Study of usage of the internet amongst youth in Indore
Dr.
Saket Raman
Sr. Assistant Prof/Media Coordinator
Ms.
Rani Thakur
Ph.D Scholar,
Amity School of Communication
Amity
University Rajasthan
Abstract:
The internet has become all pervasive in
the lives of young people and the primary aim of the study is to examine the
relationship between youth and the internet with a particular focus on the
purpose for which youth is using internet. With the fast development of the
internet the use of computer and other communication devices changed greatly.
Youth are primary users of such services. This study presents data on the Internet use, and factors associated
with utilization of the Internet among a sample of youths aged 15 to 30 years.
Keywords:
Internet usage, Youth, Internet
addiction, education, socialization.
Introduction:
The internet is one of the fastest
growing technology ever seen. For young people in today’s world, life without information and communications
technology seems so difficult . Unlike
any previous generation of history, young people today have instant access to
the sum of human knowledge and information through the click of a mouse. This
provides unparalleled opportunities for learning, global connection, and
innovation as never before. The Internet has become an inseparable part of
today’s generation. It is interactive: Like the telephone and the telegraph (and
unlike radio or television), people can overcome great distances to communicate
with others almost instantaneously. It is a mass medium: Like radio and
television (and unlike the telephone or telegraph), content and advertising can
reach millions of people at the same time. Therefore one can say that internet
is a composite medium with its various applications gaining popularity all over
the world.
Internet has revolutionized the
living style and working style of the human being. It has reduced the man
effort and time thus very beneficial to all for gaining knowledge as well as
increase income at less input. It has ability to provide information within no
time at the doorstep. Basically internet is a network of networks which
connects various computers to handle from one place. Now a day, internet has
spread its effects at every nook and corner all over the world.
Days are gone when for paying an electricity bills you have
to struggle on hours standing in the long queues
and waiting for paying the bill now
it is just a game of just one click. from online shopping to transportation
apps internet proved that it is the age of internet. From education to information, business and
entertainment, internet established itself in every area of human interest. It is a vast storage of information as it has more
than billions of running websites related to the domestic, business, academic,
governmental, etc. It has reduced the usage of paper and paper works to a great
extent by making everything computerized.
The
significance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become
critical in every facet of contemporary life and work.
The
coming of the Internet was no longer than two decades ago, but it has become a
vital technology for all generations. Similar to the current trend towards ‘the
visual extravaganza’ by newspaper and television (Barnhurst, 1998: 202), the
Internet offers and utilizes visual effects in an interactive and dynamic
fashion. Moreover, individual users of the Internet are greatly empowered by
the opportunity to participate interactively in public debate by airing their
views online. Such an opportunity has brought about new avenues for citizens to
participate in civic activities and influence political affairs and parties.
Undoubtedly, the ways people use the Internet vary depending on their
socioeconomic status and the generation to which they belong. Furthermore, the
increasing penetration of the Internet opens up new avenues for political
parties to attract public attention, especially when young people are
increasingly losing interest in most news and information media, whilst gaining
significant interest in the Internet (Barnhurst, 1998: 204). In this chapter we
examine how the Internet has affected the public and political participation of
young people
Internet,
the ever expanding technology serves as one stop point for all the needs of
academic community. The academic community uses internet to satisfy its diverse
needs, information education communication or research the student who were
born during full bloom of internet revolution extensively use internet to
satisfy their various needs. It provide access to galaxies of internet services
round the clock (24*7) and sources at a click. these galaxies of internet
services and sources have attracted a large number of people from all over the
world towards the internet. According to internet world statistics the highest
percentage of internet user belong to younger generation who opened their eyes
in full light of internet age. The college students are the main dominators of
these internet sources and services as they are well versed with the new
technologies and their applications in the present network society.
According to internet world stats 2017 report with the growing internet penetration, India has
emerged to become the second largest market for internet globally. With 333
million internet users, India has also outdone the United States to become the
second biggest Internet market in the world.
