Understanding young singaporeans gathering and credibility assessments of online sexual health information 1b

Chapter 4
Findings and
Discussion


Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

Chapter Four:
Findings & Discussion
In this chapter, data drawn from the questionnaires, interviews, and
video screens will be discussed and analysed to present youths’ information
seeking on the topic of sexual health. It will demonstrate how young
Singaporeans employ different approaches in seeking sexual health
information online. It will also facilitate our understanding of the thought
processes that actualise the strategies employed by young Singaporeans in
their online information seeking on this topic. With this, the chapter will
address the research questions: (1) the manner in which young Singaporeans
seek sexual health information online and the thought processes that come
into play, and (2) the challenges that youths faced while seeking such
information.
Briefly, respondents completed their information seeking tasks at an
average of 43.5 minutes, with Gordon taking the shortest time of 19 minutes,
and Agnes taking the longest time at 1 hour and 34 minutes. Respondents
conducted their information seeking in three ways, via: (1) websites (100%)
and forums (13.9%) found via search engines, (2) websites (13.9%) and
forums (5.6%) which they already knew of or had previously used, and (3)
contacts via instant messengers (5.6%). These figures show that the bulk of
information respondents received was from websites clicked via search
engines. These statistics show similarity to past studies (Buhi et al., 2010;
Hargittai, n.d.) where respondents mainly used search engines to gather
information.

Findings show that respondents’ media literacy affects their information
seeking. As mentioned in the literature review, it is not possible for an
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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

individual to have no literacy or to be fully literate; therefore, media literacy is
a continuum. Thus, the strength of individuals’ perspective on media
determines the various points they are placed along this continuum.
Therefore, different people may experience the same media message
differently. The

following

sections

will discuss different

aspects

of

respondents’ media literacy – personal locus, knowledge structures, and skills
– and how they influence respondents in seeking information online. While the
analysis was divided into personal locus, knowledge structure, and skills –
there are times where the examples show the different facets combined as
they are inter-related and intricately woven into respondents’ information
seeking. The examples were placed under the most closely related sections.
In addition, there is also a section on personal influence and a discussion of

how the nature of the information sought which influenced respondents’
information seeking.

4.1. Personal Locus
Past literature suggests that personal locus, consisting of goals and
drives, plays an important part in information seeking (Potter, 2004; 2008). In
this research, the manner in which young Singaporeans seek sexual health
information online was similarly seen to depend on how they treated the goaloriented tasks. Respondents’ information seeking behaviour appeared to vary
according to their attitudes. There were three types of respondents. Briefly,
the first type of respondents took into consideration the topic and the people
for whom they were gathering the information. For the next type of
respondents, they also took into consideration that they were collecting the

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

data for other people but in this case, they were more concerned of other
people’s perceptions of them. The last type of respondents viewed the
research as a mere experimental set-up and at times, they looked at the
online information based on what caught their attention.
4.1.1 Attitudes of respondents
To explain the three types of respondents in greater detail - the first
type of respondents, despite being consciously aware that their actions were
part of a research, they tried to enact the case scenarios in their minds and
sought to find solutions to the best of their abilities. They imagined what
information they would search for in such situations and went to the extent of
carefully planning how they intended to pass the information to their friends.
For example, Badrisah said “[she] want[ed] her [friend] to steer away from

sex. Find things to make her change her mind.” She collated the website
URLs and placed them on a Microsoft Word document and planned to pass
them to her ‘friend’ as an email attachment. Her actions reflected
thoughtfulness thus showing that she was aware of how her information
seeking would affect other people, and implicitly as part of her personal locus
took it into consideration in her information search. Also, as the task was
related to health, there were a handful of respondents who emphasised the
need to be more selective in gathering information. This selectiveness
referred to the need to gather more reliable information. For instance, Jamal
said that considering that the topic is on sexual health, there is a need to have
credible information. This is similar to past literature where despite being goal
oriented, in cases where youths seek information for other people, they

