Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research

Vol. 50, No. 5, November 2006, pp. 541–557

Reading the Web—Students’

Perceptions about the Internet
Kaisa Leino*
University of Jyväskylä, Finland

This study explores the perceptions of Finnish 15-year-olds on the advantages and disadvantages
of the Internet. The data, students’ written responses (N53112), were gathered in the context of
the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in the spring of 2000 as a
national option. The data were analysed by close reading and using the Atlas.ti application for
coding. Students regard easy access to a variety of current information as the most important
advantage of the Internet. Finding new friends and chatting with old ones was also emphasised, as
well as the downloading capacities of the Internet. Although problems of finding reliable and
truthful information were recognised, students’ main concerns were related to issues such as
violations towards computers and people, and getting addicted or marginalised.

Keywords: Internet; Critical literacy; Multiliteracy; Perceptions

Introduction

The Internet. Oh this center of information. Knowledge, art, available in all sorts. But
there lurks evil as well. Who has control? Who can control all evil that is spreading over
the net? No, the net isn’t evil. It is just a tool. A tool for good. A tool for evil. (15-year-old
boy)

The media have become one of the major educators of young people. Due to the
importance of media literacy skills and practices are emphasised. Technology affects
our literacy system, which has become more performative while knowledge is passed
on not only as language or text but rather as modes of thought, apprehension and
expression, as techniques and practices (Hesse, 1996). Students’ technical skills
direct the ways they manage and employ the Internet. Advanced technical skills open
up new possibilities to exploit the vast amount of information on the Internet.
However, the level of information management skills determines how successfully
that information can be exploited.

*Institute for Educational Research, P.O. Box 35, FIN-40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
Email: kaisa.leino@ktl.jyu.fi
ISSN 0031-3831 (print)/ISSN 1470-1170 (online)/06/050541-17
ß 2006 Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research
DOI: 10.1080/00313830600953618
542 K. Leino

Youth culture itself has changed through combining basic literacy needs with new
technology-based contexts, tools and practices (Leino, 2006; Lemke, 1998).
Downloading music or pictures and chatting with friends over the Internet are
familiar activities to most teenagers. Networks can extend the social intercourse of
teenagers to other countries. Same sites, hobbies and technical interests bridge
people who may have never met in real life.
Networks offer new possibilities, yet worries about technical, social and cognitive
features remain: Internet addiction (e.g. Suler, 1999); privacy concerns (e.g. George,
2002; Sheehan, 2002); commercialism focused on children (e.g. Montgomery,
1996); and information overload (e.g. Koski, 1999). Some other aspects of the
Internet—such as anonymity—can be seen in both positive and negative lights (see
Suler & Phillips, 1998).
In order to design a curriculum that includes competencies relevant to the
information society, we first need to know how competent students are. What are the
skills they need to practise? What is the content they feel important? What do they
feel are the thresholds to exploit the media? This article explores the students’ own
perceptions about one of the most important media of this age: the Internet. So far
teachers and parents have been the respondents to answer what they feel are the
advantages and disadvantages of the Internet for adolescents (e.g. Eurobarometer,
2004) or studies have concentrated on one particular disadvantage (e.g. George,
2002; Sheehan, 2002). However, adults and adolescent see things sometimes
differently. To better guide students, we need to know what they think.
Finnish youth have faced changing culture with an open mind. In 2000 two-thirds
of surveyed Finnish 15-year-olds used computers at home almost every day or at
least a few times a week. The corresponding percentage at school was 46. Of those
computer users, 63% also used the Internet at least a few times a week. As similar
data was gathered in 2003, 77% of students already had Internet connection at
home.
Media education focusing on computers and the Internet got up to full speed in
the 21st century. The Finnish government has established an Information Society
Programme whose target is not only to provide functioning connections and
electronic services but also readiness and skills to use the services, paralleled with
confidence in their reliability. This will be made possible by strengthening media
education, giving tools for verifying information technology skills (basic information
technology skills, information management, media literacy, and the use of electronic
services), and improving the contents of Internet teaching (Information Society
Programme, 2004). Attention to this has also been paid in the school curriculum,
although quantity and quality of media education is still very much dependent on
teachers’ own activity. However, new schoolbooks for example have already taken
digital texts as part of the teaching content.
This article shows the disadvantages of the Internet according to young people,
and what factors teachers and parents should pay attention to when guiding
children’s and adolescents’ Internet use. The Internet is approached from the
 Reading the Web 543

