The analytical core follows nexts it consists of a game theoretical model of the interaction between the authorities and private users where the degree of regulation of the Internet will be derived. Thereby it is taken into account that private users will react to any state intervention by choosing an appropriate level of Internet use. On this basis, the proposed state interventions will be evaluated.

Internet use by faculty members in various disciplines: A comparative case study

The purpose of this study was to examine and compare use of the Internet among various sectors of the faculty, in order to verify the influence of a number of parameters on this use, e.g.: (1) The field and research interests of the faculty members; (2) formal training in the use of the internet via courses, workshops, etc.; (3) self-instruction in the use of the Internet by means of manuals, how-to books, etc.; (4) general use and knowledge of computers; and (5) perceived need for the information this network can provide. Questionnaires were sent to faculty members in all departments and professional schools of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a total population of 918 for both the pilot project and the main study. Results indicated that Internet use is consistently higher among faculty members in the sciences and agriculture (“Sciagr”) than among those in the humanities or social sciences (“Humsoc”), suggesting that, among other things, the connectivity level of the Humsoc group may be lowr than that of the Sciagr group. The Humsoc group also showed a higher demand for courses in Internet use. Suggestions for raising the level of Internet use among the various disciplines of the faculty are included. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.