Abstract Book of the 8th World Conference on Social Sciences Studies
Year: 2025
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Patterns of Internet Use and Cognitive Orientations Among Latvian Youth
Ilze Koroleva, Aleksandrs Aleksandrovs
ABSTRACT:
The advancements of computing and the internet have reshaped the ways how young people communicate, work, engage in leisure activities, participate in civic and political spheres, and acquire knowledge. We examine the relationship between youth internet-use patterns and their cognitive orientations toward using the Internet for learning. The empirical data are from a quantitative web survey of high school and university students in Latvia conducted in 2023 (n = 2912). The survey questions covered 32 online activities, ranging from information seeking and learning to communication, gaming, and entertainment.
We apply factor analysis and identify four primary dimensions of daily internet use: creative (content creation), communication-oriented, gaming/opinion-sharing, and informative-analytical (information retrieval and consumption). We also delineate four distinct cognitive orientations related to the role of the Internet in learning. Further analysis reveals significant associations between these orientations and specific patterns of Internet use. Youth with “intellectual” orientation predominantly utilize the Internet for information retrieval, whereas those who primarily engage online for entertainment tend to rely on it for learning support and exhibit a less critical viewpoint. Networking and communication are prevalent among youth with a “collaborative” orientation, while “multi-taskers” and “distracted” display less intentional engagement patterns – potentially due to greater exposure to external social and technological influences. Our findings suggest that youngsters’ internet use is shaped more by spontaneous practices than by deliberate metacognitive choices.
This research is funded by the Latvian Council of Science, project “The Impact of Internet Use Patterns on the Development of Youth’s Cognitive Styles,” (lzp-2021/1-0357).
Keywords: Attitudes Toward Using the Internet for Learning; Digital Learning; Internet Use Dimensions; Latvia; Online Engagement