sociocultural point of view (e.g. Gee, 2000; Moje, Dillon, & O’Brien, 2000) through
an inductive and qualitative examination of the perceptions of adolescents about the
advantages and disadvantages of the Internet. In the following, I will discuss the
concept of Internet literacy and its relationship and position to other related
concepts. After briefly presenting the approach and methods of the study, I will move
on to examine the data and explore young people’s own perspectives on the Internet.
Summarising maps based on students’ own categories and relations between these
categories are presented as well as frequencies of responses concentrating on ten
most often mentioned advantages and disadvantages.

Evaluating the Internet

The concept of literacy has many subcategories which are more or less overlapping.
Concerning the Internet, terms such as Internet literacy, network literacy (McClure,
1997; Tyner, 1998), media literacy (Kubey, 1997) or digital literacy (Gilster, 1997)
occur. They can all be seen as part of multiliteracy. Multiliteracy includes dealing
with different media and related tools, as well as information processing skills,
problem solving and knowledge management (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; Kaufmann,
1993; Luke, 1997; Tyner, 1998). What is common to all these terms is that literacy is
not only about information or skills but also about connection to other people and
their ideas, attitudes, perceptions and desires. According to Gilster (1997, pp. 31–
39, 92), it is also awareness of the way the Internet creates new contexts by blending
older forms of communication. He sees that whereas television is ‘‘exclusive’’ by
censoring offensive material, the Internet is an ‘‘inclusive’’ medium where everything
goes because there are no referees. The Internet offers choices for everyone and for
every need. Gilster (1997) compares the Internet to a karaoke bar with an open
microphone that anyone can use at will, which can sometimes be agonising.
The Internet can also be approached through the sender–receiver relationship.
Järvinen (1999) talks about push and pull technologies: in push technology ready
contents are sent to the receiver, as on television or electronic mail, whereas in pull
technology the user can ‘‘pull’’ information from the media, as on the Web. This
creates the paradox of the Internet: People are fascinated by its communicative
possibilities, semantic variety and dynamic composition, but at the same time they
are used to explicitly structured information which is often received from someone,
not collected by themselves. Freedom may be experienced more as an overwhelming
chaos than as a feature enabling wider possibilities, since the reader must select what
is relevant and reliable from among dozens or hundreds of sources (Järvinen, 1999,
pp. 25–26).
Openness, broadness and lack of control promote diversity of information but also
require critical consideration from the reader. Critical reading is an important skill
with regard to printed texts as well, but in electronic texts it is even more valuable,
because in networks text and action are more closely connected than ever. A
misplaced phrase can have repercussions on many other texts and even on network
544 K. Leino

connections, not to mention more general reliability and face validity issues
concerning data security. The absence of referees and complex connections between
computers create a whole new context. Missing references or writers’ names are
problems that hardly ever appear in books. On websites, the writer’s identity is often
not that evident. On the other hand, contacting a writer or an administrator of a site
has been made quite easy. As Kellner (2002, pp. 49–53) writes, critical media
literacy should motivate people to use media for self-expression and social activism
as well as help them see how media culture can advance different forms of prejudice,
misinformation, or questionable ideas. Through studying, using, and reading or
listening to various materials one can become a critical reader who not only
consumes but also evaluates and reflects on what is offered (Bruce, 2000).

