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5 FINAL REMARKS
There are not many studies about the Portuguese
Internet usage rates and habits and even less studies
comparing Internet habits among two student’s age
groups. The described results are not a complete
surprise but are original in the population they
characterize, Portuguese higher education students.
They reveal that Internet access is made
preferentially in school or at home. The majority of
students access the Internet one or more times per
day and the average time of each session is between
1 to 3 hours. It can also be observed that YS tend to
use the Internet more frequently and in longer
sessions than OldS. They are also more enrolled in
activities of Web 2.0 like socialization and sharing
(use internet for contacting friends, download music
and movies, share information, visit friend’s
webpage in social networks, play games, and
participate in forums). On the other hand OldS
engage more in activities of the Web 1.0, using the
Internet as a mean of getting information (for
visiting the eLearning platform to look for new
documents, exchange emails, read the news in
newspapers, magazines and portals).
The data collected reveals that most students
have, at least, one profile on a social network, and
one third of respondents usually meet new people
through these platforms.
The vast majority of students use e-mail and
synchronous conversation at least once a day (91%
and 62% respectively). However, we note that YS
rely more often to chat synchronously, while OldS
use e-mail more frequently. This is a sign, perhaps,
of a shifting paradigm in interpersonal
communication, where synchronous communication
- faster and more immediate - tends to gain
relevance to asynchronous communication,
especially among younger generations.
Most students access to the eLearning system,
Moodle in IPP, at least once a day. It appears that
the majority of students do not find difficulties in
using Moodle and think that this platform is an
important tool in their learning process. It appears
that for OldS this platform has a greater importance,
probably because they work and have less physical
presence in the university.
Finally, teachers use essentially the e-mail to
communicate with students. The Web 2.0 tools such
as wikis, forums or blogs still have little importance
in supporting the teaching and learning process.
In the future, and also based on data collected in
this study, we seek to analyze the habits of Internet
use according to the gender and scientific field. It
would be also interesting to study the habits of
Internet use of Higher Education teaching and non-
teaching staff and compare the faculty habits with
the habits students state they have.
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