Abstract

It was hypothesized that students in different majors would use the Internet differently. A survey was written, scales created, and administered to a population predominantly comprised of college seniors. The survey asked about college major, demographics, patterns of Internet use, self-confidence, content creation, and how frequently students evaluated information found on the Internet and the method(s) they used.

The study revealed some significant differences between students in the Humanities and students in the Sciences, although gender proved to be a confounding variable. The study offers useful frequencies and distributions regarding 1) college students' Internet use in four categories (WWW, e-mail, P2P file sharing, and IM-ing and/or chat), 2) where, how often, and at what bandwidth they are accessing the Internet, 3) how frequently they post to blogs, create web pages, and otherwise create content for the Internet, and 4) the types of information they most often verify and how they do it.