Revisiting the digital divide in Canada: the impact of demographic factors on access to the internet,level of online activity,and social networking site usage

The present study relies on the 2010 Canadian Internet Use Survey to investigate differences in people's access to the internet and level of online activity. The study not only revisits the digital divide in the Canadian context, but also expands current investigations by including an analysis of how demographic factors affect social networking site (SNS) adoption. The findings demonstrate that access to the internet reflects existing inequalities in society with income, education, rural/urban, immigration status, and age all affecting adoption patterns. Furthermore, the results show that inequality in access to the internet is now being mimicked in the level of online activity of internet users. More recent immigrants to Canada have lower rates of internet access; however, recent immigrants who are online have significantly higher levels of online activity than Canadian born residents and earlier immigrants. Additionally, women perform fewer activities online than men. People's use of SNSs differs in terms of education, gender, and age. Women were significantly more likely to use SNSs than men. Interestingly, high school graduates had the lowest percentage of adoption compared to all other education categories. Current students were by far the group that utilized SNSs the most. Canadian born, recent, and early immigrants all showed similar adoption rates of SNSs. Age is a strong predictor of SNS usage, with young people relying heavily on SNSs in comparison to those aged 55+. The findings demonstrate that the digital divide not only persists, but has expanded to include inequality in the level of online activity and SNS usage.     

Gender Differences and Communication Technology Use Among Emerging Adults in the Initiation of Dating Relationships

For many emerging adults, initiating and developing a romantic relationship is likely to be very different from the experiences of previous generations. Many studies address the abundant use of technology among young adults in virtually every aspect of their lives. Few studies, however, have investigated the use of communication technology and its impact on how relationships are discovered, initiated, and maintained among this group. Researchers collected data from 1,003 young adults (ages 18–25 years) through an online survey about communication technology use and dating behaviors. Results were analyzed using chi-square tests to assess for differences between groups. Findings suggest significant differences between men and women and their use of communication technology during the initiation of dating relationships. Additionally, young adults believe that “talking,” “hanging out,” and “sharing intimate details” are more important when compared with using communication technologies to establish a relationship. The information yields valuable understanding about the role communication technology plays in the intimate relationship development of emerging adults.     

Digitization,the Internet,and the Arts: eBay,Napster, SAG,and e-Books

Via four case studies we explore the extent to which digitization is transforming how people access and engage with the arts. The first case study is the online auction house eBay. We focus on a unique system whereby millions of users rate each other's integrity and reputations in a digital venue via a transparent system open to all users and visitors alike. The second case study examines the Screen Actors Guild strike against the advertising industry, which drew attention to the potential for and limitation of the replacement of human actors by digitized replicas. Third, we focus on e-books in the context of the prediction that most books, music and film entertainment will eventually be distributed electronically to the average household. The fourth case study analyzes the Napster debate over file sharing and duplication of online music. We focus on the ability of Napster to create a huge community of users sharing their own copies of digital music. From this point of view Napster represented a uniquely efficient and large-scale dream, a modern form of the cooperation and sharing of property envisaged by classical anarchist philosophers of the nineteenth century. On the other hand, and as always in anarchistic uprisings, another class claimed proprietary ownership in the material being shared and saw in Napster mostly collective theft on the part of ordinary citizens. Three of these four case studies centrally involve ordinary people using the digital media in creative and innovative ways. We conclude by arguing, against those who are skeptical about the transforming power of digitization, that even in the short time that it has been widely available digitization has so increased people's ability to interact creatively with products that this amounts to a qualitative change which, over the next few decades, is likely to develop so far as to justify the label revolution.     

Wanting to Be Seen: Young People’s Experiences of Performative Making Out

People engage in sexual behavior for many reasons, some of which require an audience (e.g., arousing onlookers, making someone jealous). In this study, we investigated the prevalence, motivations, and outcomes of young people’s experiences with performative making out—making out with someone and wanting others to see. Of the 155 female and 194 male college students who completed the online questionnaire, 32% of the women and 37% of the men reported having done this, often before entering college. Significantly more women than men reported same-sex performative experiences. We used thematic analysis to identify themes in the qualitative data. Participants’ motivations included enhancing their image, causing jealousy or envy, demonstrating a relationship, sexually arousing men, and participating in fun and games. Men reported that their reputations were enhanced more often than damaged; women reported the opposite pattern. These results provide insights into the functions of sexual behavior as a means of communication and highlight gender differences consistent with problematic cultural belief systems such as “slut shaming,” victim blaming, and sexual double standards.     

