Arvuti- ja internetikasutajate käitumine riskiühiskonnas

Date

2005

Journal Title

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Abstract

Description

The task of current bachelor thesis was to investigate the risk behavior of computer users in situation of dangers created by computers and Internet. The method used includes mainly interviews with respondents who participated in a study named “Me.World.Media” made by journalism and communication department of Tartu University in 2002 and who had given their positive response to participating in following studies. In the form on pilot research media was also monitored during the two months when interviews were conducted (january and february of 2005). The results show that interviewees consider themselves quite good or average users of computers and Internet, but at the same time when dealing with software configurations, there are people who turn to a computer specialist at once, people who try to configure programs themselves at first and not so many of those who do it on their own. When dealing with computer- and internet-related problems, users also can be divided into wider groups: users, who deal with problems at work and at home, users who deal with problems either at work or at home and somebody else deals with problems in the other place and users, who do not deal with problem solving at all. All respondents have come in contact with viruses and spam, at the same time not all of them can deal with those problems. Some are familiar with anti-virus software and spam- filters and can use and configure them on their own, others know that this software and these filters exist, but do not know how to configure them or use them. When talking about trust towards Internet – receiving data from there and giving out personal information –, then the most common principle is to trust, but verify. Principle that applies as well as to organisations who ask certain personal information, as to information received from Internet. It can be said, that most users read rarely articles or watch TV shows or listen to radio shows, only when theme seems interesting enough and it is understandable for him/her. Main conclusion about collecting data is that when researching into the subject further it will be more handy to concentrate in interviews solely on risk theme and not make the inquiry as a part of a bigger study, because the subject is deaper and wider and requires separate inquiry. Result-wise it is important to note that the clasters where users belong to, did not matter much in a current study. It did not depend on what kind of a user is dealt with when talking about his/her skills in configuring software or trusting Internet. There was one legality though – a versatile information user deals with computer-related problem solving either at work or at home or at both places, when in all other clasters those users can be found who do not deal with problem solving at all. It is also important to research further into the context at work, mostly about rules in IT department – whether all computers are administrated only by IT people or all people are administrators of their computers.

Keywords

H Social Sciences (General), bakalaureusetööd

Citation