Methods
The research questions of the study are as follows: based on 15-year-old students’
perceptions, what are the advantages of the Internet? What are the disadvantages of
the Internet? To answer these questions, data were gathered from 4,864 students,
constituting a representative sample of the Finnish 15-year-olds in 2000. This was
executed as a national option in the student background questionnaire used in the
Finnish PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) survey in spring
2000. After answering the international part of the questionnaire, students gave a
written response to the questions, ‘‘What in your opinion are the advantages of the
Internet?’’ ‘‘What are the biggest dangers or the worst problems of the Internet?’’ The
answers cited in this article are translated into English from their original Finnish.
After excluding non-responses or those stating merely ‘‘I do not know’’, in total
3,112 answers were analysed. Girls accounted for 53% of the answers. Responses
were investigated by means of constant comparative method. Analyses were
performed in four stages, focusing on: (1) close reading, (2) coding data, (3)
descriptive statistics, and (4) reflection and data display. Close reading builds on
constant comparative method and corresponds to the grounded theory approach.
The aim was to find types or themes that are ‘‘highlighted’’ in the data. The idea was
not to draw distinctions between writers, but through a grounded theory and data-
driven categorisation to find out how students analyse the phenomenon. Although
categories originated from the responses, sometimes other terms were used as
empirical generalisations (Huberman & Miles, 1994; Strauss & Corbin, 1994). Some
categories were later connected and combined into more general themes. Next, a
content map was produced to reveal the structure of students’ views on the
advantages and disadvantages of the Internet.
In addition to close reading, a set of 400 responses were coded by means of the
Atlas.ti application to identify the strongest themes and to verify the reliability of the
close reading. This sample provided the quantitative results of this study. To make
sure that this number of answers was enough to produce a representative coverage on
the issues mentioned, a word count was also employed for all the answers, and this
verified the percentages of the strongest themes.
 Reading the Web 545

Results
Advantages of the Internet
‘‘It’s like a library of the whole world’’. The students felt that the most valuable
advantage the Internet has to offer is its vast amount of information. Various
knowledge and digital material such as pictures, sounds and video clips can be found
on the Internet and exploited in schoolwork and in hobbies. Teenagers not only
search the Web for facts and dictionaries to help them in school projects but also for
information and pictures about their areas of interest such as cars, their favourite
bands, television programmes, bus and train timetables, music notes, reviews, travel
reports, and summer jobs. Some of them also read the latest news, sports results and
magazines.
Many students emphasised the Internet’s speed and updating capacity. Even
though quick and broad coverage might be possible through television or radio, those
media are bound to given broadcast times. On the Internet, information can be
accessed whenever and wherever as long as there is a working connection. There is
readily available information that cannot be found in books until a year or two later,
such as the latest tips for computer use, or that will never be published in print (e.g.
personal experiences or exchanges in discussion groups).

The best features are email and that information is readily available and new (no need to
search information from any 4-year-old encyclopedia!). A good thing is that on the net
you can get information that is unavailable in books or will appear in books/papers only
after a couple of days. E.g. there are statistics on the net that are up to date. (a girl)

There you can read daily updated information, such as sports reports and weather
forecasts. You can also easily find maps and learn about holiday resorts. (a girl)

‘‘You can search information easily, painlessly and having fun’’. Most students felt
that necessary information can be found rapidly, easily and even in an entertaining
way. Some of them admitted that adequate user skills and the right keywords are
important in order to take full advantage of search engines—sticking to familiar
addresses only is not enough. Without these skills the use of information networks is
difficult and slow (see also the section Disadvantages of the Internet.)
Easy access also enables everybody to upload their own materials, poems or short
stories to the Internet, or to express their opinions about current issues. Many
students found that using the Internet for information searching is very exhilarating
and leads to increased knowledge about computer technology in general.

A good thing is easy access to information. On the Internet you can find in ten minutes
the same information that would take two months to dig out from books. (a boy)

‘‘In chat I meet my friends all around’’. For the most part, the Internet was used for
entertainment, broadly conceived: students chatted, played games, participated in
546 K. Leino

competitions, listened to the radio, and read magazines (see also Leino, 2006). They
felt that there is ‘‘something for everyone’’ even for longer periods of time.
Many respondents, especially girls, emphasised the use of the Internet for
communication and maintenance of social relationships. Some students observed
that sending greetings and letters had increased because in the electronic form they
bothered to send shorter messages as well, as there were no postal charge. Moreover,
replies come quickly. Chat rooms and email are especially popular, but IRC
(Internet Relay Chat) and ICQ messages (‘‘I seek you’’) are also used, especially to
alleviate feelings of loneliness. Some respondents also found new hobbies through
chatting, and others maintained old ones, for example, by chatting in the website of a
favourite sports team. Most importantly, they felt that it was an easy way to meet old
friends and new people. Many wrote about how they had found their boyfriend or
girlfriend on the Internet. Students felt that ‘‘faceless’’ anonymity helped and
encouraged them to communicate, since they did not have to worry about their
physical appearance during conversations. Some even saw advantages in creating a
parallel self, while some others saw this feature problematic. The teenagers also
appreciated the global nature of the Internet. Chatting with people from different
countries gave them an opportunity to get to know other cultures and customs and
talk about different events. They also learned foreign languages.

