Understanding young singaporeans gathering and credibility assessments of online sexual health information 1b

Respondents conducted their information seeking in three ways, via: 1 websites 100% and forums 13.9% found via search engines, 2 websites 13.9% and forums 5.6% which they already knew of

Chapter 4

Findings and Discussion

Chapter Four:

Findings & Discussion

In this chapter, data drawn from the questionnaires, interviews, and video screens will be discussed and analysed to present youths’ information seeking on the topic of sexual health It will demonstrate how young Singaporeans employ different approaches in seeking sexual health information online It will also facilitate our understanding of the thought processes that actualise the strategies employed by young Singaporeans in their online information seeking on this topic With this, the chapter will address the research questions: (1) the manner in which young Singaporeans seek sexual health information online and the thought processes that come into play, and (2) the challenges that youths faced while seeking such information

Briefly, respondents completed their information seeking tasks at an average of 43.5 minutes, with Gordon taking the shortest time of 19 minutes, and Agnes taking the longest time at 1 hour and 34 minutes Respondents conducted their information seeking in three ways, via: (1) websites (100%) and forums (13.9%) found via search engines, (2) websites (13.9%) and forums (5.6%) which they already knew of or had previously used, and (3) contacts via instant messengers (5.6%) These figures show that the bulk of information respondents received was from websites clicked via search engines These statistics show similarity to past studies (Buhi et al., 2010; Hargittai, n.d.) where respondents mainly used search engines to gather information

Findings show that respondents’ media literacy affects their information seeking As mentioned in the literature review, it is not possible for an

individual to have no literacy or to be fully literate; therefore, media literacy is

a continuum Thus, the strength of individuals’ perspective on media determines the various points they are placed along this continuum Therefore, different people may experience the same media message differently The following sections will discuss different aspects of respondents’ media literacy – personal locus, knowledge structures, and skills – and how they influence respondents in seeking information online While the analysis was divided into personal locus, knowledge structure, and skills – there are times where the examples show the different facets combined as they are inter-related and intricately woven into respondents’ information seeking The examples were placed under the most closely related sections

In addition, there is also a section on personal influence and a discussion of how the nature of the information sought which influenced respondents’ information seeking

4.1 Personal Locus

Past literature suggests that personal locus, consisting of goals and drives, plays an important part in information seeking (Potter, 2004; 2008) In this research, the manner in which young Singaporeans seek sexual health information online was similarly seen to depend on how they treated the goal-oriented tasks Respondents’ information seeking behaviour appeared to vary according to their attitudes There were three types of respondents Briefly, the first type of respondents took into consideration the topic and the people for whom they were gathering the information For the next type of respondents, they also took into consideration that they were collecting the

data for other people but in this case, they were more concerned of other people’s perceptions of them The last type of respondents viewed the research as a mere experimental set-up and at times, they looked at the online information based on what caught their attention

4.1.1 Attitudes of respondents

To explain the three types of respondents in greater detail - the first type of respondents, despite being consciously aware that their actions were part of a research, they tried to enact the case scenarios in their minds and sought to find solutions to the best of their abilities They imagined what information they would search for in such situations and went to the extent of carefully planning how they intended to pass the information to their friends For example, Badrisah said “[she] want[ed] her [friend] to steer away from sex Find things to make her change her mind.” She collated the website URLs and placed them on a Microsoft Word document and planned to pass them to her ‘friend’ as an email attachment Her actions reflected thoughtfulness thus showing that she was aware of how her information seeking would affect other people, and implicitly as part of her personal locus took it into consideration in her information search Also, as the task was related to health, there were a handful of respondents who emphasised the need to be more selective in gathering information This selectiveness referred to the need to gather more reliable information For instance, Jamal said that considering that the topic is on sexual health, there is a need to have credible information This is similar to past literature where despite being goal oriented, in cases where youths seek information for other people, they

demonstrate awareness and importance of credibility assessments (Erdelez & Rioux, 2000; Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008)

For the second type of respondents, they were also selective of the information gathered and did their selection based on the types of information they found suitable to be passed to their friends In particular, they explained that this was due to the fact that the information was for their friends In this instance, it was not to assess the information for credibility but to ascertain its suitability for their friends They specifically expressed more concerns about their friends’ perceptions of them For example, Zarina chose to look for photos and videos of content (see Figures 4.1 and 4.2) that would be more fun and creative as she did not want to be “preaching” to her friend Felix sought a sing-a-long video on STDs which he had watched previously There are also other respondents who watched videos – in total, 8.3% of the respondents visited Youtube, 2.8% visited Metacafe, and 2.8% visited Howcast Apart from fun and creativity, Bharat explained that the visuals allowed him to better understand the information that he was receiving Earlier literature mentions the rise of electronic health on the Internet and its potential benefits for more users (Norman & Skinner, 2006) The screenshot of a video

in Figure 4.2 shows that the video uploaded contains information by a medical doctor