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

demonstrate awareness and importance of credibility assessments (Erdelez &
Rioux, 2000; Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008).
For the second type of respondents, they were also selective of the
information gathered and did their selection based on the types of information
they found suitable to be passed to their friends. In particular, they explained
that this was due to the fact that the information was for their friends. In this
instance, it was not to assess the information for credibility but to ascertain its
suitability for their friends. They specifically expressed more concerns about
their friends’ perceptions of them. For example, Zarina chose to look for
photos and videos of content (see Figures 4.1 and 4.2) that would be more
fun and creative as she did not want to be “preaching” to her friend. Felix
sought a sing-a-long video on STDs which he had watched previously. There

are also other respondents who watched videos – in total, 8.3% of the
respondents visited Youtube, 2.8% visited Metacafe, and 2.8% visited
Howcast. Apart from fun and creativity, Bharat explained that the visuals
allowed him to better understand the information that he was receiving. Earlier
literature mentions the rise of electronic health on the Internet and its potential
benefits for more users (Norman & Skinner, 2006). The screenshot of a video
in Figure 4.2 shows that the video uploaded contains information by a medical
doctor.

Figure 4.1 Images from Google

Figure 4.2 Video from YouTube
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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

For the third type of respondents, it remains that this is a research set-up and
they viewed the given tasks as fictitious scenarios. As these respondents
viewed it as a mere task assigned by the researcher, their information seeking
behaviour was based on this personal locus. A case in point is Ali who said: it
“[f]eels like a task I must find.” They did not seem to take into consideration
the fact that the topic related to health and the diseases could be lifethreatening. When Ali was asked if he had gathered sufficient information, he
reflected that he may have to look for more information in an actual situation.
In addition, these respondents also looked at related information based on
their own interests. This was demonstrated in the respondents’ information
seeking, for example, Sunil searched for dental dams and Ali sought female
condoms. Therefore, while the cases indicate that respondents may behave
differently compared to an actual situation, it may be a manifestation of their
customary information seeking behaviour. Similarly, past literature shows that

youths tend to obtain information in a cursory fashion when the outcome of
using the information was not critical enough to warrant the additional time
needed to acquire more credible information (Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008). In
addition, these incidences also indicate that since youths think that
misfortunes will happen to someone else and not to them, they are not as
anxious in seeking information.
4.1.2 Convenience and Speed
In a next point relating to personal locus, although it is not an explicit
goal, it is palpable that individuals would want to complete the tasks given to
them as fast as they could. Hence it is not surprising that the issue of
convenience and speed persists in youths’ information seeking. Earlier

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

literature states that youths use the Internet because of these characteristics
(Stern & Willis, 2007; Suzuki & Calzo, 2004). Similarly, respondents in this
study consider the Internet to be a suitable source in seeking information on
sexual health. To exemplify, Ali mentioned that he would still use the Internet
to look for the information even if he was not restricted to using it. Amelia
explained her preference of “using the Internet at home” to going to the library
to look for books as the latter is “more troublesome.” Next, video recordings
will be used to provide examples of youths’ web navigations in relation to time
factor. The video recordings showed that not all respondents looked at the
whole page and finished watching the videos. Having to browse through the
myriad of information online and wanting to complete their information seeking
process quickly, several respondents had scanned through the webpages and
videos. For instance, Eric clicked on the page and bookmarked the page

almost immediately. He explained that he had done so as he was performing
a scan of relevant words and the page happened to have term. In another
example, Bharat bookmarked a video after watching 2 minutes of a 3:09 clip.
One rationale that could explain why conducting information seeking
for this task and normal information seeking is very different in spite that the
topic is on sexual health is that the study is conducted on youths. The
personal locus of youths in seeking information differs depending on the
context. Zarina explained that for school projects, she would use online
databases such as Factiva to retrieve newspaper articles to get "statistics and
"hard facts." Being students, youths are more familiar in information seeking
for schoolwork compared to health information. This is also an indication of
the importance that respondents placed on their schoolwork.