One of the best things on the Internet is certainly the possibility to use email. For just a
few lines I don’t usually care to use the slow and expensive mail, as I can use the net for
free at school or in the library. (a girl)

The Internet is a terrific way to get to know people, at least you won’t be turned down right
away just for your looks but for instance a good friend of mine is going steady with someone
she found on chat, and is very happy. I myself also have many friends on the net. (a girl)

‘‘Availability of services and other stuff’’. Although entertainment is emphasised on

the Internet, it is also an excellent tool for different kinds of services. Many students
thought that the Internet makes their parents’ life easier because they can pay bills
and also purchase goods and services on electronic market boards or online stores.
For the students themselves, the most pleasing activities were downloading music,
movies, pictures, programs, games and drivers for their computers, as well as logos
and ring tones for mobile phones. Some of them mentioned how great it is that you
can have those for free. A few students also mentioned that they had come across a
service that made it possible to aid famine victims or contribute to a campaign for
rainforests by visiting certain sites. The versatility of the Internet was commended;
you can do what you choose to do when you want to.

For me it’s most useful when buying CDs. I’ve already bought 4 pieces via the net. (a girl)

There you can find all kinds of interesting stuff, for example updates for games,
instructions for 3D programming, DVD programs, updates for web games, chats,
instructions for programming, fan pages such as star trek and stuff like that. (a boy)
 Reading the Web 547

Illustrating the Structure of Advantages

In order to illuminate the relations of different themes a mind-map was drawn. In
Figure 1 the advantages of the Internet, as reported by the 15-year-olds, are mapped
together in a simplified form.
The almost unlimited scope and range of information available was clearly the best
part of the Internet. In addition to information retrieval, the Internet was also used
for entertainment and for maintaining social relationships, which obviously served
also as a way to entertain oneself. Other good qualities of the Internet more or less
support these three main functions. Easy downloading is useful when obtaining new
games, and updated information helps students in their school projects. Different
features were clearly interrelated. Easy and fast access facilitated keeping in touch
with friends and finding new ones, which helps avoid loneliness and may inspire
students to access foreign sites that give insight into foreign cultures and
developments and promote language learning. However, according to students’
views, the same features mentioned as advantages may turn into disadvantages when
a person gets addicted or starts messing around with false identities or misused
computer skills.

Figure 1. Mapping the advantages of the Internet as reported by Finnish 15-year-olds

548 K. Leino

Disadvantages of the Internet

‘‘Like looking for a needle in a haystack’’. While the vast amount of information is the
most valuable advantage of the Internet, it also causes problems. Finding relevant
and reliable information may be difficult without adequate skills and practice. Poorly
organised or outdated pages complicate information searches. However, surprisingly
few students mentioned that problem. As almost anyone can set up a website, the
Internet is full of misinformation, not to mention ‘‘useless’’ and ‘‘bad’’ information,
‘‘malinformation’’. Respondents specifically pointed to pornography sites and sites
containing propaganda, promotion of drug abuse, and instructions for making
bombs. A page with seemingly innocent introduction lines may in fact include
inappropriate content. Various questionable ideologies and values spread widely over
the Internet. Commercialisation was also viewed as problematic. The Internet is a
versatile medium bearing influence, for example, on people’s buying decisions.