For the third type of respondents, it remains that this is a research set-up and they viewed the given tasks as fictitious scenarios As these respondents viewed it as a mere task assigned by the researcher, their information seeking behaviour was based on this personal locus A case in point is Ali who said: it

“[f]eels like a task I must find.” They did not seem to take into consideration the fact that the topic related to health and the diseases could be life-threatening When Ali was asked if he had gathered sufficient information, he reflected that he may have to look for more information in an actual situation

In addition, these respondents also looked at related information based on their own interests This was demonstrated in the respondents’ information seeking, for example, Sunil searched for dental dams and Ali sought female condoms Therefore, while the cases indicate that respondents may behave differently compared to an actual situation, it may be a manifestation of their customary information seeking behaviour Similarly, past literature shows that youths tend to obtain information in a cursory fashion when the outcome of using the information was not critical enough to warrant the additional time needed to acquire more credible information (Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008) In addition, these incidences also indicate that since youths think that misfortunes will happen to someone else and not to them, they are not as anxious in seeking information

4.1.2 Convenience and Speed

In a next point relating to personal locus, although it is not an explicit goal, it is palpable that individuals would want to complete the tasks given to them as fast as they could Hence it is not surprising that the issue of convenience and speed persists in youths’ information seeking Earlier

literature states that youths use the Internet because of these characteristics (Stern & Willis, 2007; Suzuki & Calzo, 2004) Similarly, respondents in this study consider the Internet to be a suitable source in seeking information on sexual health To exemplify, Ali mentioned that he would still use the Internet

to look for the information even if he was not restricted to using it Amelia explained her preference of “using the Internet at home” to going to the library

to look for books as the latter is “more troublesome.” Next, video recordings will be used to provide examples of youths’ web navigations in relation to time factor The video recordings showed that not all respondents looked at the whole page and finished watching the videos Having to browse through the myriad of information online and wanting to complete their information seeking process quickly, several respondents had scanned through the webpages and videos For instance, Eric clicked on the page and bookmarked the page almost immediately He explained that he had done so as he was performing

a scan of relevant words and the page happened to have term In another example, Bharat bookmarked a video after watching 2 minutes of a 3:09 clip

One rationale that could explain why conducting information seeking for this task and normal information seeking is very different in spite that the topic is on sexual health is that the study is conducted on youths The personal locus of youths in seeking information differs depending on the context Zarina explained that for school projects, she would use online databases such as Factiva to retrieve newspaper articles to get "statistics and

"hard facts." Being students, youths are more familiar in information seeking for schoolwork compared to health information This is also an indication of

the importance that respondents placed on their schoolwork

4.1.3 Other concomitant factors

Apart from the respondents’ personal locus, concomitant factors namely, prior knowledge, habits, technological fluency, and social influences also play pertinent roles in respondents’ choices and navigation of these information sources Habit is a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behaviour that is acquired through frequent repetition (The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary, 2010) Prior knowledge refers to respondents’ past knowledge on sexual health information and/or any health issues ‘Technological fluency’ is the skill to effectively employ and adapt technology to changing circumstances (p 188, McKay, Thurlow &

Zimmerman, 2005) All these factors will be identified as knowledge structures and skills in the next two sections In the last section, the chapter will discuss

the role of social influences, referring to parents, friends or acquaintances, in information seeking

The examples of youth’s actions presented in the next sections will present a better overview of youths’ information seeking process It will also provide the challenges faced by young Singaporeans

4.2 Knowledge Structure

Past literature shows that people interpret and recontextualise scientific knowledge by locating it within their own social contexts and experiences (Mager, 2009) In this study, another factor that affects the manner in which young Singaporeans seek sexual health information online is their knowledge structure As for previously seeking health information, 75% of respondents had done this through various means, and specifically, 44.4% had utilised the

Internet to look for these information Four types of health information, namely

physical, psychological, sexual, and others, were listed in the questionnaire

Focusing on the item of sexual health information, the study shows that 50%

of respondents had previously sought this information In Chapter One, I described the different channels available for youths to receive sexual health information in Singapore According to the interview sessions, respondents had similarly received such information from (a) schools, via the sex education and moral education types of classes, and science classes, (b) siblings, (c) parents, (d) friends, (e) traditional media like books, magazines and television, and (f) the Internet

Also, as elaborated earlier in Chapter 1, as the respondents are Singaporean students, all of them would have received sex education in school However, the experience of sex education classes was uneven across the respondent pool, with some recalling the lessons more clearly than others For example, Badrisah, who is in Secondary five, explained that in secondary two, her school showed different episodes of videos during pastoral care period held every Monday Male and female students were separated when they viewed the videos According to her, the main ideas taught in school were to say ‘no’, as sex leads to pregnancy Therefore, the lessons did not teach students how to prevent pregnancy and instead, the videos demonstrated how youths’ lives were ruined once they engaged in sex Badrisah was thus able to distil the relevant message which the school attempted to convey to students In contrast, most other respondents had difficulty recalling what they had learnt in such classes, e.g., Ali used the term

