Applying a critical approach to investigate barriers to digital inclusion and online social networking among young people with disabilities

Despite the seeming ubiquity of young people's Internet use, there are still many for whom access to the Internet and online social networking remains inequitable and patterned by disadvantage. The connection between information technology and young people with disabilities is particularly under‐researched. This article contributes to the field of critical information systems research by exposing significant barriers and facilitators to Internet accessibility for young people with disabilities. It uses Bourdieu's critical theory to explore how the unequal distribution of resources shapes processes of digital inclusion for young people with disabilities. It highlights access needs and experiences that are both disability and non‐disability related. The article draws on interviews in South Australia with 18 young people aged 10–18 years with a physical disability (such as cerebral palsy) or acquired brain injury and with 17 of their family members. Interviews evaluated participants' and parents' reflections on the benefits of a home‐based, goal‐oriented intervention to increase the young person's Internet use for social participation purposes. The Bourdieuian analysis demonstrated how varying levels of accrued individual and family offline capital resources are related to digital/online resources and disability‐specific online resources. This revealed how unequal resources of capital can influence technology use and hence digital inclusion for young people with disabilities. Our study demonstrates that young people with particular types of disabilities require intensive, personalised and long‐term support from within and beyond the family to ‘get online’. We conclude that Internet studies need to more frequently adopt critical approaches to investigate the needs of users and barriers to information technology use within sub‐groups, such as young people with disabilities. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd     

Digital Inclusion in Rural Areas: A Qualitative Exploration of Challenges Faced by People From Isolated Communities

This study explored the interplay between contextual and individual factors related to Internet adoption in isolated rural communities. By investigating 10 remote villages throughout Chile that received Internet access infrastructure in 2010–2011, we identified 3 areas in which contextual and individual factors are intertwined. First, the geographical isolation shaped people's personality and attitudes towards new experiences, including digital technologies. Second, the communities' aging population also represented a strong challenge because they lack young people, a relevant technology socialization agent. Finally, jobs and economic activities are related to people's (lack of) motivations and needs towards digital technologies. When the Internet has reached the vast majority of the population, isolated communities confront specific challenges that we need to consider in policy‐making decisions.     

Actual friends matter: An internet skills perspective on teens' informal academic collaboration on Facebook

Social media platforms such as Facebook enable adolescents to collaborate on academic activities, but this kind of participation may require a set of higher-order Internet skills. This study explores the factors that predict informal academic collaboration on Facebook, such as seeking help, discussing schoolwork, and finding class-related resources. Based on survey data collected from high school students (N = 690), we found that academic performance, perceived support from ‘actual’ Facebook friends, higher order Internet skills (especially information seeking skills), and instrumental support from Facebook friends predicted academic collaboration on Facebook. In light of these findings, theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Exploring the relationship between perceptions of social capital and enacted support online

Online social networking sites enable users to connect with large, heterogeneous groups of people. While extant research suggests individuals benefit psychologically from the perception that they are well connected, little is known about the nature of tangible resources embedded in these online networks. In this study 49 participants sent 588 requests for instrumental help to their Facebook friends to determine the accessibility of networked resources and online social capital. Almost 80% of these modest requests went unanswered, and perceived bridging and bonding capital did not explain enacted support. However, people who occupied socially prestigious positions were the most likely to benefit from their friend's help. These results suggest that expansive mediated networks may yield limited instrumental benefits.     

UGC网站用户画像研究

近几年,社交网络的高速发展使人们的工作、生活、学习方式发生了重大改变,人们获取知识的方式呈现明显的网络化趋势.人们通过网络获取信息的同时,也在其上留下了个人的痕迹,考虑到现实中获取个人信息成本高昂,捕捉其在网络中留下的痕迹,研究其在网络社会中的“映射”,不失为一种可行的方法.用户画像作为真实用户的虚拟代表,是建立在一系列真实数据之上的用户模型.通过对“知乎”网站的深入挖掘,构建了基于用户基本属性、社交属性、兴趣属性和能力属性四个维度的动态用户画像模型,并对“知乎”网站PM 2.5话题下1303位用户进行实证分析.     