One reason for problems is surely that age limits cannot be controlled but also
questionable material is available to everybody. The flood of information is sometimes
hard to manage and filter out all the unnecessary. Also the authenticity of things is
difficult to verify. (a girl)

Child porn, data crime, sex business. Material that is unsuitable to minors is easily
available+instructions for home-made bombs, rockets and weapons. (a boy)

Too many crazy & stupid influences. A good example is the case where two teenagers
met each other on the chat and later committed suicide together. (a girl)

‘‘Swindling is a bad problem’’. Problems with finding proper information are

connected to another problem area—the lack of supervision, which in turn is linked
to certain ethical issues. Various illegal products can easily be obtained on the
Internet, and there are sites that offer products that do not exist. Some students were
also concerned about how easy it is to copy essays and answers to school
assignments.

Some people copy things for their schoolwork and get a good mark for that, it isn’t fair. (a
girl)

Children can go to adult pay sites and download warez games from the net, i.e. illegal
games made by companies. (a boy)

‘‘There is the danger of viruses and crackers, if you don’t know how to protect
yourself’’. Lack of supervision also causes problems in data security and may lead to
violations of privacy. Downloading of software may also bring viruses, which unduly
slow down the operating speed of computers, and erase previous computer settings.
Viruses may also ease the work of crackers who infiltrate servers and private folders.
Crackers can read private emails or even snatch credit card numbers from the traffic
 Reading the Web 549

between servers when consumers are shopping online. Apparently the term ‘hacker’
has become more or less synonymous with ‘cracker’ by the influence of the media,
although originally ‘hacker’ just meant a computer enthusiast. Anyway, the 15-year-
olds seem to be well aware of the work of crackers/hackers. Accordingly, many
students reported their suspicions about shopping online or even that they had
reduced their use of email.

I, too, have been terrorised. My email, sent and received, have been accessed and
distributed! Since then I have reduced its use. Data may leak, e.g. Bank numbers etc. (a
girl)

Greatest dangers or worst problems are caused by hackers, who may e.g. hack money
from bank accounts, and by viruses, which may destroy your browsers or home pages. (a
girl)

‘‘As anonymous, people can bring about bad things’’. Although some students
believe that anonymity provided by the Internet creates a relaxed atmosphere and
frees them from the pressure of appearance, it can also cause problems because
anonymous persons often create false identities, for example, pretending to be
younger than they actually are. Some adolescents may also pretend to be older to flirt
with unsuspecting adults (Suler, 1998), though the respondents obviously did not
find that a problem. Accordingly, some students felt that anonymous communica-
tion encouraged superficiality rather than an in-depth exchange of ideas. In addition,
some behaviour was also seen as problematic: trying to jam the email with mass
postings, or crashing the operating system or the Internet connection with special
software or actions.

On the net you don’t know the other person, so that you might be in danger if the person
is a paedophile or something. (a girl)

‘‘You can get addicted to web surfing’’. Students also worried about becoming
addicted to the Internet—an addiction that they saw as taking them away from more
valuable hobbies, sports and cultural activities. Some students even feared that
addiction could turn into social alienation as people turned away from ‘‘real life’’ into
the artificial bubble of the electronic world, and this would constitute a threat to
school attendance.

You get hooked with it if you start playing games etc. Many have been addicted to chat
and that’s bad, ’cause then physical exercise, schoolwork and everything else will flop.
Personally, I haven’t been hooked, and I’m sure I won’t either. At home we have a rule
that each of us may spend at most 15 min/day on the Internet. (a girl)

The sense of time/reality is lost. It alienates from the social world. Obscures judgement.
There’s a risk to end up in company with ‘‘wrong’’ people. (I have been a net addict
myself and stopped using it for over a year. Now the situation is ok.) (a girl)
550 K. Leino

‘‘May promote marginalisation’’. On a more practical level, some respondents were

worried that the Internet causes some social problems and functional threats. Some
respondents were concerned about the increase of Internet services, which were seen
as a threat to local public services, especially in rural areas or small places. In the
worst scenario, information on the Internet might ultimately become commercialised
so that only rich people could afford it. They also considered the risks of spreading
viruses: what happens if everything is dependent on computers and the Internet?
How can services be protected? The students were concerned for elderly people, the
poor and others not interested in computers or unable to use them because of
technical or language problems. Such groups would be disadvantaged in societies
that relied on online platforms to deliver basic services (e.g. e-government). Some
respondents were also concerned about the effect that the Internet would have on
cultural arts. Would attendance at symphony concerts and dance performances
decline? Would people be less disposed to read books in the traditional manner?
Transferring all information to networks may affect library services.