“vaguely” to describe his memory of learning sex health education in the

secondary school Similarly, Kai Jie remembered being taught sex education

in primary school and can “remember some of the names [of diseases]” but claimed that the teachers “did not teach anything in secondary school.” Given the poor recall of such sex education lessons by most respondents, it would appear that the possession of prior sex related knowledge was not a factor which influenced my respondents’ search for sex-related information online

4.2.1 Search string permutations

Next, the chapter will look at the search string permutations utilised by the respondents in their information-seeking Table 4.1 shows the different permutations by using the samples by 11 respondents who utilised the Internet daily for more than 6 hours to 12 hours daily The search strings have been separated into (1) phrases found in tasks list, (2) phrases found closely related to task list, and (3) other search strings

Type of Search string Search Strings

Phrases found in task

(a) Safe Sex

(b) Sexually

transmitted diseases

practices of safe sex, practicing safe sex, practising safe sex, safe sex, safe sex + ministry of health (pages from Singapore), Safe sex by women, safe sex for females, safe sex for girls, safe sex practices, sex [in hpb.gov.sg search box], sex and pressure, sex vs Love, how to apply safe sex, how to have safe sex, how to practice safe sex, methods of safe sex

how do humans got sexually transmitted diseases, how do we know that we got sexually transmitted diseases, how do you know that a male get sexually transmitted diseases?, sexually

transmitted diseases, sexually transmitted diseases in men , Signs and Symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases, Symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases

Phrases found closely

related to task

(a) STDs

a list of STDs, do what to prevent getting HIV and STD, symptoms of STD, symptoms of stds, STD, STDs, possible female STDs

Other search strings first sex experience, Chlamydia, Safety precaution for women,

contraception for women, dental dam, Trichomoniasis, is condom safe?, japanese condom studies

Table 4.1 Different permutations of search strings

Overall, results from the entire study show that although all respondents did not have a common search string, several respondents

shared three similar searches – safe sex, sexually transmitted diseases, and STD To identify, safe sex and sexually transmitted diseases are phrases

taken from the tasks given to the respondents It is noteworthy that no respondents had typed sexually transmitted infections or STIs as part of their search string as this emphasises the poor recall of sex education lesson by respondents Despite having learnt about sex-related diseases in schools, respondents remained unfamiliar or have vague knowledge of the topic For instance, Felix had grouped STIs and STDs together in his knowledge base

as he typed the 12 STDs of Christmas in his search string while in fact, the

video was called 12 STIs of Christmas

There were many other search string permutations conceptualised by respondents Other than extracting the phrases from the text, there were several reasons which accounts for how the different search string permutations were thought of by respondents although they did not contain phrases from the tasks Findings show that prior knowledge that were retained in their memories, affected this group’s information seeking behaviours Therefore, comparatively this incident indicates that only selected information is stored in their memory Moreover, in fact, as indicated earlier in the methodology chapter, more than half of the respondents (55.6%) had previously looked for sexual health information either online or offline for

school projects and personal interests

In general, the interviews indicated that respondents learnt about these terms from school, having attended sex education classes or biology classes,

seeing them in traditional media, noticing them in other websites’ content, and talking about sex with their peers Keegan said: “secondary school la, sex education” and “a lot of…outside advertise[ments] on “TV, brochures.” The interviews correspond to Chapter 1 which elaborates on the background information of the available sources of sexual health information Therefore in seeking information online, youths tap on their knowledge structures to utilise current knowledge and by doing so, are better able to expand their knowledge base

To further illustrate, the chapter will look at specific search strings In

the case of typing STD, respondents mainly cited the abbreviation to be a

common one, and that they learnt it from schools or saw them on

advertisements Amelia typed contraceptives, and said: “from my knowledge, I know safe sex is contraceptives.” The next example is the phrase applying safe sex Earlier, the methodology chapter had elaborated on the careful

selection of text for the task list to sieve out if respondents would simply ‘lift’ phrases from the task or would utilise their knowledge structure in typing their

search strings Despite the oddity of this phrase, 1 respondent used applying safe sex as given in the task as her second search string Gayathri had typed applying safe sex for teens In the first search string, she had typed having safe sex This phrase was used by one other respondent Most respondents used the term practicing safe sex For instance, Jamal typed practices of safe sex, practicing safe sex and how to practice safe sex Zarina explained

"messages from outside" channels such as safe sex health campaigns, radio

ads and lecturers used the term practice safe sex The latter illustrations

showed that most respondents’ loci were in a conscious state and this is so,

especially at the start of information seeking as respondents utilised the knowledge which they already possess to develop their search

