Abstract
HomeNetToo is a longitudinal field study to examine the antecedents
and consequences of home Internet use in low-income families. Among
the antecedents considered are attitudes about the Internet and their
ability to predict Internet use. Participants in the project were
117 adults who completed attitude measures at pre-trial, 3 months,
9 months and post-trial (16 months) and had their Internet use automatically
recorded. Ethnographic accounts of their experiences with the Internet
were also obtained. Findings indicate that attitudes about privacy
and reliability of information on the Internet predict Internet use,
but not as expected. Participants who believed less in privacy and
reliability of information used the Internet more, even after the
contributions of demographic characteristics (race and age), pre-trial
experience using the Internet, and actual Internet use during the
preceding time period were considered. Attitudes about the potential
harm to children and health from Internet use predicted less use.
Implications for efforts to reduce the digital divide, the importance
of gathering both quantitative and qualitative data, and directions
for future research are discussed.
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