The growing
internet penetration in India is producing new probabilities to share
information and services among a larger number of people, more rapidly and at
lower costs. We have more data on our
fingertips than ever before and as we stand at the apex of this ‘internet of
things’ revolution, as we are starting to have more connected devices which are
going to put up more data. There is a clear connection between the maturity of
internet usage and rising standard of living. Our standard of living is not
just a function of higher levels of efficiency, but of the quality of products
and services. ‘Internet of things’ revolution is helping organizations and
service providers a greater opportunity and incentive to boost quality and
enables more information about quality to be collected. The Internet
basically affect every dimension of our life. Ever since the
recruitment process for organizations shifted online, employment opportunities
are aplenty for youngsters. Today we have several websites that provide the
youth with thousands of job opportunities that can be filtered online according
to their requirements. HR professionals and recruitment agencies seek talent
through these websites, and the whole process of applying to various organizations
online is a fruitful one for most. These websites are a gold mine for the youth
where they can sell their skills too. With the touch of a button, a host of
opportunities present themselves to this generation. The new century has ushered into a new era of
Information Technology and Internet is the backbone of this modern era.
Objective:
§ To
find out average time young people spent on internet.
§ To
determine utilization of internet among youth in their daily lives.
§ To
find the influence of internet in life of young people.
§ To
find whether internet has any role in pursuing sub-cultures interest.
§ To
find is there is any effect of internet on Indian culture.
Methodology of the research:
On the basis of the stated aim
researcher has selected sample survey as a method and a non-standardized questionnaire
as a research tool. The close kind of questions has been selected which mainly
focuses on utilization of internet by purposefully selected respondents. From
the questionnaires we gained nominal data.
Questionnaire mainly consists three parts, where in first part questions
about the personal information (Name, age group, occupation) of the respondent
were asked, in second part multiple choice questions according to the study
were present and in last part 2 short answer type question related to the best
and worst thing about the internet was asked.
Research results and finding:
The survey established findings based on
the lead research problem. 120 respondents from three different age groups took
part in the research. The age group distribution of respondents is shown in the
fig. 1.
 |
The age group of respondents Fig 1.
One objective of the study is to find the
average time spent by youth on the internet results conclude that 90.8 % of
respondents were regular user of internet where 35.8% users spend more than 3
hours on the internet. Table 1 illustrates an average time spend on the
internet surfing by all 120 respondents.
|
On average how many hours per day do you spend on the internet?
|
|||||
|
|
Frequency
|
Percent
|
Valid
Percent
|
Cumulative
Percent
|
|
|
Valid
|
Less
than one hour a day
|
6
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
|
1-2
hours
|
42
|
35.0
|
35.0
|
40.0
|
|
|
2-3
hours
|
29
|
24.2
|
24.2
|
64.2
|
|
|
More
than 3 hours a day
|
43
|
35.8
|
35.8
|
100.0
|
|
|
Total
|
120
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
|
|
Table 1.
The result from the question which
device do you mostly use to connect internet concluded that 93% of the youth
uses smart phone and only 7% users uses a
laptop, personal computer or other devices for surfing internet.
Information is the most common purpose
for which most of the respondents of all three age groups uses the internet.
76.7% youth uses the internet as a source of information. Besides information
it is highly used for the purpose of entertainment. Online shopping is still
far away from information and entertainment, people use the internet for
shopping but not as much as they use it for information.
Fig. 2 and table 2 Illustrates the
various purposes of internet usage with
its frequencies, among the youth.
Fig 2
|
purpose
|
Responses
|
Percent
of Cases
|
||
|
N
|
Percent
|
|||
|
|
Education
|
68
|
20.5%
|
56.7%
|
|
Information
|
92
|
27.7%
|
76.7%
|
|
|
Entertainment
|
88
|
26.5%
|
73.3%
|
|
|
Socialization
|
48
|
14.5%
|
40.0%
|
|
|
online
shopping
|
28
|
8.4%
|
23.3%
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Other
|
8
|
2.4%
|
6.7%
|
|
|
Total
|
332
|
100.0%
|
276.7%
|
|
Table2
Fig 3 Show
the answer to the question “Do you ask the internet for religious, psychological
or medical advice?” The result of the figure shows that 12% respondents always
use the internet for such advices while 52% agreed that they sometimes use the
internet for the same purpose & 32% respondent do not uses internet for
these types of advices.
Fig 3
Fig 4 shows
the results of the question which was what people like doing more online
Amongst 5
different activities. Results indicate that social networking has the highest
percentage followed by music/film and
chat rooms respectively. Frequency of all 5 online activities is demonstrated
below.
 |
Fig4 Fig 4
For
different people internet plays different role, some says it’s best adviser
while for some people, it’s a source of
learning or for some it may be a tool for time pass. In our study, we focus to
find out what role internet plays for youth and result are illustrated in
figure, the majority of people agreed that the internet plays almost all of
these roles in their life. Results are given below in fig 5.