Although youths do not appear to rely on past knowledge learnt in school, respondents can be seen incorporating prior knowledge from traditional media, such as magazines and television shows Yuping visited the

online versions of Cosmopolitan and Glamour, Felix visited Men’s Health and Zarina was looking for clips of television programmes on Get Real and Tyra Banks which she said contained relevant information Zarina tried looking for

those clips as she had previously seen such issues being featured in these programmes To do this, she used associative words in the search string such

as CNA (the channel where the program had been aired) and Cheryl Fox

(program host) for the “Get Real” program However, in all the aforementioned cases, respondents were unable to derive relevant information from the tasks This incident shows that although they remember the main source, they could not retrieve that information via this channel because their search strings were not sufficiently targeted and they were thus unable to unearth what they wanted from the overwhelming amount of online information available Nonetheless, these incidences also show basic functional media literacy since the youths tried to utilise the Internet to gather information which they initially observed from traditional media The Internet is seen as a universal repository to extract information

The search strings also showed a small percentage of respondents (11.1%) looking for local government websites like the Health Promotion Board, the Ministry of Health and Singapore General Hospital In such circumstances, respondents were clearly making good use of their pre-

existing knowledge because they recognised that the websites of government agencies which deal with health matters are likely to provide credible health information

4.2.2 Navigation within websites

Respondents’ knowledge structures also play a part when navigating the websites When clicking on STD links, most respondents clicked on

gonorrhoea, herpes, and AIDS which are common sexually transmitted

diseases found in the science textbooks or taught in sex education lessons, and provided these as their answers in their Microsoft word document It would appear that they seemed to be more comfortable in providing information that they were more familiar with However, in explaining why they clicked on these links or copying the documents, most respondents only reply that they have learnt them in school Earlier literature on information seeking (eg Flanagin & Metzger, 2008; Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008) mentioned that respondents usually refer to trusted places, and in these cases, youths are most confident and therefore most comfortable in sharing information learnt from school

In cases where respondents do not understand certain terms which they read in the websites’ content, they typed them as search strings or looked for their meanings in the online dictionary The incorporation of new

knowledge is seen when search strings such as dental dams, chlamydia and trichomoniasis emerged as they were seen in the websites’ content and

respondents wanted to know more about them This shows that the

respondents’ loci were functioning in conscious mode While filtering the

available content, they found information which was unknown to them and tried to gather further information

4.2.3 Keying of web addresses

Respondents also directly keyed in addresses of websites which they had either heard of or previously used in their information seeking More than half of the respondents (58.3%) keyed in web addresses which includes blogs, search engines, government health websites, forums, online dictionary, and email accounts Specifically, respondents visited specific blogs from Livejournal and Blogspot, YouTube, Gmail, Hotmail, Google, Yahoo, Dictionary, Wikipedia, Ministry of Health, and forum Vibe MB For example, Jamal typed moh.gov.sg to gather information from the Ministry of Health’s website, Anthony visited Vibe MB which is a forum to receive feedback from

members in the online community and Zarina used Technorati to look for

blogs as she had remembered previously seeing information relevant to the task in several blogs Therefore, despite the significant aforementioned figure

of 58.3% of respondents keying websites directly, most respondents were merely typing search engines’ web addresses This is similar to present literature which shows that as health questions do not often occur, individuals may not have a trusted website in their mind to begin a search related to health

Nonetheless, the examples of Jamal, Anthony, and Zarina showed the influence of knowledge structure in information seeking By typing the website addresses of the local government’s website, particularly Ministry of Health, Jamal showed that he is tapping onto his prior knowledge Although the page did not load as where Jamal should have typed www.moh.gov.sg instead of

moh.gov.sg, he did not give up and tried typing Ministry of Health in the search engine Similarly, in the case of Zarina, her locus was in conscious mode as she actively thought of ways to gather information from her knowledge structure She displayed a manifestation of Potter’s (2004) meaning matching - she remembered reading random blogs with issues related to the task However, as she could not remember the exact blogs, she tried to match this information to another piece of information she had, which

is she knew Technorati houses blogs Therefore by using Technorati, she

would be able to find the blogs to perform the tasks However, she did not manage to fully execute her plan because she was unable to find the blogs that she wanted

a regular visitor to the website He remembered reading related articles and wanted to incorporate them as part of his answers As for Bharat, he had wanted to use Youtube, and therefore opened his bookmark list to conveniently access the website Arguably, both respondents’ had their personal locus in conscious mode and were therefore in full control of their information processing However, in the case of Jonathan, it was a random exercise when he decided to scan through his bookmark list to look for a suitable link When he initially opened his bookmark list, he did not choose

any links However, he later returned to the bookmark list and clicked on Wikipedia

The way respondents choose their information from these sources also show evidence of their utilising their knowledge structures In one of Amelia’s searches, she had differentiated her findings of protection methods into boys and girls Referring to Figure 4.3, the protection methods were not separated

in the website However, as shown in Figure 4.4 Amelia categorized the protection methods according to gender when transferring the content to Microsoft Word, demonstrating her ability to engage in meaning matching / making (Potter, 2004; 2008)

Figure 4.3 List of protection methods grouped

Figure 4.4 List of protection methods grouped by gender

In addition, respondents also explained their rationales for moving from website to website In general, they mentioned that they did so as a way of cross-referencing, checking for credibility, and/or simply adding on to information that they had gathered They would stop when they felt that they have gathered sufficient information Therefore, in sum, in their seeking, respondents show that they tapped on their knowledge structure as they mentioned that they verified the information based on past knowledge This is evident from the aforementioned examples of typing of search strings and

