HIB Theories and Adolescents

Cognitive:

According to Taylor (1968) whether or not a user has had previous experience with information service is a significant factor (p. 126). In the case of the Internet this is a very unique situation because the Internet is generally a place for teens to be entertained, communicate with friends and find information (p. 1471) For the most part it would be hard to imagine teens having a solely negative experience from using the Internet and it makes sense that they would consider it as an option for their information needs.

Additionally, as mentioned elsewhere in the blog, teens have an opportunity to craft their query on their own time and through their own preference. Teens tend to know what they want and they can use the Internet either to find information to “start a conversation with a health professional” (Gray, p. 1469) or keep searching until they find the information they need. Taylor stated: “Unless you are sure what the why is, you can never be sure what it is the person really wants” (p. 129). Teens may not always want to communicate their information needs through talking to someone (such as a parent, friend, health professional etc.) and using the Internet gives them the option to communicate in their own way through a medium by which they are comfortable and on which they have continually become to rely.

Social Constructivist:

“People describe, produce and build experiences, emotions, identities and social worlds through dialog and discourse” (lecture 4 HIB powerpoint). One could propose that the Internet itself is a social world and “since we share language and culture with others, and since they have made us what we are, we have a common ground on which to act and communicate” (Dreyfuss and Rabinow, 1982 as cited by Talja, p. 77).

This idea of social constructivism is even more important if we consider the role of actual online communities where so many teens find support. Gray et al describe for instance the experience of one user from their study who visited an online community: “she had now found empathy, support and confidence by visiting a chatroom where she could communicate with fellow sufferers. She had not realised how much common experience and anxiety she would share with other chatroom visitors (p. 1473).

Dervin+Cognitive:

Although Dervin’s sense-making theory is a significant part of HIB in health seeking contexts (as dicussed in Ormandy, 2010) the part of Dervin’s theory that was most striking in Gray’s article was the potential for growth in studying and creating more effective services for teens in and outside the medium of the Internet. For instance, since many teens were often unsuccessful in their searches (Gray et al.), perhaps information professionals could assist users by creating their own search engine (similar to Google) (*Any ideas for what we might call the search engine?) except rather than just having a basic search or advanced search option, users would have the opportunity to talk to a real librarian and discuss their search concerns. For instance, on the main search page there could be an “Ask a Librarian” option where users could type in what they were looking for and how they first searched and a librarian could guide them through their search so they could become more confident searchers and still use the Internet as an information tool.