Giving (Money) Back To Parents: Racial/Ethnic and Immigrant–Native Variation in Monetary Exchanges During the Transition to Adulthood

Scholars consistently find that parents provide economic support to their young adult children through the transition to adulthood. However, scholars rarely examine whether young adults contribute monetary resources to their parents. To test this proposition, I use the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, and the case of “money for living expenses.” Overall, monetary independence is the modal category for all groups. However, when I compare across groups, I find that White young adults with native-born parentage are more likely to report monetary independence, African Americans are more likely to report monetary interdependence and Asian and Latino children of immigrants are more likely to report child-to-parent assistance compared to each other, with SES explaining most, but not all, of these differences. I argue that young adult offspring in non-White families are more likely to provide monetary support to their parents during the transition to adulthood. These transfers may deplete resources for non-White young adults and may exacerbate racial/ethnic inequality during the transition to adulthood.     

Digital skills and social media use: how Internet skills are related to different types of Facebook use among ‘digital natives’

Based on the idea that Internet use can be conceptualized in terms of depth (frequency) and width (differentiated) uses of the Web, this study explored how socio-demographic factors and digital skills are related to frequency and types of Facebook use among young adults. It used a face-to-face representative survey conducted in the three main urban areas of Chile among a sample of 18-to 29-year olds. The results found that men and more educated young people had higher levels of skills, confirming that the so-called ‘digital natives’ are not a monolithic group. They also revealed that digital skills did not predict frequency of Facebook use. Furthermore, lower educated young people tended to use Facebook more frequently. Although these results go against the long-established digital divide research, traditional digital gaps emerged when types of use were analyzed. While more educated and skillful individuals tended to use Facebook for informational and mobilizing purposes, socio-demographic factors and skills did not make a difference in Facebook use for social purposes.     

There are two sides to every story: young people’s perspectives of relationship issues on social media and adult responses

This paper reports on a recent research project undertaken in the UK that investigated how young people negotiate their identities and relationships online, including how they experience interventions by adults. Drawing on qualitative interviews with young people in two schools and a voluntary youth organisation in England, we argue that young people engage rather successfully in practices of self-governance. Our findings based on this sample of young people’s agentic practice and care for their peers challenge some dominant perceptions of young people’s online practices as risky and/or harmful to themselves and/or others. Furthermore we found a lack of evidence concerning the effectiveness of, and need for, interventions orientated around surveillance and zero tolerance.     

Styling the periphery: Linguistic and cultural takeup in Bangladesh and Mongolia

Focusing on online interactions among young adults in Bangladesh and Mongolia – two countries located politically, culturally and economically on the Asian periphery – this paper looks at how young adults use linguistic and cultural resources in their online interactions as part of a complex and emergent stylization of place. On the one hand, they appropriate the cultural and linguistic flows according to their locations and engage in a playful stylization and reconfiguration of what the local means. On the other hand, they engage in stylization and reflexive language use, often involving exaggerated linguistic variation, mixing, and other semiotic resources in order to produce and perform a range of social and cultural identities. The paper hence shows how the circulation and takeup of popular cultural flows around Asia can involve diverse processes of linguistic and cultural stylization.     

Contingent Work Rising: Implications for the Timing of Marriage in Japan

Employment has become increasingly precarious in developed countries, meaning that, for many young adults, jobs provide neither benefits nor security, more work is part time, and employers are increasingly hiring workers from temporary help agencies and contract companies rather than as employees of their own company. These changes in employment relations have profound effects on gender roles and on family transitions of young adults, especially young men and in particular in countries such as Japan, where there are rigid family norms and the male‐breadwinner tradition still prevails. The authors examined the effects of the experience of non‐regular work on the timing of marriage and whether this differs by sex. Using recent life history data from Japan, they found that men working in non‐regular jobs are especially likely to postpone marriage. The implications of the growth of precarious work for changes in work and family institutions in Japan are discussed.     