URLs, and choosing of websites

4.2.5 Presentation of data

Next, the manner in which respondents present their data will be further analysed Findings show that many respondents were more concerned about the information itself than about its credibility These respondents were more goal-oriented and leaned towards information gathering In this study, few respondents directly mentioned that they assessed the credibility of the websites they visited As they are more concerned with content, respondents

mainly explained how they gathered the information As an example, for those gathering content, the recordings showed that instead of assessing the data, respondents were more concerned about preparing their answers For example, they categorized information in accordance with their knowledge of sexual health information seeking Respondents’ prior knowledge in gathering information is also affecting their information seeking in this study According

to the respondents, this was the way they usually conduct their information seeking for schools or other uses Therefore, it is ‘brought’ into this information seeking Respondents had different ways in planning to present their information search Ian saved chosen webpages while Cathy bookmarked the chosen websites Bard pasted chunks of text from various websites into Microsoft Word Caleb combined both actions of Cathy and Bard Darren and Eric typed their own words and provided their own opinions while putting together content into document However, for the second task, Eric pasted chunks of text on sexually transmitted diseases from one website into his document Jamal’s method was the most extensive; he bookmarked the websites, pasted chunks of text and links from various websites into Microsoft Word, and provided his own opinion On the other hand, Hannah, Jessica and Keegan merely moved from website to website without any indications on how they wished to communicate the information to their

‘friend.’

Use of prior knowledge may come into play either consciously or unconsciously For Anthony, his use was unconscious for his forum posting;

when he asked “What about eating out?” When enquired he paused before

replying that he had seen it on an earlier website Upon further probing, he

said that he has also previously learnt the term from his friends He said that if

he was not mistaken, it was a friend who had explained the meaning of the term He also said Urbandictionary.com can clarify "those type[s] of urban slangs." Therefore, at times, respondents may not even be aware that they are influenced these knowledge Therefore, in information seeking, respondents consciously and unconsciously use information within their knowledge structure

Table 4.2 Respondents and time spend on Internet daily

Past studies (eg Livingstone & Helsper, 2007) have shown that with greater Internet access, individuals could better harness their skills The table demonstrates that most respondents use the Internet between 1 to 6 hours daily, and 1/3 of the respondents use the Internet for more than 6 hours In Chapter One, the paper has explained the use of ICT in Singapore The chapter will also demonstrate how skills affect the manner in which young Singaporeans seek sexual health information online In this section, I discuss how the respondents’ information-seeking skills vary with their exposure to the Internet and demonstrate the challenges that youths face in seeking sexual health information online

4.3.1 Search engines

Not surprisingly, search engines are an integral part of the respondents’ online information seeking, with 100 per cent of them search engines Given the prominence in the use of search engines, the chapter will first look at the reason behind its prevalence and use in information seeking Being a central location where unlimited information could be easily sorted and accessed, respondents cited familiarity and convenience as reasons for using search engines Hence, using search engines in seeking information has easily become a habit Earlier literature on information seeking mentioned that respondents start their information seeking at a trusted place (Flanagin &

Metzger, 2008; Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008) Place here could even refer to

familiar and trusted people they know such as parents, siblings, teachers, coaches, or friends Information obtained could be in the form of getting direct

or indirect information/advice on how to begin their information-searching Indirect information means that the information received from the first source could be something which the first source had learnt from other people (Flanagin & Metzger, 2008; Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008) In this study, search engines play dual roles; firstly, as the first point of getting information, and next, as a place for youths to gather their thoughts where respondents often return to, so that they can re-start the entire process As the Internet contains massive amount of data, the use of search engines is pertinent in getting relevant information Thus, search engines are often central actors in youths’ information seeking, and therefore, become this familiar and trusted place Search engines help to create information order as typing search strings into

search boxes structure the information By doing so, they aid respondents in making sense of the vast data on the Internet

Although youths automatically turn to search engines, they do not merely use any search engine This act of using specific search engines has also become a habit For the respondents in this study, the frequently used search engines were Google (72.2%) and Yahoo (36.1%) Other search engines that youths utilised were Youtube (8.3%), Google Scholar (2.8%), Ask (2.8%), MSN (5.6%), Rednano (2.8%), and Technorati (2.8%) There were varying reasons for respondents’ preferences for different search engines These preferences were clearly demonstrated when they automatically changed to a different search engine although their homepages are search engines For example, Yahoo appeared as Aisyah’s home page which contained a search box but instead she typed Google’s address to use its search function Aisyah says that “Google has technically more information and when you type in layman’s term, the information will appear as you want it unlike Yahoo, [where the information] it may not come out in layman’s terms.” She had thus actively chosen a search engine that was comprehensible to her This action suggests that Aisyah is engaging in

meaning matching (Potter, 2004; 2008), where she tries to make sense of the

data presented to her and in order to do so, she preferred to use Google

In another example, Amelia said: “I hear [that MSN search engine] is more lousy than Yahoo they [my friends] say Yahoo is the best search engine hey [my teachers] never say MSN or Hotmail They also did not mention Google.” This illustration shows that Amelia was affected by the social influences of her teachers and friends Also, she had previously tried

MSN’s search box function and explained that she was “unfamiliar with it and went to Yahoo.”

