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The present study was specifically designed to investigate whether there was a difference in amount of time university students and adolescents used the Internet and how they used this time. A significant difference was found between the average amount of time university students and adolescents spend engaged in online activities. Adolescents spent more time using the Internet for most activities, with the exception of searching the Internet for academic information. Overall, adolescents spent a greater time on the Internet. This finding supports previous findings that have shown teenagers to be high users of the Internet (Becker, 2000; Wartella & Jennings 2000). The present study was also specifically interested in investigating whether there were differences in university students’ and adolescent’s motivation to use the Internet. This study found that there were significant differences in the extent that they were motivated to use the Internet, with the exception of using the Internet to search for information. Adolescents had higher motivation scores for where there was a significant difference. Although there was an exception, university students were more motivated to search for information for an academic purpose. Both adults and adolescence were most motivated to use the Internet to seek information and, secondly, to seek information entertainment. Universities and schools can use this information to invest teaching time on how best to utilise the Internet for research purposes. For adults this finding is surprising as previous studies have shown adults tend to use the Internet less for information searching than for interpersonal communication (Kraut et al., 1998).
Approximate Word count = 966
Approximate Pages = 3.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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