Chapter 4: Participants’ Internet use 4.1 Introduction
Chapter 4 addresses the first objective of the research to explore the lifeworld of the participants’ Internet use. It presents the findings concerning twelve participants’ Internet use and detailed research which has sought to reflect on the ‘impact’ of the Internet on Chinese society. It commences with a general description of their Internet use habits and online activities and follows with a detailed demonstration of participants’ every online activity. In each section, the researcher briefly introduces the Internet application in China, reviews previous literature on the impact of the Internet application, and reflects on how the findings of the study contribute to a better understanding of the research topic. Rich data paint a vivid picture of participants’ online lifeworld. Their articulations and perceptions provide detailed and nuanced empirical evidence to better understand conclusions and assumptions of previous research and also throw light on new ways to understand the role of the Internet in the process of democratisation in China.
4.2 Internet use habit and online activities
This section describes twelve participants’ Internet use in general. The concept ‘Internet use habit’ encompasses five components (see Table 10 and 11).
Table 10. Interne use habit I
Ref
|
Device
|
Place
|
Time
|
Frequency
|
P01
|
His own laptop computer and occasionally other roommate’s computer
|
Dormitory
|
8 hours a day, mainly in the evenings from 6pm to 12pm.
|
Every day, but away from the Internet when at home for the summer or winter vacations.
|
Mobile phone
|
Lecture theatre
|
3 – 4 hours a day with intervals when not in his dormitory or when having lectures.
|
Every day.
|
P02
|
His own laptop computer
|
Dormitory, not at home
|
About an hour a day, several minutes in the morning to check QQ messages and 10pm to 11pm.
|
Almost every day on weekdays, but not on weekends, not in vacations.
“It is better-planned than before. I would have got online whenever I wanted.”
|
Mobile phone
|
Toilet, lecture theatre
|
It depended. Mainly toilet time and breaks between lectures, adding up to nearly an hour.
|
Every day.
|
PC
|
Net-bar
|
two to three hours at a time.
|
twice or three times a month.
|
P03
|
His own laptop computer
|
Dormitory
|
Occasionally in the mornings or afternoons with no lectures; with QQ online but sleeping at noon; and evenings before bedtime
|
Every day on weekdays, not on weekends when at home.
|
Mobile phone
|
|
Evenings before bedtime, when time is available during the daytime.
|
|
P04
|
Her own personal computer
|
Her home
|
From 7:00pm to 11:30pm and some other small patches of time
|
Every day.
|
Mobile phone
|
|
It depended.
|
Very occasionally.
|
P05
|
Her own personal computer
|
Usually dormitory
|
Time varied with the time that her study demanded. She had been busy with her study recently.
10:00pm -12:00pm weekdays
Evenings at the weekend.
When she was not busy,
afternoons and evenings at the weekend, sometimes one or two days
|
Every day.
|
Mobile phone
|
|
|
Every day.
|
P06
|
His own laptop computer
|
Dormitory
|
One or two hours after 10:00pm
|
Every day.
|
Mobile phone
|
On bus or in toilet
|
|
|
P07
|
Computer
|
Lab, dormitory
|
When in the lab or dormitory
|
Very frequently.
|
Mobile phone
|
Dormitory, bus, bus stop
|
Anytime or before bedtime.
|
P08
|
Computer
|
Dormitory
|
|
Once every two days.
|
Mobile phone
|
|
|
|
P09
|
Computer
|
Lab and dormitory
|
|
Every day.
|
Mobile phone
|
|
|
P10
|
Computer
|
|
|
Very frequently.
|
Mobile phone
|
|
|
P11
|
Computer
|
|
Whenever spare time was available.
|
Very frequently.
|
Mobile phone
|
|
|
|
P12
|
Computer
|
Dormitory
|
When in the dormitory.
|
Very frequently.
|
Mobile phone
|
|
Whenever spare time was available.
|
|
In most cases, computers were used when they were in their dormitories or laboratories. Their online activities were exposed to their peers since four to six students shared a room in their dormitories and about ten students or more shared a laboratory in the studied universities.
