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We are all familiar with the headlines proclaiming the rise of the ‘silver surfer’; or now even the ‘silver tweeter’. Alongside this, services are increasingly disseminating information that is accessed purely online. So, what about the digitally‐disenfranchised who, for whatever reason, do not want to or are simply not able to use or access the internet? In this next article, Ellen J Helsper explores the profile of these groups and examines what service providers and commissioners should bear in mind.

Explores internet‐related needs and wants of older adults and identifies internet user segments among them.

The internet, primarily designed for the young, has been at the centre of research and business attention for a number of years, whereas so far older age groups have received surprisingly little attention. A survey in the Greater Helsinki area in Finland was undertaken.

The survey showed that every 55+ respondent was acquainted with the internet and that one‐third of the respondents were non‐users, while the majority were frequent web visitors using and purchasing internet services to an extent fairly similar to younger counterparts. Two segments in line with the life‐stage model, labelled healthy indulging and ailing outgoing internet users, were found and show that there is heterogeneity among this age group.

A limitation common to surveys also concerns this study, namely that the sample was quite small – 127 respondents – and strictly defined. Therefore in future studies it would be justified to expand the number and type of studied 55+ respondents, and also to conduct studies that reveal their real internet behaviour such as observation and participatory studies. Implications for web designers, service providers, and politicians are presented which are based on the respondents' own practical development ideas and suggestions.

The study is valuable because it sheds light on a rapidly increasing market segment on which there currently are very limited empirical findings, in particular outside the USA and concerning internet values and behaviour.

The aim of this paper is to show that online learning behaviors are dictated by both personal characteristics and regional differences.

Data were collected from 16,133 users in 25 regions of Taiwan. The paper examined usage behaviors by looking at 11 items of categorical variables about online learning. This study implemented a multi‐level latent class model to investigate online learning behavior patterns that exhibit regional differences.

The results showed that online learning patterns do exhibit regional differences, as the regional segments are dictated by the individual segments of different use patterns. For instance, the urban area segment comprised a higher proportion of members who are good at using the internet. The rural area segment made up a higher proportion of members who occasionally use the internet. Interestingly, rural users went online more often than urban users when in search of e‐learning or entertainment. On the other hand, the individual segments are dictated by users' personal characteristics. For instance, younger people are good at employing online learning and entertainment services. Moreover, those who use many types of online applications pay less respect to intellectual property rights than those who only use a few types of applications.

By using a massive amount of survey data to show regional differences in online learning behavior patterns, the findings herein will help internet service providers form an applicable guideline for developing service strategies of higher service satisfaction between products and users' needs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the underlying causes, scale and scope as well as the effects of piracy as a form of the shadow economy throughout Poland, drawing on the findings of secondary studies and author’s questionnaire survey conducted in summer 2013.

An online questionnaire survey was accomplished using the computer-assisted Web interview method and real-time sampling technique, in June 2013. The survey involved 1,000 persons aged 15 years and older.

Polish consumers use pirated content, products and services primarily for financial reasons: 73 per cent of respondents point out to high prices of original products, while more than half (56 per cent) points at low incomes of Polish consumers. A significant percentage of respondents (over one-third) indicates the easiness of access to pirated goods and services. The most common activity among Polish internet users is to copy pirated music files (almost 40 per cent of internet users admit to that) and films (including watching the series in the network to which approximately 35 per cent of respondents confess to). These two kinds of files are also copied the most often – about 20 per cent of the respondents copy them once a month or more often. One-fourth of the respondents admit to copying pirated computer programs. The findings from the survey reveal that young Polish internet users demonstrate a rather permissive attitude towards online piracy that involves downloading music files or video and sharing them with other network users.

The questionnaire survey did not cover all aspects of online purchasing behaviour of Polish internet users. The findings of the survey should be approached with some caution, given the intricate and sensitive nature of the research problématique.

Regulations regarding online purchases of goods and services are not attuned to the digital reality, which is exploited by online intermediaries. The research findings highlighted the motivational and behavioural aspects of Poles’ online consumer behaviour, thus providing useful tips to curb online piracy.

The implementation of relevant regulations to ensure respect and protection for intellectual property rights on the internet in Polish as well as EU legislation has acquired a rare immediacy and may reduce the scope of online piracy and other manifestations of shadow economy in the cyberspace.

An empirical insight into the online piracy among Polish internet users providing first-hand knowledge regarding their motivation and behavioural patterns.

To examine shopping orientation, information search, and demographics of multichannel customers in comparison to traditional single channel customers.

A questionnaire was used to assess research variables and mailed out to 10,000 individuals in South Korea who were randomly selected from a purchased national database. A total of 2,926 usable questionnaires were returned for a 29 percent response rate.

Shopping orientation, information search, and demographics differentiated shopper groups: single‐channel offline users, single‐channel online users, multichannel offline users, and multichannel online users.

A lack of theoretical approaches, a direct self‐assessment for store choice behavior, and duplicated measures for independent and dependent variables perhaps limit its usefulness.

Provides guidance to global retailers who plan to pioneer new markets with multichannel retailing strategies. Shopping orientations, perceived usefulness of information sources, and demographics can be effectively used to identify target markets in Korea.

This study first explored Korean consumer profiles in the context of multi‐shopping channels and added valuable empirical findings to the current limited literature in multichannel retailing in the international market and to help global retailers identify consumer segments based on channel choice behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors influencing use of the internet by students of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and to establish the variation of this use by students' personal characteristics, and as a result to recommend improvements where necessary to the benefit of the student community.

