Summary of the survey findings
This summary report presents some of the main project findings from our national Australian survey of Year 10 students in 2006. Of those young people who answered the questions in the survey, the data indicates the following:
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Access to digital technologies
Home access : 98% of 15-16 year olds have a computer at home and 93% have access to the internet.
School access : 98.5% of 15-16 year olds use a computer at school.
Internet access : Of those who have the internet, 72% say they have a broadband connection.
Diverse range of technologies : As well as computer and internet access, 91% have a mobile phone, 70% have an MP3 player, 37% have cable television and 83% have a games console.
In home, television still dominates : While 52% have a television, 58% have a stereo and 80% have a CD player in their own room, only 37% have a computer and 28% have internet access in their own room.
Favourite technology : 26% of young people said they would miss the internet most if it was taken away, 18% said mobile phone and 16% said television.
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The nature of computer use
Computer use more regular at home : 44% of young people use a computer every day at home; 12% use a computer every day at school.
Communication is the key at home : The one thing that young people spend most of their time doing on a computer at home is communicating with people (44% say this).
Young people like using the computer at home : 37% ‘love’ and 45% ‘like’ using the computer at home, whereas 42% ‘neither like nor dislike’ using the computer at school (11% ‘love it’ and 36% ‘like it’).
Multitasking : 79% of young people listen to music while they use a computer at home; 51% text on their mobile phones while on a computer. 10% say they don’t multitask when using a computer.
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The nature of internet use
At home online chat is king : 66% of 15-16 year olds use the internet for chat either every day or almost every day, whereas 21% chat weekly and 10% never use chat programs.
Online leisure activities outweigh online school activities : as well as chat, 30% use the internet to surf the web every day and 30 % use the internet for listening to music. Only 7% use the internet for finding information for school every day, although 20% do this almost every day. 63% use the internet weekly or less than weekly for finding information for school.
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Learning and literacy
May not have received lessons : 56% of young people say they have received no instruction on using the internet as a reliable source of information.
Learn internet skills themselves : 61% say they have learned a lot about the internet and the Web on their own. Only 19% say they learned a lot about the internet at school, 11% say a lot from parents and 24% say a lot from friends.
School work : At school, most computer time is spent doing school work (35%) or finding information for school work (32%).
Computer tasks : 56% say they use a computer weekly for writing tasks; 50% say they use a computer for finding information.
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Regulating the internet
Rules at home: 49% say their parents set rules for internet use at home. 17% say they always stick to their parent’s rules.
Rules at school : 96% of young people say their school has rules for using the internet. 27% say they always stick to the school internet rules.
Some young people’s comments on whether these rules affect them:
- yes it does as most sites are blocked so I cannot research certain things I would like to for assignments etc. This then makes more work for us at home. It’s very frustrating.
- yes. The Department of Education had blocked primary sites for obtaining valuable resources such as Google images etc. In addition, half of the websites that come up as a result of a search are also blocked thus limiting the information we can obtain to do school work. This means more time looking for information and less time completing work.
Most exciting use of digital technologies
- IT for Women seminar at Griffith University . . . not only was it educational and showed us the jobs in IT. It was fun and we had the chance to really take a look at computers.
- being able to search the web without it being connected to anything; taking the laptop to a park or in front of the television.
- chatted on MSN, its great especially when you use the voice recorder and web cam because it allows you to hear and see the person you are talking to and makes the conversation so real.
- played flight simulator and almost crashed into Goulburn and drove over my house in a 747.
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