Respondents also gathered information using multiple search engines

or multiple types of search engines For instance, Priya typed how to apply

safe sex and sexually transmitted diseases in Yahoo, Google and MSN

search engines While most respondents recognise suitable search engines for different purposes, thus manifesting their technological fluency, there were

a few respondents who do not display these skills For instance, Priya explained that she does this because “maybe different website[s] you know, [present] different links.” However, in actual fact, the links were similar; it was just that they were not placed in the same order

For those respondents with more technological know-how, they recognised that search engines today could be sorted using text, images and video searches They also knew that information could also be categorised by countries For instance, Zarina would "first go to Google” and when she wanted to use videos as examples, her “next solution is Youtube.” In another example, Kai Ling used the search engine’s image search function In the examples, Jonathan used RedNano and several respondents used Yahoo Singapore or Yahoo and Google sites and clicked on the button for “within Singapore” This was evidence of media literacy as the youths knew that they had to gather information for the Singapore context, and they did so by using the necessary tools

4.3.2 Websites

The respondents clicked on many different types of websites from within the search results including content by government agencies, corporate

organisations, charities, schools, private individuals and more As an illustration, Table 4.3 showcases the accumulated websites visited by 11

respondents who used the Internet for more than 6 hours to 12 hours on a

Blogs Live journal, Blogspot, Today

Activist organization Coalition for Positive Sexuality, Advocates for Youths

Education Leadership University, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, City

University of New York, William College

Online aid:dictionary,

encyclopaedia and

reference

Dictionary, Wikipedia,

Photo / Video sharing Howcast, Youtube

Religion Good Samaritan Project

Emails Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo

Street Directory, Streetdirectory Malaysia

Directory Getforme Singapore

Miscellaneous /

Unknown

Google Map, AIDS, AnswerBoy, Std Services, STD Symptoms, STD testing

Table 4.3 Different types of websites and websites visited

The table shows that respondents were exposed to a myriad of information sources, but not all of were necessarily verified before being published online Therefore, there is a need to understand how young people

assessed the information, especially those from unknown sources This is

especially pertinent as Potter’s framework showed that during information seeking, an individual’s locus may be in unconscious mode and therefore, he will automatically take in the information without paying attention to the sources Therefore, it is necessary for youths to have the requisite media literacy in their information seeking In the following paragraphs, the chapter looks at how youths conduct filtering, meaning matching and meaning construction in information seeking

4.3.3 Information seeking Process

From the results in the search engines, respondents visited many types

of websites; for example, government, education, commercial, non-profit organisation and personal websites, encyclopaedias, forums, and news portals How did youths get to these pages? What are the strategies and thought processes involved in the clicking of these links? To mention briefly, a typical information seeking scenario in the study which uses a search engine looks like this: Respondents logged onto search engines They first typed a search string based on the task list The permutations of search strings could

be based on a multitude of reasons When the search results page was loaded, they clicked on one of the links either based on the titles, by-lines and/or web addresses They looked at the content presented in the links At times, they did click on in-links and top bar buttons to move to other relevant pages in the website However, these actions are seldom carried out Instead, respondents often returned to the results pages and they would repeat the process again However, at other times, respondents forgo the factors and instead randomly selected links from the search results page When they

found that the links from the search results page were unsuitable, they typed

a new search string

Search engines clearly served as a guide for the respondents For

instance, previous studies demonstrate that search engines’ corrections of spelling mistakes have helped younger users in their information seeking The Yahoo search engine’, used by several respondents, offered guidance in various ways: (1) search aid provided in search box, (2) search aids provided

within the search page, like Also Try and Searches related to, refer to Figure

4.5 and (3) the way in which the results were placed Respondents did click

on the search string suggestions provided

Figure 4.5 Examples of search aids

When using the search box, respondents may choose to follow the help provided by the platforms Other than using these search functions,

several respondents used the search aid provided by the search engines to correct their spelling mistakes This happened in the case of Priya, as shown

in Figure 4.6

Figures 4.6 Spelling mistakes

Despite the help rendered by search engines, these aids also proved to

be a challenge for respondents Today, Yahoo’s newer features, like the search assist function, further aid users in their information search This search assist function does not only provide more specific search terms, but also suggests related concepts This is particularly helpful when youths have just started learning about a topic However, at the same time, the search engine’s assistance is almost ubiquitous Aids behave like advertisements with their availability at the top and bottom of the search engine Search engines use phrases which are instruction-like such as Also Try, and under Search related to the search string, providing a list of words