Old cultures; books, the nature and live music give way to the Internet. If you don’t use
the Internet, you’re zero: Those unable to use the Internet on a daily basis are the most
prone ones to be marginalised in society. (a girl)

The problem is commercialisation, so that information is hard to get and equality is lost
(the poor have no access to information). (a boy)

Also the possibility that power and money would go only to those who master the
computers is worrying. (a girl)

‘‘Problems: slowness, high price, health’’. In addition to the above-mentioned threats

and problems, the students referred to various problems related to computers and
the Internet more generally. They found that Internet connections cost too much.
Some implied that these costs would make life even more difficult to Internet
addicts. Poorly designed pages and advertisements take time to load, slow down
programs and data transfer, thus increasing users’ costs. However, at the same time
many saw it as an advantage that you can download something from the Internet for
free. The slowness of personal computers and jams on the server annoyed many of
the students. Also technical problems, such as crashing of operating systems, caused
anxiety.

Also the price is a bad thing, since young people think, ‘‘that the Internet costs nearly
nothing, you know’’, but when the bill comes they realise it’s higher than expected! (a girl)

I’ve noticed when using the computer at home in the evening that the net is slow. And a
bit stuck then you can only check the newsgroups and mails. (a boy)

The adolescents also mentioned some physiological problems that relate to the use
of computers: Sitting in front of the screen had caused some headache, backache and
 Reading the Web 551

eyesight problems, and diminished the amount of outdoor activities and physical
exercise. As one female respondent put it: ‘‘Downsides: you may get glasses, the neck
fails, the back aches’’.

Illustrating the Structure of Disadvantages

To illuminate the relationships of disadvantages, mind-mapping was used, again. In
Figure 2 reported disadvantages of the Internet are mapped together in a simplified
form.
The teenagers mentioned quite a variety of disadvantages, although some points
were rather vague. Underlying the answers there were clearly some suspicions about
data security, which in some cases seemed to form an obstacle to online shopping.
Also the fear of getting viruses may have discouraged downloading among some
people. However, suspicions about cheaters in online discussions did not seem to
stop chatting. The students were highly conscious of the possibility that the chat
partner was not telling the truth. Somewhat surprisingly, problems in finding
relevant, reliable and truthful information were not mentioned very often as a
disadvantage, despite the great significance assigned to information retrieval on the
advantageous side. However, teenagers named the amount of illegal and distasteful
material as the biggest problem. Many problems of the Internet are interrelated: The
lack of controllability due to the vast amount of information and the fundamental
freedom of the net lead to illegal distribution as well. Also computer addiction was a
concern for many, although many also claimed that it was not a problem for
themselves but for others. The topic of addiction was also associated with
physiological problems and displacement of other activities. Some respondents

Figure 2. Mapping the disadvantages of the Internet as reported by Finnish 15-year-olds

552 K. Leino

were concerned that commercialisation of information would lead to alienation and

marginalisation of old and poor people.

Predominant Themes
To identify the predominant themes 400 answers were coded by means of the
Atlas.ti application. Although the teenagers mentioned a wide selection of features of
the Internet, some important features were mentioned only a few times. Table 1
shows the result of Atlas.ti coding, summarising previous results about the
advantages and disadvantages of the Internet and showing the percentage of
respondents to identify each feature. Only the ten most often mentioned features are
listed here.
The major advantages obviously concerned searching and finding information and
the possibilities of social interaction through chat or email. On the other hand,
content of the websites, various social problems such as addiction, costs of using the
Internet, and the risk of viruses were the most prominent disadvantages.
Such important and actively used features as downloading programs or music or
playing games do not show in Table 1 due to the variety of aspects related to
retrieving information. Despite the Internet’s recognised importance as a source of
information, problems related to that information were not mentioned very often,
except for references to the contents of questionable sites, such as pornography and
bomb instructions. In other words, although the teenagers brought up a wide range
of features altogether, the scope of individual answers varied considerably.