社交网络用户行为挖掘研究进展与展望

随着信息技术飞速发展,社交网络逐渐占领了人们日常交往、娱乐和购物等主要平台。因此,大量围绕社交网络展开的研究也变得非常热门.现有的围绕社交网络用户行为展开的研究热点主要有：基于社交网络用户行为的用户影响力研究、基于用户行为的推荐系统研究、以及社交网络用户隐私方面的研究等。社交网络是互联网的主要组成模块之一,同时也是大数据时代的主要数据提供者之一,未来对于社交网络的研究会越来越受到学术界以及工业界的更多投入,本文对社交网络用户行为挖掘的研究现状、热点展开论述,并作出展望,提出一些目前尚缺深入研究的方向,以期对读者有所帮助。     

Surfing the web - Recreation or resource? Exploring how young people in the UK use the Internet as an advice portal for problems with a legal dimension

Internet use and access in the UK has increased rapidly in the last decade, with the concept of ‘information superhighway’ recognised as an axiom of Internet technology. Despite this, few studies have sought to investigate the incidence of use of the Internet as an advice resource outside of the health information arena. With an increasing impetus in the public sector towards the provision of online delivery mechanisms for civic orientated activities, including advice provision, it is timely to better understand the appropriateness of online advice seeking. Focusing on young people aged between 18 and 24 years, we investigated how much the Internet was used to obtain information about everyday problems with a legal dimension, who used it, how it was used and how successful respondents were in searching for information online. Data were extracted from a large-scale household survey of adults’ experience of problems with a legal dimension conducted across England and Wales (10,512 adult respondents). Results revealed significant growth in the use of the Internet to obtain information about such problems, rising from 4% in 2001 to around 18% in 2008. The responses of the 18-24 year olds to the survey illustrated that despite having comparatively high levels of Internet access, this age group utilised it to a lesser degree than similarly ‘connected’ age cohorts, and were less successful when doing so. This study highlights aspects of the second digital divide, going beyond access to explore use and outcomes of use. Implications for the future of the Internet in providing information and advice for young people, are discussed.     

A typology of young people’s Internet use: Implications for education

Using data from a nationally representative survey of over a 1000 young people in the UK this paper proposes a typology of the ways young people are using the Internet outside formal educational settings; and examines the individual and contextual factors that help to explain why young people are using the Internet in this way. Specifically, this paper addresses two research questions. First, can we distinguish coherent profiles of young people’s Internet use? Second, how do these usage profiles relate to individual and contextual factors associated with the Internet user? From the results of latent profile analysis and multinomial regression four types of Internet usage profiles are identified: the peripherals, normatives, all-rounders and active participators, which were differentiated by individual characteristics and contextual features. Such research enables practitioners, researchers and policy makers to better understand how young people are using the Internet in order to think in a more informed way about how new technologies could be used to enhance education and learning; and to develop initiatives that more specifically target and support different segments of the population.     

Harnessing collective knowledge inherent in tag clouds

Tagging systems represent the conceptual knowledge of a community. We experimentally tested whether people harness this collective knowledge when navigating through the Web. As a within‐factor we manipulated people's prior knowledge (no knowledge vs. prior knowledge that was congruent/incongruent to the collective knowledge inherent in the tags). As between‐factor we manipulated whether people had tag clouds available or not. In line with the Information Foraging Theory and with the Co‐Evolution Model of individual learning and collective knowledge building, we found that people's prior knowledge and tag clouds influenced their navigation. Tags which were congruent with people's prior knowledge had a higher probability of being selected. A knowledge test showed that participants adapted their individual conceptual knowledge to the collective knowledge. This incidental learning shows that people harness collective knowledge just by navigation with tag clouds.     

一种面向获取空间信息的潜在好友推荐算法

随着社交网络的不断发展,朋友推荐已成为各大社交网络的青睐对象,在能够帮助用户拓宽社交圈的同时可以通过新朋友获取大量信息.由此朋友推荐应该着眼于拓宽社交圈和获取信息,然而传统的朋友推荐算法几乎没有考虑从获取信息的角度为用户推荐潜在好友,大多是依赖于用户在线的个人资料和共同的物理空间中的签到信息.而由于人们活动具有空间局部性,被推荐的好友分布在用户了解的地理空间,并不能够满足用户通过推荐的朋友获取更多地理信息的需求.本文采用用户在物理世界中的签到行为代替虚拟社交网络中的用户资料,挖掘真实世界中用户之间的签到行为的相似性,为用户推荐具有相似的签到行为且地理位置分布更广泛的陌生人,能够增加用户接受被推荐的陌生人成为朋友的可能性和在保证一定的推荐精度的基础上增加用户的信息获取量.本文采用核密度估计估算用户签到行为概率分布,用时间熵度量签到行为在时间上的集中程度,选择可以为用户带来更多新的地理信息的陌生人作为推荐的对象,通过大规模Foursquare的用户签到数据集验证本文的算法在精度上保证了与目前已有LBSN上陌生人推荐算法的相似性,在信息扩大程度上高于上述已有算法.     

