Children's Home Internet Use: Antecedents and Psychological, Social, and Academic Consequences

This chapter presents data from the HomeNetToo project, an in-depth study that examines use of computers and the Internet over 16 months among 140 children and their parents. The sample population was primarily lower income and African American. There was churn in Internet use among the children in the study, with 8 per cent stopping Internet use entirely over the course of the study and 38 per cent stopping e-mail. The research examines the factors predicting the extent to which children in the sample used the Internet. However, perhaps, the most interesting facet of this research is the examination of consequences of Internet use in terms of social relationships, time allocation, and academic achievement. Among other findings, the research indicates that children who use the Internet most improve their performance on standardized reading exams and on their school grade point averages.