Associations between mastery of life and everyday life information‐seeking behavior among older adults: Analysis of the Pew Research Center's information engaged and information wary survey data

Author(s):  
Wonchan Choi ◽  
Min Sook Park ◽  
Yura Lee
Author(s):  
Hawa Alnaki

The study will examine the everyday life information seeking behavior of new Muslim immigrants in Montreal, as well as their information needs and the challenges they face. While there has been some work that focuses on the information needs and information seeking behavior of new immigrants in the United States, to date there has been little research within the Canadian context. Specifically, there is a failure to account for new Muslim immigrants' information needs in Montreal from the perspective of the library and information science field. Most information behavior research categorizes Muslim immigrants in Canada according to nationality or gender.


10.2196/15099 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. e15099 ◽  
Author(s):  
Winja Weber ◽  
Anne Reinhardt ◽  
Constanze Rossmann

Background As a result of demographic changes, the number of people aged 60 years and older has been increasing steadily. Therefore, older adults have become more important as a target group for health communication efforts. Various studies show that online health information sources have gained importance among younger adults, but we know little about the health-related internet use of senior citizens in general and in particular about the variables explaining their online health-related information–seeking behavior. Media use studies indicate that in addition to sociodemographic variables, lifestyle factors might play a role in this context. Objective The aim of this study was to examine older people’s health-related internet use. Our study focused on the explanatory potential of lifestyle types over and above sociodemographic variables to predict older adults’ internet use for health information. Methods A telephone survey was conducted with a random sample of German adults aged 60 years and older (n=701) that was quota-allocated by gender, age, educational status, and degree of urbanity of their place of residence. Results The results revealed that participants used the internet infrequently (mean 1.82 [SD 1.07]), and medical personnel (mean 2.89 [SD 1.11]), family and friends (mean 2.86 [SD 1.21]), and health brochures (mean 2.85 [SD 1.21]) were their main sources of health information. A hierarchical cluster analysis based on values, interests, and leisure time activities revealed three different lifestyle types for adults aged over 60 years: the Sociable Adventurer, the Average Family Person, and the Uninterested Inactive. After adding these types as second-step predictors in a hierarchical regression model with sociodemographic variables (step 1), the explained variance increased significantly (R2=.02, P=.001), indicating that the Average Family Person and the Sociable Adventurer use the internet more often for health information than the Uninterested Inactive, over and above their sociodemographic attributes. Conclusions Our findings indicate that the internet still plays only a minor role in the health information–seeking behavior of older German adults. Nevertheless, there are subgroups including younger, more active, down-to-earth and family-oriented males that may be reached with online health information. Our findings suggest that lifestyle types should be taken into account when predicting health-related internet use behavior.


Author(s):  
Alison J Head ◽  
Michael B. Eisenberg

This paper reports on college students’ everyday life information-seeking behavior and is based on findings from 8,353 survey respondents on 25 U.S. college campuses. A large majority of respondents had looked for news and, to a slightly lesser extent, decision-making information about purchases and health and wellness within the previous six months. Almost all the respondents used search engines, though students planning to purchase something were more likely to use search engines, and those looking for spiritual information were least likely to use search engines. Despite the widespread use of search engines, the process of filtering relevant from non-relevant search results was reportedly the most difficult part of everyday life research. As a whole, these students used a hybrid information-seeking strategy for meeting their everyday life information needs, turning to search engines and Wikipedia almost as much as they did to friends and family. A preliminary theory is introduced that describes the relationship between students’ evaluation practices and their risk-associated searches.


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