Determinants of college students' use of online collaborative help‐seeking tools

Research has noted the effectiveness of online tools (e.g., discussion boards) for supporting help seeking among class members. However, help seeking is not necessarily warranted via online learning tools because some factors (e.g., low Internet self‐efficacy) may influence students' intention to use them. This study aims to identify the determinants of students' use of a web‐based help‐seeking tool called EchoLu. For this purpose, a structural model was developed based on technology acceptance model and tested using a structural equation modelling approach. According to the data analysis results, general Internet self‐efficacy, information‐search self‐efficacy, web‐based learning self‐efficacy, and EchoLu‐specific self‐efficacy play a significant role in students' intentions to use online help‐seeking tools. Contrary to the previous research, no statistically significant relationship was found between general Internet self‐efficacy and EchoLu‐specific self‐efficacy, and between web‐based learning self‐efficacy and perceived usefulness. Implications of the findings for guiding practitioners in supporting effective help‐seeking are presented. Limitations of the study and future research prospects are discussed as well.     

Enabling people who are blind to experience science inquiry learning through sound‐based mediation

This paper addresses a central need among people who are blind, access to inquiry‐based science learning materials, which are addressed by few other learning environments that use assistive technologies. In this study, we investigated ways in which learning environments based on sound mediation can support science learning by blind people. We used NetLogo, a multi‐agent programmable modeling environment that is widely used for learning about complex systems. In order to provide blind people with access to such models, we used a component that supports sound‐based mediation. The sound‐based mediation provided real‐time information regarding objects' speed, location, and interactions with other objects. We examined blind people's learning about a chemical system of contained gas particles. The study employs a pre‐test intervention–post‐test design. Four adults participated individually in the study. They achieved most referent‐representation connections; their scientific conceptual knowledge became more specific and aligned with scientific knowledge; and their systems reasoning showed greater discrimination and relation between components. Discussion addresses learning with sound‐based mediation in broader terms and suggests further research into the potential of this unique type of low‐cost learning environment to assist blind people in their science learning.     

Application of improved clustering algorithm in investment recommendation in embedded system

The user's investment behaviour is individual, and group-oriented, which can reflect the user's cognitive background and interest on a certain extent. The user investment group can help users to find similar investment partners. Users can view the investment or other related people's interests. With the development of the Internet financial industry, people's demand for Internet financial knowledge services has become increasingly strong. Accessing financial information and conducting financial transactions through online financial platforms has become normal for investors. As a popular research area, the recommendation system can help users to better use Internet information, improve user loyalty, and promote products. In this paper, an improved kernel cluster-based incremental clustering method is proposed, and the stock information of the Shanghai Stock Exchange is used as the experimental data for cluster mining. The experimental results show that the improved kernel-based incremental clustering algorithm proposed in this paper can complete the investment recommendation for financial users. For a certain extent, it reduces the risk of financial investment, enhances the stability of the financial market, and has a strong positive effect.     

Different worlds? A comparison of young people's home and school ICT use

Abstract This paper explores young people's access to and use of computers in the home and at school. Drawing on a questionnaire survey, conducted in 2001 and 2003 with over 1800 children in the South‐West of England, on group interviews in school with over 190 children and with visits to 11 families, the paper discusses: (1) children's current use of computers in the home and in school; 2) changing patterns of computer use in home and school between 2001 and 2003; (3) the impact of age, gender and socio‐economic area on young people's computer use in home and school. The paper then goes on to discuss young people's perceptions of the differences between home and school use of computers and to address the question of whether young people's home and school use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) are really ‘different worlds’. Through analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data, the paper proposes that the boundaries between home and school are less distinct in terms of young people's ICT use than has previously been proposed, in particular through young people's production of virtual social networks through the use of instant messenger that seem to mirror young people's social school contexts. The paper concludes by suggesting that effective home–school link strategies might be adopted through the exploration of the permeability of home/school boundaries.     