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

4.1.3 Other concomitant factors
Apart from the respondents’ personal locus, concomitant factors
namely, prior knowledge, habits, technological fluency, and social influences
also play pertinent roles in respondents’ choices and navigation of these
information sources. Habit is a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of
behaviour that is acquired through frequent repetition (The American
Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary, 2010). Prior knowledge refers to
respondents’ past knowledge on sexual health information and/or any health
issues. ‘Technological fluency’ is the skill to effectively employ and adapt
technology to changing circumstances (p. 188, McKay, Thurlow &
Zimmerman, 2005). All these factors will be identified as knowledge structures
and skills in the next two sections. In the last section, the chapter will discuss

the role of social influences, referring to parents, friends or acquaintances, in
information seeking.
The examples of youth’s actions presented in the next sections will
present a better overview of youths’ information seeking process. It will also
provide the challenges faced by young Singaporeans.

4.2. Knowledge Structure
Past literature shows that people interpret and recontextualise scientific
knowledge by locating it within their own social contexts and experiences
(Mager, 2009). In this study, another factor that affects the manner in which
young Singaporeans seek sexual health information online is their knowledge
structure. As for previously seeking health information, 75% of respondents
had done this through various means, and specifically, 44.4% had utilised the

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

Internet to look for these information. Four types of health information, namely
physical, psychological, sexual, and others, were listed in the questionnaire.
Focusing on the item of sexual health information, the study shows that 50%
of respondents had previously sought this information. In Chapter One, I
described the different channels available for youths to receive sexual health
information in Singapore. According to the interview sessions, respondents
had similarly received such information from (a) schools, via the sex
education and moral education types of classes, and science classes, (b)
siblings, (c) parents, (d) friends, (e) traditional media like books, magazines
and television, and (f) the Internet.
Also, as elaborated earlier in Chapter 1, as the respondents are

Singaporean students, all of them would have received sex education in
school. However, the experience of sex education classes was uneven across
the respondent pool, with some recalling the lessons more clearly than others.
For example, Badrisah, who is in Secondary five, explained that in secondary
two, her school showed different episodes of videos during pastoral care
period held every Monday. Male and female students were separated when
they viewed the videos. According to her, the main ideas taught in school
were to say ‘no’, as sex leads to pregnancy. Therefore, the lessons did not
teach students how to prevent pregnancy and instead, the videos
demonstrated how youths’ lives were ruined once they engaged in sex.
Badrisah was thus able to distil the relevant message which the school
attempted to convey to students. In contrast, most other respondents had
difficulty recalling what they had learnt in such classes, e.g., Ali used the term
“vaguely” to describe his memory of learning sex health education in the

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

secondary school. Similarly, Kai Jie remembered being taught sex education
in primary school and can “remember some of the names [of diseases]” but
claimed that the teachers “did not teach anything in secondary school.” Given
the poor recall of such sex education lessons by most respondents, it would
appear that the possession of prior sex related knowledge was not a factor
which influenced my respondents’ search for sex-related information online.
4.2.1 Search string permutations
Next, the chapter will look at the search string permutations utilised by
the respondents in their information-seeking. Table 4.1 shows the different
permutations by using the samples by 11 respondents who utilised the

Internet daily for more than 6 hours to 12 hours daily. The search strings have
been separated into (1) phrases found in tasks list, (2) phrases found closely
related to task list, and (3) other search strings.
Type of Search string

Search Strings

Phrases found in task
(a) Safe Sex

practices of safe sex, practicing safe sex, practising safe sex,
safe sex, safe sex + ministry of health (pages from
Singapore), Safe sex by women, safe sex for females, safe
sex for girls, safe sex practices, sex [in hpb.gov.sg search
box], sex and pressure, sex vs. Love, how to apply safe sex,
how to have safe sex, how to practice safe sex, methods of
safe sex

(b) Sexually
transmitted diseases

how do humans got sexually transmitted diseases, how do we
know that we got sexually transmitted diseases, how do you know
that a male get sexually transmitted diseases?, sexually
transmitted diseases, sexually transmitted diseases in men ,
Signs and Symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases,
Symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases

Phrases found closely
related to task

(a) STDs

a list of STDs, do what to prevent getting HIV and STD,
symptoms of STD, symptoms of stds, STD, STDs, possible
female STDs

