[Air-L] Initial Internet experiences/helping first time users.

[Peter Timusk]

I often find myself helping neighbours, family, and consumer/survivors  
of psychiatry to connect to the Internet for the first time.

A peer to peer support group for consumers/survivor of psychiatry I am  
involved with as a director offers our members lessons in email and  
surfing/cerfing.

I am curious to hear of any research in this area or some suggested  
terms to use to search journals and my university library.

Should I be looking for the terms "novice computer users" or "novice  
Internet users"?

I am sure this is a valuable area of research as this is part of  
connecting people to the net that so much public money is supporting.

One would not think there would need to lessons in using a telephone  
( may be there were in the past) and the telephone is also affected by  
public money.

I know from my own reading internet studies and data that training is  
an important predictor. Not the most important but it has an affect.

My biases are that I would like new users to get a good view of the  
diversity rather than all being funneled into Google, MSN, Facebook,  
etc.

For instance in helping my Scottish mother-in-law I suggested she  
would be able to read Scottish new papers everyday on her computer.