Lisa

Lisa is a 16-year-old girl with a Maori father and a white European mother. She lives with her mother and younger brother. Her mother’s boyfriend lives with her mother on the weekends. Lisa spends approximately four nights per week at her dad’s house.

Lisa has had a computer for about three years (since year 8). She is usually on the computer from 4 – 6pm, then her brother has a turn, then her mum, and then sometime later, she will get back on. In regard to weekend use, if she is at her dad’s, she will check her emails, but she said she didn’t really use the computer in the weekends because she was too busy. The computer is a Windows XP 2000 desktop which is situated in the corner of her mother’s lounge.

Lisa is a year 11 student and attends a public, co-educational high school for years 7 – 13. Lisa takes geography, maths, English, recreation, sports science, and human biology, and is an average student. Lisa has not taken any courses in computers at school, and does not see any link between what she does at school and what she does at home. Her computer use at home is for leisure.

Activities Lisa is involved in on the computer include MSN, playing ‘Need for Speed’ (game), researching personal interests, downloading and sharing music files, writing CD’s, and downloading tracks to her mini iPod. She has also created a website, and it is the second one she has completed, as she forgot the password to her first website and it was deleted by the server. She has taught friends and family about how to use the internet, use sites, make sites, download music, and make CD’s.

Lisa plays in two soccer teams.