Other search strings

first sex experience, Chlamydia, Safety precaution for women,
contraception for women, dental dam, Trichomoniasis, is condom
safe?, japanese condom studies
Table 4.1 Different permutations of search strings

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

Overall, results from the entire study show that although all
respondents did not have a common search string, several respondents
shared three similar searches – safe sex, sexually transmitted diseases, and
STD. To identify, safe sex and sexually transmitted diseases are phrases
taken from the tasks given to the respondents. It is noteworthy that no
respondents had typed sexually transmitted infections or STIs as part of their
search string as this emphasises the poor recall of sex education lesson by
respondents. Despite having learnt about sex-related diseases in schools,
respondents remained unfamiliar or have vague knowledge of the topic. For
instance, Felix had grouped STIs and STDs together in his knowledge base
as he typed the 12 STDs of Christmas in his search string while in fact, the
video was called 12 STIs of Christmas.

There were many other search string permutations conceptualised by
respondents. Other than extracting the phrases from the text, there were
several reasons which accounts for how the different search string
permutations were thought of by respondents although they did not contain
phrases from the tasks. Findings show that prior knowledge that were
retained in their memories, affected this group’s information seeking
behaviours. Therefore, comparatively this incident indicates that only selected
information is stored in their memory. Moreover, in fact, as indicated earlier in
the methodology chapter, more than half of the respondents (55.6%) had
previously looked for sexual health information either online or offline for
school projects and personal interests.
In general, the interviews indicated that respondents learnt about these
terms from school, having attended sex education classes or biology classes,

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

seeing them in traditional media, noticing them in other websites’ content, and
talking about sex with their peers. Keegan said: “secondary school la, sex
education” and “a lot of…outside advertise[ments] on “TV, brochures.” The
interviews correspond to Chapter 1 which elaborates on the background
information of the available sources of sexual health information. Therefore in
seeking information online, youths tap on their knowledge structures to utilise
current knowledge and by doing so, are better able to expand their knowledge
base.
To further illustrate, the chapter will look at specific search strings. In
the case of typing STD, respondents mainly cited the abbreviation to be a
common one, and that they learnt it from schools or saw them on

advertisements. Amelia typed contraceptives, and said: “from my knowledge, I
know safe sex is contraceptives.” The next example is the phrase applying
safe sex. Earlier, the methodology chapter had elaborated on the careful
selection of text for the task list to sieve out if respondents would simply ‘lift’
phrases from the task or would utilise their knowledge structure in typing their
search strings. Despite the oddity of this phrase, 1 respondent used applying
safe sex as given in the task as her second search string. Gayathri had typed
applying safe sex for teens. In the first search string, she had typed having
safe sex. This phrase was used by one other respondent. Most respondents
used the term practicing safe sex. For instance, Jamal typed practices of safe
sex, practicing safe sex and how to practice safe sex. Zarina explained
"messages from outside" channels such as safe sex health campaigns, radio
ads and lecturers used the term practice safe sex. The latter illustrations
showed that most respondents’ loci were in a conscious state and this is so,

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

especially at the start of information seeking as respondents utilised the
knowledge which they already possess to develop their search.
Although youths do not appear to rely on past knowledge learnt in
school, respondents can be seen incorporating prior knowledge from
traditional media, such as magazines and television shows. Yuping visited the
online versions of Cosmopolitan and Glamour, Felix visited Men’s Health and
Zarina was looking for clips of television programmes on Get Real and Tyra
Banks which she said contained relevant information. Zarina tried looking for
those clips as she had previously seen such issues being featured in these
programmes. To do this, she used associative words in the search string such

as CNA (the channel where the program had been aired) and Cheryl Fox
(program host) for the “Get Real” program. However, in all the aforementioned
cases, respondents were unable to derive relevant information from the tasks.
This incident shows that although they remember the main source, they could
not retrieve that information via this channel because their search strings were
not sufficiently targeted and they were thus unable to unearth what they
wanted from the overwhelming amount of online information available.
Nonetheless, these incidences also show basic functional media literacy since
the youths tried to utilise the Internet to gather information which they initially
observed from traditional media.