Participants are recruited through a random sampling technique, and data are collected from them using a questionnaire. A one‐way analysis of variance is used for the analysis to uncover the variation of use across demographic and other factors.

It is shown that students who communicate with varies significantly with age, gender and level of study while the various tools they use vary significantly with age, gender, faculty and level of study. Both younger users (<24 years) and older colleagues (>24 years) use chat rooms. Across gender, educational purpose dominates the use of the internet, but it varies with age, level of study and faculty. Higher educational level is associated with less use of the internet for leisure and entertainment. About 73 per cent of the respondents considers internet information as useful while much less than this (44.4 per cent) reported finding internet information as trustworthy.

A major limitation of this paper is that data are collected using only a questionnaire, whereas interview sessions would have uncovered more issues.

Based on this result, this paper suggests discriminated internet education programmes and access by faculty, level of study and gender in order to maximise the use of the internet services by the students in the university.

This study provides useful research information that can guide the university in fine‐tuning its internet projects for optimal benefits of the student community. Other universities in similar situations in Africa as well as elsewhere can also benefit from the findings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents of online loyalty and disloyalty in search engine usage by young Millennials.

Data were collected from 495 pupils between the ages of 14 to 17 years old.

The attitude towards computers is not influencing brand loyalty. The main predictors of brand loyalty are the emotional link that users develop with the search engine, the attitude towards said engine, and in particular the perceived quality of results. The best predictors of disloyalty are the level of two‐way communication, the lack of satisfaction as well as the involvement of the user with computers, while the actual perceived characteristics of the search engine are not predicting disloyalty.

Since the data were collected from one school in the UK only, the teenage internet users in the study's sample are likely to come from families with a similar profile. For further research a sample drawn from other areas, therefore, more representative of the make‐up of the population in the UK would be interesting.

Given the importance of teenage users and their expected long‐term value as internet users, this paper is contributing to the literature by understanding some of the key drivers of their loyalty and disloyalty.

There has been a strong focus in the literature upon the factors that affect the adoption of e‐commerce, and the demographics of Internet users, but few attempts to link these two bodies of knowledge. This empirical study investigates the extent to which the adoption of e‐commerce amongst retailers is influenced by the socio‐demographic characteristics of their target customers. The questionnaire was mailed to senior marketing executives in the UK’s largest retail organisations, and ultimately resulted in the receipt of 164 useable replies, giving an overall response rate of 18 per cent. The results of a set of analyses demonstrate that organisations are most likely to adopt the Internet for information provision, marketing and direct sales purposes if their typical customer is male, young and a member of the professional/managerial classes. This is not surprising, as young, professional males are typically enthusiastic and competent users of information technologies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of internet filtering, and its impact on marginalized groups including non‐governmental organizations, female activists, ethnic, and religious minorities, the younger generation and the increase of the digital divide in Iran.

The paper raises two main questions: to what extent do information and communications technologies (ICTs) and in particular, the internet, promote freedom of speech, and gender equality in Iran? What is the impact of state censorship and ICT filtering on these activities? To answer these research questions, the author uses narratives of the internet's usage along with a comparison study with other Middle Eastern countries to analyze the impact of ICTs on citizen's freedom of expression.

The paper argues that restrictions imposed on ICT tools and services by the Government of Iran which has been claimed to protect country's national security against the corruption and immorality imposed by Western countries not only affect the expansion of ICTs negatively but also civil liberties – thus increasing the digital divide internally, regionally, as well as on a global scale.

Albeit this research is limited to the case study of Iran, the author believes that lessens learned from the Iran's case study can be applied to other Islamic countries and in particular countries located in the Middle East region.

ICT tools and services such as the internet and short message service are effective emancipatory media for citizens' participation and mobilization in democratic processes.

This paper contributes to the existing knowledge and understanding of the impact of ICTs on freedom and democracy.

The post-millennial or Generation Z constitutes people born in 1997 or after. This study theorizes how news consumption habits of the post-millennial generation are reshaping the news. As the newest generation of media users, Generation Z or the post-millennials, comprising people born in 1997 or after, will inherit the millennial legacy. Generation Z has embraced the visual, verbal, and viral aspects of digital and social media platforms. They rarely engage with traditional news sources, which they deem as nearly extinct.

Based on 2019 meta-analytical research review of 16 key studies (published between 2017 and 2019) of media consumption habits of post-millennials, this research study delineates news consumption habits of post-millennials. It theorizes how this new generation of media users are embracing the visual, verbal, and viral media to reshape news content. The propensity of the post-millennials to participate in the news cycle shapes their rapidly changing preferences and usage patterns.

Over the years, news consumption has varied among different age groups. Newspapers and television were popular with the Silent generation, comprising people born between 1928 and 1945. The Internet significantly transformed media use among baby boomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1964, and Generation X, which constitutes people born between 1965 and 1980. The rise of social media has significantly transformed media use of millennials or Generation Y, born between 1981 and 1996. They were the first generation to come of age in the new millennium.

Unlike Generation X and boomers, the post-millennials or Generation Z sparsely engage with traditional news sources they deem as nearly extinct, including print media such as newspapers and magazines. They rarely watch television news or listen to radio. They report different news values with less concern about accuracy and more attention toward entertainment and interaction.