#IAmNotAfraidToSayIt: stories of sexual violence as everyday political speech on Facebook

ABSTRACT

The debate about the power and influence of networked publics often focuses on large-scale political events, activist campaigns and protest activity – the more visible forms of political engagement. On the other hand, digitally mediated activism is often questioned and sometimes derided as a lesser form of dissent, as it is easier to engage in, highly affective, and offers few assurances of sustainability of the change it calls for. But what about everyday political speech online, where social media platforms can contribute to a personalisation of politics? Can social media users express their views online and make a difference? This paper analyses around 3500 Facebook posts stemming from the #ЯНеБоюсьСказати (Ukrainian for #IAmNotAfraidToSayIt) online campaign that was started in the Ukrainian segment of Facebook in July 2016 by a local activist to raise awareness of how widespread sexual violence and sexual harassment are in the Ukrainian society. The paper argues that networked conversations about everyday rights and affective stories about shared experiences of injustice, underpinned by the affordances of social media platforms for sharing and discussing information and participating in everyday politics, can emerge as viable forms of networked feminist activism and can have real impact on the discursive status quo of an issue, both in the digital sphere and beyond it.     

Informed Consent with Children and Young People in Social Research: Is There Scope for Innovation?

Over 20 years of research has enhanced our understanding about the methodological and ethical benefits and challenges of involving children and young people in research. Concurrently, the increasing bureaucratisation of research ethics governance within UK universities has reified expectations about the methods used to gain informed consent for research participation. This paper explores how social researchers in the UK are navigating this tension and whether there is any scope for innovation through the use of technologies in how children and young people provide informed consent to take part in research. We conclude there is a need for the co‐creation of research information with children and young people and greater transparency by sharing creative solutions.     

The disability divide in internet access and use

The increasing spread of the Internet holds much potential for enhancing opportunities for people with disabilities. However, scarce evidence exists to suggest that people with disabilities are, in fact, participating in these new developments. Will the spread of information technologies (IT) increase equality by offering opportunities for people with disabilities? Or will a growing reliance on IT lead to more inequality by leaving behind certain portions of the population including people with disabilities? In this paper, the authors draw on nationally representative data regarding Americans' Internet uses to (1) identify the extent to which people with disabilities are embracing use of the Internet; (2) how their use of the Internet compares with the Internet uses of the rest of the population; (3) how having a disability relates to and interacts with other social statuses (e.g. socioeconomic status, age, gender) with regard to Internet use; and (4) what explains these trends. They draw on representative data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census of the United States to answer these questions. It is found that people with disabilities are less likely to live in households with computers, are less likely to use computers and are less likely to be online. However, once socioeconomic background is controlled for, it is found that people with hearing disabilities and those who have limited walking ability are not less likely to be Internet users. This research enables a deeper understanding of both the use of the Internet by people with disabilities and the spread of new IT more generally.     

Digital Na(t)ives? Variation in Internet Skills and Uses among Members of the “Net Generation”*

People who have grown up with digital media are often assumed to be universally savvy with information and communication technologies. Such assumptions are rarely grounded in empirical evidence, however. This article draws on unique data with information about a diverse group of young adults’ Internet uses and skills to suggest that even when controlling for Internet access and experiences, people differ in their online abilities and activities. Additionally, findings suggest that Internet know‐how is not randomly distributed among the population, rather, higher levels of parental education, being a male, and being white or Asian American are associated with higher levels of Web‐use skill. These user characteristics are also related to the extent to which young adults engage in diverse types of online activities. Moreover, skill itself is positively associated with types of uses. Overall, these findings suggest that even when controlling for basic Internet access, among a group of young adults, socioeconomic status is an important predictor of how people are incorporating the Web into their everyday lives with those from more privileged backgrounds using it in more informed ways for a larger number of activities.     

Closing the gap: gender parity in political engagement on social media

Historically, major gender differences exist in both political engagement and online content creation. Expanding on these literatures, this study considers the extent to which men and women engage in politics specifically in social media. Novel survey data are employed to test for any gendered differences in encountering and responding to political content via social media. Despite measuring a robust set of political behaviors within social media, few gender differences emerge. Where differences do emerge, they are most likely among the most visible political behaviors, suggesting that women may strategically engage in less visible or less-likely-to-offend political behaviors, as compared to men. This poses important questions regarding political participation, representation, and gender.     