The Internet is seen as a universal

repository to extract information.
The search strings also showed a small percentage of respondents
(11.1%) looking for local government websites like the Health Promotion
Board, the Ministry of Health and Singapore General Hospital. In such
circumstances, respondents were clearly making good use of their pre-

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

existing knowledge because they recognised that the websites of government
agencies which deal with health matters are likely to provide credible health
information.
4.2.2 Navigation within websites
Respondents’ knowledge structures also play a part when navigating
the websites. When clicking on STD links, most respondents clicked on

gonorrhoea, herpes, and AIDS which are common sexually transmitted
diseases found in the science textbooks or taught in sex education lessons,
and provided these as their answers in their Microsoft word document. It
would appear that they seemed to be more comfortable in providing
information that they were more familiar with. However, in explaining why they
clicked on these links or copying the documents, most respondents only reply
that they have learnt them in school. Earlier literature on information seeking
(eg. Flanagin & Metzger, 2008; Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008) mentioned that
respondents usually refer to trusted places, and in these cases, youths are
most confident and therefore most comfortable in sharing information learnt
from school.
In cases where respondents do not understand certain terms which
they read in the websites’ content, they typed them as search strings or
looked for their meanings in the online dictionary. The incorporation of new
knowledge is seen when search strings such as dental dams, chlamydia and
trichomoniasis emerged as they were seen in the websites’ content and
respondents wanted to know more about them. This shows that the
respondents’ loci were functioning in conscious mode. While filtering the

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

available content, they found information which was unknown to them and
tried to gather further information.
4.2.3 Keying of web addresses
Respondents also directly keyed in addresses of websites which they
had either heard of or previously used in their information seeking. More than
half of the respondents (58.3%) keyed in web addresses which includes

blogs, search engines, government health websites, forums, online dictionary,
and email accounts. Specifically, respondents visited specific blogs from
Livejournal and Blogspot, YouTube, Gmail, Hotmail, Google, Yahoo,
Dictionary, Wikipedia, Ministry of Health, and forum Vibe MB. For example,
Jamal typed moh.gov.sg to gather information from the Ministry of Health’s
website, Anthony visited Vibe MB which is a forum to receive feedback from
members in the online community and Zarina used Technorati to look for
blogs as she had remembered previously seeing information relevant to the
task in several blogs. Therefore, despite the significant aforementioned figure
of 58.3% of respondents keying websites directly, most respondents were
merely typing search engines’ web addresses.

This is similar to present

literature which shows that as health questions do not often occur, individuals
may not have a trusted website in their mind to begin a search related to
health.
Nonetheless, the examples of Jamal, Anthony, and Zarina showed the
influence of knowledge structure in information seeking. By typing the website
addresses of the local government’s website, particularly Ministry of Health,
Jamal showed that he is tapping onto his prior knowledge. Although the page
did not load as where Jamal should have typed www.moh.gov.sg instead of

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

moh.gov.sg, he did not give up and tried typing Ministry of Health in the
search engine. Similarly, in the case of Zarina, her locus was in conscious

mode as she actively thought of ways to gather information from her
knowledge structure. She displayed a manifestation of Potter’s (2004)
meaning matching - she remembered reading random blogs with issues
related to the task. However, as she could not remember the exact blogs, she
tried to match this information to another piece of information she had, which
is she knew Technorati houses blogs. Therefore by using Technorati, she
would be able to find the blogs to perform the tasks. However, she did not
manage to fully execute her plan because she was unable to find the blogs
that she wanted.
4.2.4 Use of bookmarks
As for the use of bookmarks, 3 respondents (8.3%) opened their
bookmark list with two of them doing so as a focused exercise, and one using
it only in a random fashion. The first group looked at the bookmark list with an
intention to look for particular websites. For the first example, Felix opened his
bookmark to Men’s Health because of his interest in health issues and is also
a regular visitor to the website. He remembered reading related articles and
wanted to incorporate them as part of his answers. As for Bharat, he had
wanted to use Youtube, and therefore opened his bookmark list to
conveniently access the website. Arguably, both respondents’ had their
personal locus in conscious mode and were therefore in full control of their
information processing. However, in the case of Jonathan, it was a random
exercise when he decided to scan through his bookmark list to look for a
suitable link. When he initially opened his bookmark list, he did not choose