Also, as search engines are not foolproof and would not be able to recognise the exact thoughts of the respondent, it becomes a problem when users placed high trust in them For instance, Ali typed ‘pragnent’ as a search string, and the search engine prompt was also ‘pragnent’ He proceeded to click on this prompt when he was actually looking for the word ‘pregnant’ Therefore, he accepted the word as he was under the impression that it had the correct spelling Past studies (eg Hansen, Derry, Resnick & Richardson, 2003; Shenton & Dixon, 2004) show that one of the reasons why youths are unable to answer health questions using the Internet is because of spelling errors Although this is an isolated case, this issue of literacy remains a crucial and basic issue which must be addressed

The findings show that respondents hold various misconceptions about how websites are listed in search engine results For instance, in his explanation of websites displayed in search string results, Anthony said that the first few links were usually “credible.” This showed that he believed in the

information as they were placed in the first few search results of the search engine Therefore it is pertinent for youths to have strong media literacy One way to build media literacy could be done by understanding the politics of search engines and having the knowledge that search strings depend on a combination of factors – the design of their search engine’s algorithm, the search engine’s revenue stream and business model, and the original source

of the content (Hargittai, 2004) In this way, youths could then make more informed decisions

Findings showed that there was systematic and random clicking of links from the list of search string results by respondents Also, it is often seen that respondents clicked the first few links The reason that they provided was not based on rational but intuition Zarina and Anthony respectively used the phrases “natural reaction” and “it’s sort of instinct” to refer to their clicking on the first link The next reason given by respondents shows a more rational reasoning and indicative of media literacy Badrisah explained that “the first one had more information” that is related to the search This point was elaborated by Aishah that “the information [on the search engine] is ranked” and that “the first one is usually the most informative one.” She explained that

“as [she] move[s] down, further down and pick the information… information [are not as] specific, and ….may not be relevant to what you want.”] Therefore, she gives her opinion that “it’s always the above one that is much more precise.” This is a result of the skill inculcated from regular Internet access

As indicated by their clicking of other links, respondents also mentioned that they looked at indicators such as titles, by-lines and

addresses Keegan explained that he looked at “each and every title” from the list of search string results and that his choice of links was “not [a product of] a random search.” This is interesting as the respondent shows that he is a conscious participator in his information seeking Comparatively, Anthony says that he will “glance through” the by-lines For one of the entries, he was also compelled to click on a link because of the brevity of its title and web address – “the title is safe sex and [the url] is positive.org.” This showed an indication of randomness to his search choice as well

On another occasion, while respondents thought that their link selections were random, they were seen clicking on the first few search engines, and were even doing so in sequence This was shown in Amelia’s case She verbalised that her clicks were usually “random,” however; the video recordings showed that she only clicked on three links

In terms of navigation, most respondents (77.8%) remained on the first page of the text-based search results Therefore, the remaining 22.2% who moved on to other search pages were probed given this anomaly in their behaviour For example, Priya, Denisa and Kaijie Priya clicked until page 3

of the search results for how to apply safe sex, and Denisa clicked until page

2 of the search results for sexually transmitted disease Denisa explained that

she “stop[s] [when] there is enough information If I feel there is not enough information I look [for] more.” Although in this study, Kaijie only clicked to the second page of search string results, he shared that he had a current record

of looking at 31 pages, attributed to his love for music The incident had occurred during the clampdown of websites for music piracy in Singapore several years ago and he was looking for legal means to download music

However, there were differences in using search engines for seeking text and graphics At the initial stage, Kai Ling showed that her search remained on the first page of the search engine results and that she would not go beyond it Later, she demonstrated otherwise when the video showed her looking beyond the first results page for images embedded within the search engine Kai Ling was not able to clearly explain the difference in threshold for text and images and could only declare that “this is different.”

To explain respondents’ navigation within websites, there is no exact manner to show how individuals navigate through the websites as their information seeking behaviours differ from person to person Nonetheless, three types of respondents can be identified: (1) respondents who looked at pages within the websites by clicking on in-line links, links in the top bar and links in the side bar, (2) respondents who only looked at the page referred to

by the search engine, and (3) respondents who did a combination of both activities Respondents choose to either gather more information from very few websites or go through several websites For example, Cathy and Caleb visited three websites in approximately half an hour Comparatively, Hannah who carried out the third activity visited eleven websites in two thirds of the time

From the given time spent on each website, alternatively, it can be said that while there were websites that respondents read thoroughly, more often than not, they mostly browsed through the content In addition, this is evident

as (a) respondents may partially or fully scroll down the page that they were viewing, (b) respondents almost immediately clicked on the back arrow to return to search results page, and as mentioned earlier where (c) respondents

click on in-line links, buttons and arrows within the website This is the filtering process in seeking information As there is a myriad of information online, regardless of how they choose, it is necessary to select information to meet their goals To exemplify, Ali skimmed through the content and stopped to read when he found that “it's interesting, if things are interesting to me then I would find more information about it.” For example, he read on female contraceptives as he “d[id] not know this thing [female condoms] exist[ed].” Another method that Ali used was to scan and skip words that he found relevant to sex and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) For example, he

