Joe

Joe is a 14-year-old boy who attends a co-educational public high school. He was born in India but moved to New Zealand at the age of 3 years.

He lives with his father, younger sister, and mother. His father works full-time and also owns a business. I did not ask what occupation his mother has.

The family computer Joe uses is situated in the corner of the dining room beside the kitchen. He is the main user. It is six months old and has a flat screen (PC desktop). He has dial up internet.

Most of his homework is completed on paper except for graphics. He sometimes uses Britannica software to research info. He copies information, pictures, and diagrams into Word, and then prints it off. He uses Powerpoint for school presentations. He uses Excel to record his cricket scores which he has been doing for the last three years.

When not on the internet, he will use the computer to play games, listen to music, sort files, and watch DVD’s. The game he specifically mentioned was Cricket 2004.

Joe has many interests and he researches them on the internet. They include space and flight (nasa.gov), cricket (cricinfo.com), soccer (soccerespn), music (music.yahoo.com), current events (xtramsn), latest games (gamesman.co.nz), and scientific learning sites. He also visits sites about the Da Vinci Code (author: Dan Brown), has interest in art and art history, weather, climate change, and astronomy (planetarium website and CyberSky). He also checks on details for the latest ringtones (Telecom and Xtra), and info on his favourite bands.

He admits that most of his internet use is for homework research. A site named howstuffworks.com is very interesting for him and initially used it for a school assignment. Technical things of all types are explained, ranging from the Sith in Star Wars, to lockpicking, to how Playstations work, to how GPS works. He said that his friends use it to find out about Playstation and XBOX.

Joe usually will go on the internet for an hour, after which he gets “fed up” and will take a break, do something else, then come back to the computer. I asked him about this and he said, “Well if I don’t find anything interesting, or there’s no one to talk to [on MSN], I get fed up”. I asked him who made up that rule/guideline, and it seems to be self-imposed, but he admitted that is allowed to spend more time on the weekend on the computer, yet weekdays is when he does his homework.