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

any links. However, he later returned to the bookmark list and clicked on

Wikipedia.
The way respondents choose their information from these sources also
show evidence of their utilising their knowledge structures. In one of Amelia’s
searches, she had differentiated her findings of protection methods into boys
and girls. Referring to Figure 4.3, the protection methods were not separated
in the website. However, as shown in Figure 4.4 Amelia categorized the
protection methods according to gender when transferring the content to
Microsoft Word, demonstrating her ability to engage in meaning matching /
making (Potter, 2004; 2008).

Figure 4.3 List of protection methods grouped

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

Figure 4.4 List of protection methods grouped by gender

In addition, respondents also explained their rationales for moving from
website to website. In general, they mentioned that they did so as a way of
cross-referencing, checking for credibility, and/or simply adding on to
information that they had gathered. They would stop when they felt that they
have gathered sufficient information. Therefore, in sum, in their seeking,
respondents show that they tapped on their knowledge structure as they
mentioned that they verified the information based on past knowledge. This is
evident from the aforementioned examples of typing of search strings and
URLs, and choosing of websites.
4.2.5 Presentation of data
Next, the manner in which respondents present their data will be

further analysed. Findings show that many respondents were more concerned
about the information itself than about its credibility. These respondents were
more goal-oriented and leaned towards information gathering. In this study,
few respondents directly mentioned that they assessed the credibility of the
websites they visited. As they are more concerned with content, respondents

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

mainly explained how they gathered the information. As an example, for those
gathering content, the recordings showed that instead of assessing the data,
respondents were more concerned about preparing their answers. For
example, they categorized information in accordance with their knowledge of
sexual health information seeking. Respondents’ prior knowledge in gathering
information is also affecting their information seeking in this study. According
to the respondents, this was the way they usually conduct their information
seeking for schools or other uses. Therefore, it is ‘brought’ into this
information seeking. Respondents had different ways in planning to present
their information search. Ian saved chosen webpages while Cathy
bookmarked the chosen websites. Bard pasted chunks of text from various
websites into Microsoft Word. Caleb combined both actions of Cathy and
Bard. Darren and Eric typed their own words and provided their own opinions
while putting together content into document. However, for the second task,
Eric pasted chunks of text on sexually transmitted diseases from one website
into his document. Jamal’s method was the most extensive; he bookmarked
the websites, pasted chunks of text and links from various websites into
Microsoft Word, and provided his own opinion. On the other hand, Hannah,
Jessica and Keegan merely moved from website to website without any

indications on how they wished to communicate the information to their
‘friend.’
Use of prior knowledge may come into play either consciously or
unconsciously. For Anthony, his use was unconscious for his forum posting;
when he asked “What about eating out?” When enquired he paused before
replying that he had seen it on an earlier website. Upon further probing, he

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

said that he has also previously learnt the term from his friends. He said that if
he was not mistaken, it was a friend who had explained the meaning of the
term. He also said Urbandictionary.com can clarify "those type[s] of urban
slangs." Therefore, at times, respondents may not even be aware that they
are

influenced

these

knowledge.

Therefore,

in

information

seeking,

respondents consciously and unconsciously use information within their
knowledge structure.

4.3. Skills
All respondents have computers/laptops and Internet access at home.
Specifically, Table 4.2 indicates their daily Internet use as follows:
Time spend on the Internet daily
Percentage of respondents
1 hour or less
2.8%
1 to 6 hours
63.9%
More than 6 hours to 12 hours
27.8%
More than 12 hours to 16 hours
5.6%
More than 16 hours
0%
Table 4.2 Respondents and time spend on Internet daily

Past studies (eg. Livingstone & Helsper, 2007) have shown that with greater
Internet access, individuals could better harness their skills. The table
demonstrates that most respondents use the Internet between 1 to 6 hours
daily, and 1/3 of the respondents use the Internet for more than 6 hours. In
Chapter One, the paper has explained the use of ICT in Singapore. The
chapter will also demonstrate how skills affect the manner in which young
Singaporeans seek sexual health information online. In this section, I discuss
how the respondents’ information-seeking skills vary with their exposure to the

Internet and demonstrate the challenges that youths face in seeking sexual
health information online.