Self-assessed and actual Internet skills of people with visual impairments

The Internet can make available to people with a visual impairment information and services that are otherwise inaccessible. But do visually impaired users actually use common Internet applications and do they have the necessary skills? This article reports a two-part study addressing these questions. The first part was an interview study in which 73 young and 69 older Dutch people with a visual impairment were questioned about usage of applications such as e-mail, chat, and web forms, and their self-perceived competence. The young participants reported more frequent use of Internet applications and mentioned multiple goals (i.e., social and educational), compared to the older. Both groups considered themselves reasonably competent, with the young rating themselves higher. The second part was a case study with 20 young and 20 older participants from the first study, who performed common Internet tasks, using websites or applications that complied with accessibility guidelines. Task performance was analyzed in detail for demonstrated skills. Actual performance proved to be unrelated to self-rated competence. Moreover, the competence of both young and older participants fell far short of what active participation in society requires, especially for the more complex information and strategic skills. The success rate on the performance tasks was low. People with a visual impairment should receive extensive support for the acquisition of higher-level skills that are called upon when using Internet information and services in order to participate in society.     

Situating Internet Use: Information‐Seeking Among Young Women with Breast Cancer

In recent years considerable attention has been focused on the potential of the Internet as a means of health information delivery that can meet varied health information needs and empower patients. In this article, we explore utilization of the Internet as a means of health information consumption amongst young women with breast cancer who were known Internet users. Focusing on a population known to be competent at using the Internet allowed us to eliminate the digital divide as a possible explanation for limited use of the Internet for health information‐seeking. Ultimately, this allowed us to demonstrate that even in this Internet savvy population, the Internet is not necessarily an unproblematic means of disseminating health care information, and to demonstrate that the huge amount of health care information available does not automatically mean that information is useful to those who seek it, or even particularly easy to find. Results from our qualitative study suggest that young women with breast cancer sought information about their illness in order to make a health related decision, to learn what would come next, or to pursue social support. Our respondents reported that the Internet was one source of many that they consulted when seeking information about their illness, and it was not the most trusted or most utilized source of information this population sought.     

Home, School, Borrowed, Public or Mobile: Variations in Young Singaporeans' Internet Access and Their Implications

This paper studied uneven Internet access amongst young people in Singapore. The study finds that young Singaporeans access the Internet mainly through home, school, borrowed, public, and mobile sources, with different implications for each type of Internet access. For those with home or mobile access, Internet use was routinised and often intense, even burdensome and distracting on occasions. For those who relied on borrowed, school, or public access, intermittent use appeared adequate but hampered their ability to hone online skills to the levels of their peers. The study also finds that although systematic incorporation of IT into the national curriculum can encourage parity in basic exposure to online skills, developing greater Internet proficiency is more likely with home Internet access.     

Social Media Use for News and Individuals' Social Capital,Civic Engagement and Political Participation

Recently, scholars tested how digital media use for informational purposes similarly contributes to foster democratic processes and the creation of social capital. Nevertheless, in the context of today's socially‐networked‐society and the rise of social media applications (i.e., Facebook) new perspectives need to be considered. Based on U.S. national data, results show that after controlling for demographic variables, traditional media use offline and online, political constructs (knowledge and efficacy), and frequency and size of political discussion networks, seeking information via social network sites is a positive and significant predictor of people's social capital and civic and political participatory behaviors, online and offline.     

Alt.support: modeling social support online

While there is mounting evidence that people use the Internet to expand their social networks and receive social support, little is known about how they do so and with what effect the Internet has on overall levels of social support. Based on a survey of 213 online support seekers, this study explored social cognitive mechanism such as self-efficacy and outcome expectations as predictors of support activity, online support reliance and support network size. From these relationships, we offer preliminary evidence suggesting that those who actively seek social support online are indeed finding it through a complex support system beginning with self-regulation.     

Facebooking for health: An examination into the solicitation and effects of health-related social support on social networking sites

The current study investigates people’s use of social networking sites for health purposes and its impact on their perception of social support and their health self-efficacy. A structural model was fitted to test hypothesized relationships between having a health concern, seeking online health information, seeking health-related social support on Facebook, perceived social support from Facebook friends, and health-related self-efficacy. The study also looks at the relative significance of social support dimensions including: emotional, informational, tangible, and esteem dimensions. An analysis of 291 respondents revealed a positive relationship between having health concerns and seeking health-related social support. Seeking support was significantly associated with all four social support dimensions. Among the four support dimensions, emotional support was the only significant predictor of health self-efficacy. Also, emotional support was the dimension that was most prevalent in Facebook contexts. Health information seeking was also positively associated with health self-efficacy but was not significantly related to having a health concern.