Summary and Discussion

According to the Finnish 15-year-olds, the most important advantage of the Internet
is access to information. Electronic documents reinforce the impression of

Table 1. Top ten of Internet-related advantages and disadvantages mentioned by teenage

respondents (N5400)

Advantage % Disadvantage %

You can find information 57 Getting illegal or bad material (drugs, bomb instructions, 19
pornography, etc.)
There is all sorts of information 18 You can get viruses 17
There is lots of information 15 You may get addicted 15
You can use email 10 It cost too much 13
You can ‘‘talk’’ with someone 10 Problems with data security and hackers 10
It is multifaceted 9 Problems in finding relevant and reliable information 9
Information can be found easily 8 Slow connection or jams on servers 7
Information can be found rapidly 7 Anonymity and cheaters 7
You can meet new people 7 Marginalization of services, and old and poor 5
It is global 7 Illegal copying, cheating in school tasks, and piratism 2
 Reading the Web 553

information flow. And because of the freedom of distribution, critical reading is even
more important on the Internet than with other media. By numbers, the main
disadvantage was distribution of inappropriate material, such as pornography or bomb
instructions. The teenagers also disapproved of spreading computer viruses and other
data security violations such as cracking into other people’s computers or email.
Considering results, as important as what students said are the things they did not
say. Despite the importance of critical reading, evaluating, and reflecting on the
Internet, only 9% of students pointed out unreliable and irrelevant information as a
serious problem. Is it really that students soak up information without considering
how truthful, up-to-date or valid that information is? Or are those things so self-
evident for younger people that they need no mentioning?
Another surprising lack was the criticism of electronic conversations. They require
the ability to ‘‘read’’ the social situation and virtual setting. Advantages and
disadvantages derive from same features, depending on the perspective: Non-stop
conversation, anonymity and overlapping of messages (Beach & Lundell, 1998).
However, students did not mention any specific problems sometimes occurring in
this context, such as stealing nicknames, kicking off, banning or killing one’s
connection to the chat room/channel which may be serious problems in the online
community (see, e.g., Suler & Phillips, 1998), but in some other cases are just a part
of harmless playing (Laihanen, 1999). Instead, the disadvantages mentioned
included anonymity and related problems.
Many of the students were concerned about Internet addiction. They also related
this problem to different kinds of social, physical and technical problems. What is
interesting in students’ responses is that at the same time they claimed that addiction
was not their own problem but others’. The line between ‘‘normal’’ enthusiasm and
‘‘abnormal’’ preoccupation is hard to draw. Usually, heavy use is considered an
addiction when it seriously interferes with one’s ability to function in the ‘‘real’’
world (e.g. Suler, 1999).
An important result was the low number of responses concerning marginalisation
of some specific groups of people and services (5%), or the morality of illegal copying
and piratism (2%). Of course, there are also perfectly legal ways of getting music
from the net, but many also use illegal sources. Some answers actually praised the
possibilities of getting the latest music and game hits for free, or (morally a
questionable issue) gaining access to adult sex sites.
Totally lacking were responses evaluating the Internet as a place where active
citizens can influence issues concerning them. Fifteen-year-olds are not politically
active, but they should have knowledge of possibilities in order to become active
members of society. The Internet makes it possible to easily contact various
organisations and media, or local municipal councillors or even members of parliament.
Most answers were rather superficial, some merely lists. Based on close reading it
seemed that girls more often wrote long answers than boys. Besides that, the answers
of boys and girls did not differ significantly. (For more about gender differences see
Leino, 2006.) Few mentioned specific problems with regard to information, such as
554 K. Leino

