Age: 15

Sex: female

Education: High school Gr. 10

Amount of time a week spent on the Internet: 10 hrs

Current country, city: Canada, Surrey

1. What do you use the Internet for and approximately how much time per week on each activity (surfing, e-mail, gaming, chat, research)?

about 10 hours and I check my e mail, talk on msn, and sometimes do research for school.

2. Who do you keep in touch with through the Internet (family, friends, strangers, co-workers etc)? And are they local or distant?

I keep in touch with all my friends on msn, I don’t talk to strangers. Most of the people are local, unless they go away someplace.

3. Do you participate in chat groups or news groups? If so, are these special interest groups ie: pro-legalization of marijuana or general chat rooms?

No I do not go into any chat rooms, I only talk to people on msn.

4. Have you ever met anyone on line? If so, have you ever met them in person or intend to?

No I have not.

5. Have you met people on line who have similar interests/hobbies? If so, how (did you search for them)?

No I have never searched for anyone.

6. Overall, do you believe that the Internet makes/allows you to be more social and facilitates interaction with others, or do you feel more isolated because of the limits of a computer screen?

I feel the internet gives me a better social life because it gives me a chance to talk to my friends on msn where I can talk to more people at once, instead of the phone where I can only talk to one person at a time.

7. Do you find that the time you spent on the Net takes away from face-to-face interaction with others and does this make you feel lonelier?

NO it does not make me feel lonelier, I feel like I can interact better with people, and it doesn’t take away from my face to face time with people, because when I’m at home on the internet I probably wouldn’t be allowed out to see people during that time anyway, so its better for my social life.

8. Do you feel that communication via Internet makes you feel more accepted because it prevents discrimination associated with visual interaction (ie: racism, sexism)?

I don’t think it really matters

9. Are you selective of who you interact with on the Net in terms of gender, race, sexual orientation, economic status, age, etc?

I only talk to people I know on the internet, so gender, race or any such thing doesn’t matter because we all know each other anyway.

10. How would your life be without the Internet? What would you spend your time doing instead?

If I didn’t have the internet I would spend my time either talking on the phone more or watching tv, perhaps I would focus more on homework. Without the internet I wouldn’t be able to interact with all my classmates as I am with msn, this gives me a wider group of friends.

11. Do you seek to diversify your perspectives and beliefs on line (via chat or research) or do you look to further develop those you have already formed?

umm... I don’t care?

12. Do you agree that the anonymity of the "virtual" world encourages ‘drive-by’ relationships or have you been able to form more meaningful connections with strangers on the net?

I’ve never talked to strangers on the net and never had anything meaningful with strangers...

13. Finally, do you believe that the Internet widens your experience of community (by helping you to connect to others with different beliefs or backgrounds), or does it deepen your experience (by reinforcing and strengthening existing social networks), or perhaps both? Explain.