“It’s me or the website!” Investigating people’s confidence with Internet use

Abstract

Whether at work or play, more people than ever encounter the Internet on a daily basis. In June 2010, there were an estimated 1.5 billion Internet users worldwide. This widespread interest has emerged as a result of extensive use of the Internet within social contexts, the workplace, education and many other environments. With such prevalent use of the Internet today, it is important to understand how people interact with it. Some recent observations of Internet users have identified differences between men and women in their confidence with Internet use. While men tend to attribute difficulties navigating a website to a poorly designed website, women often assign these difficulties to personal lack of ability. In Psychology, this belief or confidence in personal ability is known as self-efficacy. In addition to this, it is also thought that people’s attitudes affect behaviour. Thus, it is important to take one’s attitude towards the Internet ...