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| Summary of Findings |
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| Summary of SIP Student Survey 1999 |
| Overall Internet usage |
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About 71% of the respondents were users -- 1.5 times higher than the penetration rate among adult Singaporeans. |
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Unlike the adult population, there is no gender divide among the students. The data showed that males and females were equally likely to use the Internet. |
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Users tend to come from families with better socio-economic background. Similar to the findings from the adult survey, Secondary-One users were also better off in terms of family income, housing type and parents· education, as compared with non-users. |
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On the average, Secondary One users have been using the Internet for 1.6 years and they typically log on for about 5.4 hours per week. |
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Students usually accessed the Internet from home, which accounted for 62% of their online time. They also used the Internet at school and in the library. |
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The two most popular Internet activities are information search for personal reasons and online discussions/chats. They spent about 1.4 hours per week on each of these activities. |
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The Internet was also used for entertainment (1 hour a week), information search for schoolwork (1 hour a week), and e-mail (0.8 hour a week). Reading online news and conducting online transactions were not popular. |
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In terms of Internet savvy, the students seemed well skilled on the whole. Majority of the Internet users were able to send e-mail messages (98.6%), print and save information (95.9%), use search engines (90.3%), download information (81.3%), and join online chat groups (71.7%). Setting up a web page, however, was not a skill shared by the majority · only 42.4% users knew how to do it. |
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| Family and Social Interaction |
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Internet use seems to benefit friendship. About 55% of the users reported having more friends and 36% said they spent more time with close friends after they started using the Internet. |
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The proportions of students who indicated no change in making friends and time spent with friends were also considerably large · at 37.5% and 47.7% respectively. |
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A slightly higher percentage of users reported that, with Internet use, they spent less time with their family as compared with those who said the opposite (24% vs. with 17%). |
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A comparison between users and non-users, however, showed little difference in terms of family communication pattern. |
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Overall, there was no indication that Internet use had led to noticeable harm on family life. |
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As for emotional well-being, the findings again showed no difference between users and non-users in their alienation scores · users did not experience a stronger sense of helplessness and isolation anymore than did the non-users. These results were consistent with the adult survey findings. |
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| Attitudes towards the Internet |
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Both users and non-users hold a positive view toward the Internet, although the former tend to be even more positive in their perception. |
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Users thought that the Internet was important (74.3%), useful (90%), interesting (83.8%), easy to use (82.8%), and convenient (73.4%). |
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A majority of the non-users shared the views of the users that the Internet was important (62.1%), useful (78.6%), interesting (72.9%), easy (56.5%), and convenient (60.5%) to use. |
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Slightly more than 60% of users and non-users thought that the Internet was good for society. |
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There were more users than non-users who thought that the Internet was useful for staying informed and for entertainment. |
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There were more non-users than users who thought that the Internet was convenient for business activities and for getting a good job. |
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| Information Sources |
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The Internet is an important source of information to users, but online news is not the most trusted source. |
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About 78% of the users considered the Internet an important source of information. |
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Newspaper was an important source to 70% of the users, followed by television (66%). |
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Interpersonal information sources were also important to users -- friends (68%), and family and relatives (71%). |
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News from television, radio, newspaper, and the Internet were trusted by 73%, 63%, 77.6% and 58% of the users, respectively. |
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| For the detailed report, click here to download. |
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