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

4.3.1 Search engines
Not surprisingly, search engines are an integral part of the
respondents’ online information seeking, with 100 per cent of them search
engines. Given the prominence in the use of search engines, the chapter will
first look at the reason behind its prevalence and use in information seeking.
Being a central location where unlimited information could be easily sorted
and accessed, respondents cited familiarity and convenience as reasons for
using search engines. Hence, using search engines in seeking information
has easily become a habit. Earlier literature on information seeking mentioned
that respondents start their information seeking at a trusted place (Flanagin &
Metzger, 2008; Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008).

Place here could even refer to

familiar and trusted people they know such as parents, siblings, teachers,
coaches, or friends. Information obtained could be in the form of getting direct
or indirect information/advice on how to begin their information-searching.
Indirect information means that the information received from the first source
could be something which the first source had learnt from other people.
(Flanagin & Metzger, 2008; Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008). In this study, search
engines play dual roles; firstly, as the first point of getting information, and
next, as a place for youths to gather their thoughts where respondents often

return to, so that they can re-start the entire process. As the Internet contains
massive amount of data, the use of search engines is pertinent in getting
relevant information. Thus, search engines are often central actors in youths’
information seeking, and therefore, become this familiar and trusted place.
Search engines help to create information order as typing search strings into

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

search boxes structure the information. By doing so, they aid respondents in
making sense of the vast data on the Internet.
Although youths automatically turn to search engines, they do not
merely use any search engine. This act of using specific search engines has
also become a habit. For the respondents in this study, the frequently used
search engines were Google (72.2%) and Yahoo (36.1%). Other search
engines that youths utilised were Youtube (8.3%), Google Scholar (2.8%),
Ask (2.8%), MSN (5.6%), Rednano (2.8%), and Technorati (2.8%). There
were varying reasons for respondents’ preferences for different search
engines.

These

preferences

were

clearly

demonstrated

when

they

automatically changed to a different search engine although their homepages
are search engines. For example, Yahoo appeared as Aisyah’s home page
which contained a search box but instead she typed Google’s address to use
its search function. Aisyah says that “Google has technically more information
and when you type in layman’s term, the information will appear as you want
it...unlike Yahoo, [where the information] it may not come out ...in layman’s
terms.” She had thus actively chosen a search engine that was
comprehensible to her. This action suggests that Aisyah is engaging in
meaning matching (Potter, 2004; 2008), where she tries to make sense of the
data presented to her and in order to do so, she preferred to use Google.
In another example, Amelia said: “I hear [that MSN search engine] is
more lousy than Yahoo...they [my friends] say Yahoo is the best search
engine... hey [my teachers] never say MSN or Hotmail. They also did not
mention Google.” This illustration shows that Amelia was affected by the
social influences of her teachers and friends. Also, she had previously tried

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MSN’s search box function and explained that she was “unfamiliar with it and
went to Yahoo.”
Respondents also gathered information using multiple search engines

or multiple types of search engines. For instance, Priya typed how to apply
safe sex and sexually transmitted diseases in Yahoo, Google and MSN
search engines. While most respondents recognise suitable search engines
for different purposes, thus manifesting their technological fluency, there were
a few respondents who do not display these skills. For instance, Priya
explained that she does this because “maybe different website[s] you know,
[present] different links.” However, in actual fact, the links were similar; it was
just that they were not placed in the same order.
For those respondents with more technological know-how, they
recognised that search engines today could be sorted using text, images and
video searches. They also knew that information could also be categorised by
countries. For instance, Zarina would "first go to Google” and when she
wanted to use videos as examples, her “next solution is Youtube.” In another
example, Kai Ling used the search engine’s image search function. In the
examples, Jonathan used RedNano and several respondents used Yahoo
Singapore or Yahoo and Google sites and clicked on the button for “within
Singapore”. This was evidence of media literacy as the youths knew that they
had to gather information for the Singapore context, and they did so by using
the necessary tools.
4.3.2 Websites
The respondents clicked on many different types of websites from
within the search results including content by government agencies, corporate