Sex in America online: an exploration of sex, marital status, and sexual identity in internet sex seeking and its impacts

This was an exploratory study of sex and relationship seeking on the Internet, based on a survey of 15,246 respondents in the United States Seventy-five percent of men and 41% of women had intentionally viewed or downloaded porn. Men and gays/lesbians were more likely to access porn or engage in other sex-seeking behaviors online compared with straights or women. A symmetrical relationship was revealed between men and women as a result of viewing pornography, with women reporting more negative consequences, including lowered body image, partner critical of their body, increased pressure to perform acts seen in pornographic films, and less actual sex, while men reported being more critical of their partners' body and less interested in actual sex. Married and divorced were more likely than singles to go online seeking a serious relationship. Only 2% of users met the threshold of compulsive use established by previous studies.     

Open Relationship Prevalence,Characteristics, and Correlates in a Nationally Representative Sample of Canadian Adults

Open relationships are those in which individuals agree to participate in sexual and/or emotional and romantic interactions with more than one partner. Accurate estimates of the prevalence of open relationships, based on representative, unbiased samples, are few, and there are none from outside of the United States. We present findings from a nationally representative sample of 2,003 Canadian adults, administered in 2017 via an online questionnaire. Overall, 2.4% of all participants, and 4.0% of those currently in a relationship, reported currently being in an open relationship. One-fifth of participants reported prior engagement in an open relationship, and 12% reported open as their ideal relationship type. Men, compared with women, were more likely to report prior open relationship engagement and to identify open as their ideal relationship type. Younger participants were more likely both to engage in and to prefer open relationships. Relationship satisfaction did not differ significantly between monogamous and open relationships. Having a match between one’s actual relationship type and one’s preferred relationship type was associated with greater relationship satisfaction. Findings suggest that, while currently only a small proportion of the population is in an open relationship, interest in open relationships is higher, particularly among younger adults, and open appears to be a viable and important relationship type.     

Sharing beyond Slacktivism: the effect of socially observable prosocial media sharing on subsequent offline helping behavior

New forms of youth social and political participation have been termed ‘Slacktivism’ – low-cost online forms of social engagement that decrease subsequent offline participation. Previous experimental work has provided support for a ‘Slacktivism effect,’ but it is unclear if this theoretical model applies to youth media sharing on social networking sites. This study uses a novel sharing simulation paradigm to test the effect of publicly vs. anonymously sharing a social cause video on subsequent willingness to engage in offline helping behavior. Results show that publicly (as compared to anonymously) sharing a selected video on one’s own Facebook wall led to a greater willingness to volunteer for an issue-related cause. Participants’ existing use of social media for engagement in social issues/causes moderated the effect, such that only participants low in use of social media for social engagement were susceptible to the sharing manipulation. Implications for reconceptualizing media sharing as a unique form of online participation beyond ‘Slacktivism’ are discussed.     

Romantic Partners,Friends, Friends with Benefits,and Casual Acquaintances as Sexual Partners

The purpose of this study was to provide a detailed examination of sexual behavior with different types of partners. A sample of 163 young adults reported on their light nongenital, heavy nongenital, and genital sexual activity with romantic partners, friends, and casual acquaintances. They described their sexual activity with “friends with benefits,” as well as with friends in general. Young adults were most likely to engage in sexual behavior with romantic partners, but sexual behavior also often occurred with some type of nonromantic partner. More young adults engaged in some form of sexual behavior with casual acquaintances than with friends with benefits. The frequencies of sexual behavior, however, were greater with friends with benefits than with friends or casual acquaintances. Interview and questionnaire data revealed that friends with benefits were typically friends, but not necessarily. Nonsexual activities were also less common with friends with benefits than other friends. Taken together, the findings illustrate the value of differentiating among different types of nonromantic partners and different levels of sexual behavior.     

Romantic partners, friends, friends with benefits, and casual acquaintances as sexual partners

The purpose of this study was to provide a detailed examination of sexual behavior with different types of partners. A sample of 163 young adults reported on their light nongenital, heavy nongenital, and genital sexual activity with romantic partners, friends, and casual acquaintances. They described their sexual activity with "friends with benefits," as well as with friends in general. Young adults were most likely to engage in sexual behavior with romantic partners, but sexual behavior also often occurred with some type of nonromantic partner. More young adults engaged in some form of sexual behavior with casual acquaintances than with friends with benefits. The frequencies of sexual behavior, however, were greater with friends with benefits than with friends or casual acquaintances. Interview and questionnaire data revealed that friends with benefits were typically friends, but not necessarily. Nonsexual activities were also less common with friends with benefits than other friends. Taken together, the findings illustrate the value of differentiating among different types of nonromantic partners and different levels of sexual behavior.