SGER: Integrating Diverse Data to Explore Adolescents' Information Technology Uses

新媒体的日益普及提出了人们是否有能力利用新技术来赋予自己权力的问题。虽然信息技术（IT）已成为青少年生活的主要内容，但我们对使用特定类型服务的总体趋势知之甚少。每天有数百万人使用MySpace和Facebook等网站，这些网站不断成为热门辩论的话题，也成为立法的目标。然而，很少有系统的工作关注年轻人对这些在线服务的使用。通过原始数据收集，整个项目将使我们能够(1)对大学生的互联网使用、参与和技能以及IT使用如何融入青少年的日常生活有一个基本的了解；(2)实施和评估以提高使用、参与和技能为目标的培训干预；(3)基于与人们日常通信实践相关的调查、观察和移动计算应用，在不同数据源的信息集成方面取得方法上的进步，这些方法将推广到不同群体使用IT的研究中。关于信息技术是减轻还是加剧了社会不平等，一直存在着相当大的争论。相关研究往往侧重于访问差异，很少强调用户之间的差异，特别是在完全有线的人群中。很少有基于代表性大样本的青少年数字媒体使用的系统分析。更广泛的影响随着数字媒体使用的多样化，人们依靠多种设备与他们的网络保持联系并访问内容，我们必须开发方法来收集和整合有关用户实践的多样化性质的数据。随着对用户的研究赶上媒体使用趋势，并将用户实践融入数据收集过程，本项目开发的方法将与未来越来越多类型的数据收集相关。

The growing diffusion of new media raises questions about people's ability to appropriate new technologies for their empowerment. While information technologies (IT) have become a staple of adolescents' lives, we know very little about general trends in the use of specific types of services. Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook are used by millions of people daily, are constantly the topic of popular debates and have also become the target of legislation. Yet there is very little systematic work that looks at young people's uses of such online services.Through original data collection, the overall project will allow us to (1) develop a baseline understanding of college students' Internet uses, participation and skill and how IT uses are integrated into adolescents' everyday lives; (2) implement and assess a training intervention targeting improved use, participation and skill; and (3) make methodological advancements regarding information integration from diverse data sources based on surveys, observations and mobile computing applications related to people's everyday communication practices, methods that will be generalizable to the study of IT uses by different groups.Intellectual MeritThere has been considerable debate about whether information technologies are alleviating or contributing to social inequality. Related research tends to focus on access differences with little emphasis on the disparities among users especially concerning a fully wired population. There is little systematic analysis of adolescents' digital media uses based on a representative large sample. Broader ImpactsAs the use of digital media diversifies with people relying on multiple devices to keep in contact with their networks and access content, it is essential that we develop ways in which we can collect and integrate data about the diverse nature of user practices. The methods developed in this project will be relevant to more and more types of data collection in the future as research on users catches up with media use trends and integrates user practices into data collection procedures.