problems in determining the time of writing, or the function and relevance of images
(e.g. Bruce, 2000). Instead, the students typically kept their responses at a more
general level just mentioning, for instance, that ‘‘you need to know how to find
information’’ or ‘‘it may not always be reliable’’. A few students went a step further to
consider the consequences of different actions and features.
The data on students’ views were collected in spring 2000. They show a current
trend of teenage perceptions and attitudes. However, in technological development 6
years is a long time. If the same questions were presented today, some of the
categories might well get a different weight. Terrorist acts and other recent
developments have once again drawn public attention to the dangers of the free flow
of information. Flight simulations and details of real airplanes, added with bomb
instructions and easy connections between criminals are common topics in the
media. These events and consequent reporting must have affected on opinions about
the Internet as well.
Moreover, Internet connections have improved largely after collecting the data.
During the survey, most of the connections were probably dial-up connections with
an hourly rate. Nowadays many families already have broadband connections, such
as ADSL or cable modems, which enable cheaper and faster connections, or at least
they come with fixed price per month regardless of the time spent on the Internet.
Therefore the costs of using the Internet would probably have less emphasis if the
question were asked today.
Even though the purpose was not to test theories of others, it became evident that
for further studies Bruce’s (2000) theory will serve as a significant frame of reference
when studying more closely students’ critical reading and different reader profiles.
Some intriguing questions for further studies are, ‘‘How critical readers students are
on the Internet?’’ ‘‘How can teachers enhance students’ critical reflection?’’ And as
multiliteracy skills clearly have significant impact on today’s literate culture, ‘‘how
should these skills be assessed’’ (e.g. Kalantzis, Cope, & Harvey, 2003)?

Need for Multiliterate Readers

Teenagers are very savvy with computers and the Internet, but there are still things to
learn. Teachers and parents should pay special attention to guiding youngsters on
ethical and moral reflection of Internet sites and quality of materials used in school
tasks, especially to evaluation of semantic and content level, and pragmatic issues of
texts. In other words, attention should be paid to comprehensibility and relevance of
images, acknowledgement of biases, or indications of the source of information,
judgement about the reputation of the author, the site’s primary purpose, or the time
of writing (Bruce, 2000). We should think how we could help young people to see
better the forms of prejudice, misinformation, or questionable ideas (Kellner, 2002)
that are present on the Internet.
Instead of forbidding the use, adults should go along and join the young users.
Getting involved means not only supervision, but also guidance in navigation and
 Reading the Web 555

reflective discussion about the sites and contents. This kind of Internet sessions can
also be educational for adults, especially if the Internet is more familiar to the
younger users. Getting to know the subject and recognising what is good and bad on
the net is the best basis for giving tips and setting rules for computer use, because
then the rules can be negotiated together and not just dictated from above. Adults
and adolescents should talk about their experiences, so that morals and ethics would
develop through adolescents’ own thinking, not just by imitating the adults or other
role models. Software-based control is only a technical tool of supervision and
should not substitute conversational means.
In addition, navigation on the Internet also calls for other literacy skills besides
critical and ethical (e.g. Quéau, 1993/1995) literacy. Internet literacy skills and
practices develop only with usage. For example, some younger people instantly see,
from a keyword or two, where a link leads to, and what sort of content is to be
expected. This, however, needs practice and less experienced Internet users may get
frustrated with clicking link after link and getting lost from the original site.
Information literacy skills are essential, including such knowledge as how to use
Boolean search or how to evaluate the reliability of a site.
Besides offering the obvious, that is, topical information, the Internet can be
educational in other ways, as well. One’s knowledge of geography, history,
languages, social sciences, arts and other such areas may increase when keeping in
touch with foreign people or even when playing some games (see The Second
Information Technology in Education Study: Module 2 - SITES: M2; http://
sitesm2.org/sitesm2_search/). The teenagers in this study did not show any wider
interest in social influence. However, in the near future even the general elections
may be carried out over the Internet. Are teenagers unaware of these possibilities to
influence or do they just think that they have no influence, anyway? When guiding
students to social activity, educators could find this communication-oriented
approach useful and productive. A discourse with shared values and common
positions can help to deal with diversity and different cultures, and be a breeding
ground for ‘‘building citizenship and furthering social justice and democracy’’
(Johnson & Kress, 2003, p. 9).
By discussing and comparing critically various Internet sources as well as
syntactic, semantic and pragmatic means, students will learn to evaluate texts. Also
social, political and ethical issues should be discussed and highlighted to achieve a
critical and reflective way of thinking. This should be taken into consideration
especially in curriculum development and teacher training. Teachers should become
familiar with the Internet, to know how students use it and have courage to exploit it
in everyday classroom situations. As some students pointed out, the Internet is
largely what we make of it.

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