Socioeconomic status influences Turkish digital natives’ internet use habitus

Abstract

Digital native’ has been a buzzword within the last decade particularly in educational research. Learners born after the 1980s are presumed somehow different just because they were born in a digital world. Although scholars have labelled these young generations as digital natives or millennials as a homogenous construct, the questions of how and for what purpose(s) these younger generations use these newer technologies remain unresolved. Acknowledging the abundance of literature documenting adults’ viewing their younger ones different throughout history, this study investigates the relationship between socioeconomic level variables, paternal and maternal education level, household income, and their internet use frequency and purposes. Data were gathered from 327 undergraduate students, born between 1997 and 2000, enrolled at a Turkey state university. Findings indicate that maternal and paternal education levels significantly influence the internet use duration of the younger generation, yet observe no significant effect on household income. The results also reveal significant differences in participants’ internet use for academic and a variety of non-academic purposes concerning socioeconomic status variables. Overall, simply being born into a technological world does not make the younger generation a monolithic group of tech-savvy individuals as their adults assume them to be.

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