Family values : the empirical impact of internet use.
Date
Authors
Access rights
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Family values are a set of ethical viewpoints pertaining to family matters that have the potential to have divisive effects for the private and public spheres. The formation of family values can be broken down into a spectrum ranging from two perspectives. Drawing from the perspectives highlighted in Hunter’s Culture Wars, this paper examines what predicts whether progressive, more secular, or traditional, more religious, family values will be held (1991). This paper looks at the effects of Internet use to see what leads to more progressive or more traditional family values. Taken from Wave 1 of the Baylor Religion Survey’s Moral Attitudes module, a scaled variable for family values is tested as a dependent variable in a variety of regressions. Internet use, educational attainment, religious beliefs, as well as sex of the respondent all emerge as important variables in predicting family values. Key findings of this study are that there is an association between family values and Internet use, and that males’ family values are highly influenced by Internet use, while females’ are more influenced by education.