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Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion

organisations, charities, schools, private individuals and more. As an
illustration, Table 4.3 showcases the accumulated websites visited by 11

respondents who used the Internet for more than 6 hours to 12 hours on a
daily basis.
Type of websites
Government /
Hospitals / Clinics /
Managed Care
Organization

Blogs
Activist organization
Charity / Not-for
profit
News/broadcasting /
Online publications/
Writer’s network
Education
Online aid:dictionary,
encyclopaedia and
reference
Photo / Video sharing
Religion
Emails
Networking
Insurance
Ebook
Content (Organization /
Individual) / Content Sharing
communities

Website Visited

American Social Health Association, American Association
for Clinical Chemistry, Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, Ministry of Health, HCA Affiliated Hospital
Houston, Health Promotion Board, Family Planning
Victoria, Mayo Clinic, National Institute for Health, Royal
Adelaide Hospital, John Hopkins, Kaiser Permanente,
American Academy of Family Physicians, Singapore
discreet HIV/STDs screening, AIDS-Aufklärung Schweiz,
Live journal, Blogspot, Today
Coalition for Positive Sexuality, Advocates for Youths
Avert, The Well Project, Kids’ Health
AP via Yahoo! Singapore news, AsiaOne, Cable News
Network, KFOX-TV, Women’s eNews Inc, The Daily
Orange, Suite101
Leadership University, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, City
University of New York, William College
Dictionary, Wikipedia,

Howcast, Youtube
Good Samaritan Project
Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo
Flixter
Bupa UK
Google Ebook
About , Epigee, Kissmegoodnight, Teen Advisor, WedMD,
HubPages, iVillage Limited, eHow, Mama’s Health,
MedicineNet Inc, InfoMedSearch, Body, Playnetjay.net,
Topix, Healthcommunities.com, Craig Web, Safe Sex
Rip n Roll Inc, Rockeby, Mission Pharmacal Company,
Tstd Services Group, Revolution Health,

Street Directory, Streetdirectory Malaysia

Corporate / Online
stores
Advertisement
content
Directory
Getforme Singapore
Miscellaneous /
Google Map, AIDS, AnswerBoy, Std Services, STD
Unknown
Symptoms, STD testing
Table 4.3 Different types of websites and websites visited

The table shows that respondents were exposed to a myriad of
information sources, but not all of were necessarily verified before being
published online. Therefore, there is a need to understand how young people
assessed the information, especially those from unknown sources. This is

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especially pertinent as Potter’s framework showed that during information
seeking, an individual’s locus may be in unconscious mode and therefore, he
will automatically take in the information without paying attention to the
sources. Therefore, it is necessary for youths to have the requisite media
literacy in their information seeking. In the following paragraphs, the chapter
looks at how youths conduct filtering, meaning matching and meaning

construction in information seeking.
4.3.3 Information seeking Process
From the results in the search engines, respondents visited many types
of websites; for example, government, education, commercial, non-profit
organisation and personal websites, encyclopaedias, forums, and news
portals. How did youths get to these pages? What are the strategies and
thought processes involved in the clicking of these links? To mention briefly, a
typical information seeking scenario in the study which uses a search engine
looks like this: Respondents logged onto search engines. They first typed a
search string based on the task list. The permutations of search strings could
be based on a multitude of reasons. When the search results page was
loaded, they clicked on one of the links either based on the titles, by-lines
and/or web addresses. They looked at the content presented in the links. At
times, they did click on in-links and top bar buttons to move to other relevant
pages in the website. However, these actions are seldom carried out. Instead,
respondents often returned to the results pages and they would repeat the
process again. However, at other times, respondents forgo the factors and
instead randomly selected links from the search results page. When they

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