Internet and Teenager's Creativity

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Internet and Teenager's Creativity

• Ke Huixin
• Beijing Broadcasting Institute
• Email hxke_at_public.bta.net.cn

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1 Introduction

• anti-internet in China
• the committee of anti-internet in Chengdu

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1 Introduction

• Must we let the children be far away from the
  internet?
• Must we repel the internet?

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1 Introductionresearch of internet effect
on teenagers

• positive aspect -- mainly macro aspect
• positive aspect -- few empirical researches in
  the micro aspect
• positive aspect no research regarding the
  internet effect on humans creativity

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1 Introductionresearch of internet effect
on creativity

• Creativity is the highest representation of the
  human power (A. Osben)
• The history of human culture mainly is the
  history of the creativity (Yu Guoliang
  Creativity psychology)

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1 Introductionresearch of internet effect
on creativity

• Does the use of internet merit the cultivation
  and exertion of teenagers creativity?
• If it does, what is the degree of effect?
• How to use the best of internet in this area?

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2 Concept of creativity and its measurement

• Creativity is an ability to create product
  which is new and feasible (Xu Zhan etc)
• product -- new ideas, new hypothesis, new
  methods, new products
• most essential -- NEW

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2 Concept of creativity and its measurement

• three level structure
• creative ability
• creative motivation
• creative personality

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2 Concept of creativity and its measurement

• measurement of creative ability
• creative ability ? radiative thinking
• could be measured by pen and paper
• Guilford, Torrance
• 4 indexes -- fluency, flexibility, originality,
  elaboration

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2 Concept of creativity and its measurement

• measurement of creative personality
• independence, curiosity, imagination,
  challenging, self-restraint, perseverance,
  adventuring, versatility, humor, the scope of
  interest and tasting
• self-evaluated / others-evaluated

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2 Concept of creativity and its measurement

• measurement of creative personality
• "Questionnaire of finding talent" (Rimm Davis)
• What kind of person you belong to (Torrance)
• Creativity inclination (Williams)

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3 Possible factors on the development of
creativity

• Individual factor
• physiology factor -- age, gender,
• intellectual factor
• non-intellectual factor
• Social factor
• mental factor
• education factor
• environment factor

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4 The internet and teenagers creativity

• the self-organized characters of the internet may
  affect the net users thinking model (Granic and
  Lamey )
• result in changes in five aspects
• One of them is the increase of thinking fluency

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4 The internet and teenagers creativity

• the important effect of media comes from its
  format, not its content (M.McLuhan)
• special format of internet -- hyperlink,
  searching, opening, interactivity, privacy, free
  system, plenty of information, different points
  of view

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The research frame
Individual factor Gender Age
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5 Research frame and theoretic hypotheses

• There is significant positive relationship
  between the internet use and teenagers
  creativity
• whether use the internet or not
• the way of using internet
• the purpose of using internet
• the degree of freedom

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Research Methodologies
Step 1 preparing
Step 2 Research Design
Step 3 Field Work
Step 4 Analysis
Step 5 Further Develop- ment
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Concept-testing

• Qualitative interviews
• Open-ended questions
• Describing things with words, , regarding young
  internet users
• Non-random small sample (n100)
• Purpose -- questionnaire design

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Concept-testing questions (1)

• Which factors may affect teenagers creativity?
• What do the teenager mainly do on internet?
• What are the general characters for teenager who
  often access to internet?

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Concept-testing questions (2)

• Are the creativity and internet relevant?
• Which aspects do the relation performance on
  then?
• Why does such relation exist?
• What is the difference of creativity between
  teenager who often access to internet and those
  who dont?

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Instruction to the interviewer

• The first association (open, no probe)
• The second association (open, probe)
• Providing show-cards with possible answers from
  diverse dimensions (total 39 cards)

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Factors which may affect teenagers creativity (1)

• Card 1 individual factor (8 items)
• Card 2 social mental factor (8 items)
• Card 3 family education factor (13 items)
• Card 4 family character factor (13 items)
• Card 5 school education factor (27 items)
• Card 6 social education factor (25 items)
• Card 7 social environment factor (5 items)
• Card 8 media factor (6 items)

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Factors which may affect teenagers creativity (2)

• Cards with factors to be Compared (importance)
• Individual factor, social factor (card 9)
• Age factor, gender factor (card 10)
• Intelligence factor, non-intelligence factor
  (card 11)
• Social mental factor, social education factor,
  social environment factor (card 12)
• Family education factor, school education factor,
  social education factor (card 13)
• Radio, television, newspaper, magazine, internet
  (card 14)

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The Sample Profile -- gender

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The Sample Profile -- age
????????36-55????29,???26-35??27,55??????7,?
???????????????????????????????
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The Sample Profile -- education
??????????41,????????????,??????????????????
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The Sample Profileexperience in using internet
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Result from question 1

• Which factors do you think may affect the
  teenagers creativity?

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Factors that affect creativity(1)
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Factors that affect creativity (2)
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Factors that affect creativity(3)
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Factors that affect creativity(4)
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Factors that affect creativity(5)
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Factors that affect creativity(6)
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Result from question 2

• In your point of view, what do teenager mainly do
  on internet?

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Internet activityfirst association
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Internet activitysecond association
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Internet activitygetting what kind of information
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Internet activityinter-personal communication
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Internet activityentertainment
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Internet activity practicing purpose
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Internet activityother purposes
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Result from question 3

• What are the general characters for teenager who
  often access to internet?
• Response from association are mainly negative
• Less educated and worse personality
• With parents who have broader knowledge range,
  well educated, yet work in service industry or
  trade business, and more wealthy.
• Curious, active at thinking, learn new things
  quickly
• Have broader knowledge range

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Result from question 4

• Are the creativity and internet relevant?

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Are the creativity and internet related?
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Result from question 5

• Which aspects do the relation performance on
  then?
• Broader the knowledge range and provide abundant
  information ()
• impact the study, losing ambition while playing,
  some improper content, etc. (-)
• Creative teenagers will be very interested in
  internet and might become a talent of it ()
• Creative teenagers might scramble the rule in the
  internet, say, hacker (-)

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Result from question 6

• Why does such relation exist?
• Internet provide abundant information to the
  teenagers, which help broader their knowledge
  range
• meet new things, improve radiate thinking, etc.

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Result from question 7

• What is the difference of creativity between
  teenager who often access to internet and those
  who dont ?
• With broad knowledge range and radiate thinking
• Intelligence characters good at information
  seeking
• Interesting characters play games, have
  extensive interests
• Personal characters curious and strong
  personality
• Study ability strong operating ability and
  curiosity for knowledge
• Life characters strong sociability and living
  ability

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Summary

• A study that requires hard work
• A topic that is worthy of attention
• Some issues to be discussed
• narrow the research topic? only one dimension ?
• cross-section designs or longitudinal designs ?
• Survey or experiment ?

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Thank you !