Fig5
One of our major
objective of the study is to find impact of internet on the lives of youth for
the same we asked 3 different question results of the question are shown in fig
7, 8 & 9 respectively. Results of
fig 7 show that the personal relationship of most of the respondents does not
affect by internet.
Fig 7.
Fig 8 & 9 are the responses to the question about the influence
of internet in young people life, a majority of the respondents agreed that the
internet has positive influence in their life and 68% said that the internet
has no negative influence while on the other hand only 36% respondents believed
that sometimes internet influenced their
life in a negative way.
Fig 8.
Fig
9
Fig 10 Shows the result
of the question which was about the internet addiction. Clearly shown below
that almost 77% respondent finds internet addiction, which is a big quantity to
conclude that the internet is addictive for today’s youth.
The internet addiction:
 |
Fig10
Fig 11
shows the result of the question about pursuing a subculture interest by using internet. As
shown in the figure 24% respondents agreed that they always use internet to
pursue their subculture interest
& 56% uses it sometimes only 12% completely disagreed with the question which clearly indicates that
internet has a great role in pursuing a subculture interest among youth.
Fig 11
Fig 12 Tested is
whether internet affects our culture or traditions or not. Results show that
56% respondents said that sometimes it affects and 12% respondents believed
that the internet had always affected our culture and traditions on the other
side 24% respondents believes that the internet has no effect on our culture.
This result clearly indicates that more or less but, internet affected our
culture.
Fig 12.
Correlation between age
and average time spent on internet surfing is given in table 3
|
Correlations
|
|||
|
|
Which
age group you belong to?
|
On
average how many hours per day do you spend on the internet?
|
|
|
Which
age group you belong to?
|
Pearson
Correlation
|
1
|
.290**
|
|
Sig.
(2-tailed)
|
|
.001
|
|
|
N
|
120
|
120
|
|
|
On
average how many hours per day do you spend on the internet?
|
Pearson
Correlation
|
.290**
|
1
|
|
Sig.
(2-tailed)
|
.001
|
|
|
|
N
|
120
|
120
|
|
|
**.
Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Table 3.
|
|||
The
internet as a positive tool:
The internet can be a
positive tool for student learning as well as youth enablement and well being.
Internet may help to empower youth. Young people are especially likely to seek
this information online if it is not available from personal face-to-face
sources like friends or family. The Internet has been used to provide free
counseling, smoking prevention, obesity and eating disorder prevention, anger
management and violence prevention. Despite the need for better execution and
development, the Internet can be a valuable health tool for adolescent populations
because of the probable anonymity it provides, popularity among youth, and wide
range of access as well as in the educational empowerment. Most of the
respondent finds internet is easy to use, people of different age groups and
education level can easily access it. Apart from that its informative nature is
one of its best positive qualities defined by most of the respondents.
Negative
aspects of the internet:
For youth, the adverse
aspects of the Internet include online risks such as exposure to sexually
explicit material and online victimization, including harassment or cyber
bullying, threats to privacy, sometimes wrong information, excessive ads and
internet addiction. Some young respondents also find that internet sometimes
distracts them from their studies.
Conclusion:
- This study
presents the current state of young people’s internet use and provides a baseline against
measurement of changes in the future. The current study found that the
Internet plays a prominent role among young people and youth is highly
involved in internet surfing. A
majority of people surveyed in this study spent more than two hours on the
Internet every day. The main reasons for Internet usage were for information
and socialization. The Internet was the preferred media choice for
information driven activities.
- Internet
also gained importance for entertainment and shopping activities. Most of
the user finds internet addictive and it can affect society in positive as
well as negative ways. The internet has both positive and negative
influences in their life, but comparatively positive influence is more
than negative influence. Youth also
uses the internet to pursue their subculture interest and sometimes to
plan their holidays.
- The internet
is a great adviser and youth uses it for medical, religious and
psychological advice. Social networking is the activity frequently done by
the majority of the youth. For today’s youth internet can be a good
friend, a teacher, best guide/ adviser, entertainment source or all of
these. Clearly, it can be concluded
that the 21st century is a digital age and we expect that the importance
of the Internet will continue to grow.
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