Table 11. Internet use habit II
Ref
|
Internet use with laptop or PC
|
Internet use with mobile phone
|
P01
|
“My laptop is always online when I am in front of it. I might do nothing with it, but leave it stay online.”
|
Use for news reading, novel reading, viewing classmates’ statuses, communication, and information search; Use when having lectures.
|
P02
|
QQ in the morning. Evenings began with surfing on the Internet connection service provider’s web. What followed varied.
Activities: QQ, surfing on the web, shopping, online chatting, movie watching, music listening
Internet use in the net-bar: Online games and surfing the Internet.
Reason for going to net-bars: “There are a lot of people in the net-bar.”
|
“The same with what I do with my laptop. Everything I do with my laptop except online paying.”
|
P03
|
With QQ online but sleeping at noon; first activity is Qzone when going online.
|
Before bedtime for novel-reading; daytime for web-games.
|
P04
|
Online activities in the order P04 did them: Weibo -> Renren -> QQ -> Taobao -> Online TV -> searching for information for questions or thesis writing -> group shopping -> uploading photoes
Weibo and online TV accounted for 30% of her time online. The rest was distributed to other activities randomly.
|
Searching for information with Baidu when there was something she could not understand during lectures; Weibo; finance and economics news; stock market
|
P05
|
First log on to QQ, enter Qzone. It was hard to say about the rest, but QQ was the first step.
|
Baidu search, Qzone, news reading: Searching with Baidu when finding something incomprehensible; Viewing others’ status in Qzone to kill time; reading news.
|
P06
|
Weibo, QQ, Ebay, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, downloading, games;
Climbs over the Great Wall regularly.
|
Weibo, Taobao, mobile banking, news.
“I like to read those on mobile phone, news, and English. I tend to read them on mobile phone, because it is more convenient to read on a mobile phone’s smaller screen. Because if the news is long, the words are small, it is inconvenient to read a long one, while it would be more comfortable to read with mobile phone”
|
P07
|
Online chatting, networking, online discussion, games, shopping, searching for information and resources for research;
Climbed over the Great Wall once.
|
Gets online anytime with mobile phone, views webpages or news with mobile on bed before bedtime.
|
P08
|
Movie watching, music listening, shopping, online library, information search;
Watching videos using bitdownload of university intranet, searching data for study on university online library, shopping with Taobao and Jingdong, download piano scores from Springwind piano website, search information with Baidu.
“There was no fix website I used”;
No video or audio chat in dormitory.
|
Reading news with mobile, Sina news.
|
P09
|
Chatting to keep connected (in touch); for information; entertainment (games, movies, songs);
Two categories: purposeful use, for example searching for information for thesis writing; and habitual use, everyday news reading.
Climbs over the Great Wall regularly.
|
P10
|
Games, news reading, QQ chat, viewing classmates’ statuses, shopping, music, information search (Baidu).
|
P11
|
Weibo, Renren, online magazines, watching movies, films and entertainment programmes, searching resources for study, Taobao.
Not interested in military; searching for needed resources.
|
P12
|
Novels, videos, listening to music while playing games, Renren, news, chat.
Excessive game playing before; more news reading recently; sometimes online chat together with roommates.
|
Table 12. The participants’ online activities
Online activities
|
P01
|
P02
|
P03
|
P04
|
P05
|
P06
|
P07
|
P08
|
P09
|
P10
|
P11
|
P12
|
Online news reading
|
√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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Online information search
|
√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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QQ
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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Online movies
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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Renren
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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Online shopping
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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Online forum
|
√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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Weibo (Microblog)
|
√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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Online music
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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Online games
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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University Intranet
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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Downloading
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√
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√
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√
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√
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√
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Online novels
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√
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√
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√
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√
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Online travelling
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√
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√
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√
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Online participation
|
√
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√
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√
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Online lecture
|
√
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√
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√
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Climbing over the Great Wall
|
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√
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√
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√
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Online literature
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√
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√
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Online magazines
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√
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√
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Online volunteering
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√
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√
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Online political participation
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√
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Email
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√
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√
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Twitter
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√
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Facebook
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√
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Baidu tieba
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√
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All participants were Internet users and they use both their computers, laptops in most cases, and mobile phones to access the Internet. The results demonstrate that the participants used the Internet mainly on campus and shared lots of commonalities in their habits of Internet use. However, the commonality stays at the surface or macro level, differences are found when details are explored.
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