looked out for symptoms, and skipped dental dams

Again, aesthetics will be shown to play a part in information seeking and especially so in the filtering of information Respondents locate this form

of information which they perceive as helpful to convey the information Talking about a page in Wikipedia, Aisyah said, “sometimes, you will have the graphic images, it helps [to] better understand the [content] on that website”

as opposed to those in “other websites.” Kai Ling also added graphics in her Word document People indicate a preference for images because, as many respondents rationalised, images allow for better recall For example, Felix

was seen searching for a video entitled 12 STIs of Christmas that he had

previously viewed Related particularly to filtering, selected respondents were particularly inclined towards looking at graphics Compared to text, they liked

to look at the images available on the website, and visited video portals In the first example, Ali explained that although he planned “to see through” the content on the website, he eventually “s[aw] the pictures only.” In his case where the page contained both text and images as shown in Figure 4.7, he

said: “No la this one, I never read [I was attracted to the photos] I didn’t read at all.” In another instance, Ali had immediately moved from Wikipedia as

“a lot of text then you know, words I [didn’t] understand la ”

Figure 4.7 Ali was attracted to the graphics

In another example, to know more about dental dam, Sunil first keyed dental dams into the search box of Youtube instead of Google This showed

his preference for moving images His presentation of data was also filled with graphic representations

Past studies have opposing views with several youths’ information

seeking studies suggesting that the aesthetics factor is salient, and other studies suggesting that content plays a significant role in information seeking

similarities to past literature (eg Clark & Slotta, 2000; Eysenbach, Powell, Kuss & Sa, 2002; Fallis & Frické, 2002; Haddow, 2003; Hong, 2006; Kress, 2003) as different respondents still hold different preferences

Given that advertisements are usually graphical in nature, it will be discussed next With regards to advertisements, the links clicked were (a)

sponsored links – presented in a box at the top and bottom of search engine results page, and (b) Ads – presented within content, refer to Figure 4.8 Past studies show that people generally choose to avoid advertisements Most respondents in this study did not click on the advertisements while seeking information Nonetheless, there were respondents who did click on these links These respondents were Aisyah who just finished studying at a centralised institution, Cathy from NAFA, Priya who is awaiting her ‘O’ level results, and Jessica, Ingrid and Keegan who are from ITE These respondents are those from the lower education levels

Figure 4.8 Ads presented within content

As clicking on advertisements was atypical, respondents who did so were further queried during the interviews These respondents explained that they

did not notice the heading of Ads by Google, Sponsored site and AIDS and HIV Ads For example, Aishah clicked on a link under the heading of Ads by

Google, which led to a list of links, and clicked on one of the links In another instance, Ingrid clicked on Condom under the heading AIDS and HIV Ads, refer to Figure 4.9, left box, which is placed within the content

Comparatively, the advertisement in Figure 4.9, right box, is prominent and easily identified as an advertisement

Figure 4.9 Ads presented within content

Keegan said that he “will not click on ads, will definitely not click on ads

if he knows it is one.” The recording showed that had clicked on an advertisement link which opened to a list of links When he saw this page, he had closed it without clicking on any links However, the video recordings showed that he did not notice that he clicked on an advertisement page In fact, he did not seem to recognise that he had clicked on link When I asked him to describe the page, he simply referred to it as a page that could provide him links relevant to the information he was searching As the video recording showed him closing the page immediately, I asked him the reason for this action Instead of giving the reason that it was an advertisement page, he

explained that he closed the page because he was looking for the word STD

and it was not on the page He did not notice that he was on an advertisement page In another instance, Priya happened to click on a link listed as a sponsored site Priya was asked if she would click on a sponsored site She replied with a query, “What’s a sponsored site?” Therefore, this illustration demonstrates that it has become difficult to distinguish between text links and

advertisement links In these instances, advertisements blend in with the content, resulting respondents to click on the link unintentionally These advertisements were not explicitly differentiated by colours or boxes The above illustrations support Potter’s argument (2004) that distinguishing between various messages has become increasingly problematic

In information filtering, respondents should know they are supposed to look for information that are relevant and reliable However, using Badrisah’s case to illustrate, when she happened to be on a website that had contact information and when asked if she saw the information, her response was: “I just glanced; not important.” She said that when she was looking for the information, she “did not think of who wrote [the content on the website].” This shows a flaw in youths’ information seeking as although they are supposed to

be looking for information and verifying the robustness or credibility and reliability of the information, they do not Instead, Badrisah had automatically assumed that the online information is correct She likened the Internet to traditional media with gatekeepers when she said that if “people post[ed] [information] online and no one corrected it, obviously it should be correct.”

While several youths did a systematic web searching, it was certainly difficult to maintain this system in their information seeking process Youths were mainly concerned about getting the content For respondents who opened the links in new tab and moved to them while content in other pages

were loading, respondents appeared to be lost during their search A case in

point, Zarina had opened a few tabs at one go Having done this, a limitation observed from this action is that when she was asked what website she had looked at, she consistently mentioned that “she did not notice the website