Millennials and ICT—Findings from the Technology 4 Young Adults (T4YA) Project: An Exploratory Study

Hannah R. Marston
Additional contact information
Hannah R. Marston: Health and Wellbeing Priority Research Area, School of Health, Wellbeing and Social Care, The Open University, Walton Hall, Buckinghamshire, MK7 6AA, UK

Societies, 2019, vol. 9, issue 4, 1-22

Abstract: Information communication technology (ICT) is becoming a pivotal element in the twenty-first century, and while there has been substantial work conducted to understand ICT use by older adults, there is a paucity of knowledge relating to ICT use and behavior by Millennials. The Technology 4 Young Adults (T4YA) study opens the discussion to the barriers and enablers of ICT by Millennials in their day-to-day activities. Eight participants aged 18–33 years were recruited, and open-ended questions were posed to the focus groups participants. A total of three focus groups were conducted, two focus groups were conducted in Pontefract (West Yorkshire, England) and one focus group was conducted in Swansea (West Glamorgan, Wales); all focus groups were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Primary themes included: hardware, privacy issues/concerns, confidence, usability/functionality, day-to-day activities, and content/sharing of information. Day-to-day activities were undertaken primarily on smartphones, such as online banking and shopping, while privacy and trust concerns was a conversation thread throughout the discussions. Further work is needed with larger sample sizes, taking a multi-methods approach to extract quantitative data to underpin qualitative data analysis and frameworks. This exploratory study intersects at the fields of social sciences and human–computer interaction.

Keywords: technology; metropolitan location; ageing; qualitative research methods; privacy; mobile apps; social media platforms; social networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 A14 P P0 P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/9/4/80/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/9/4/80/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:9:y:2019:i:4:p:80-:d:289986

Access Statistics for this article

Societies is currently edited by Ms. Farrah Sun

More articles in Societies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().