Box 12.3 Student Use of Filtered Internet Access at School How do students actually use filtered Internet access at school? One study examined the usage in schools in which a given filtering system was used. In particular, the 300 most frequently accessed sites were examined, and these 300 sites accounted for "roughly half" of the total page views. For each instance of access to these 300 sites, the per-page viewing time was recorded, with the results shown below in the table below.   Fraction of Total Page Views Fraction of Overall Time Spent on All 300 Sites Average Time Spent on Site in This Category Portals and search (sites that attempt to branch out and connect users with content) 56.8 percent 51.7 percent 46 s Instructional reference and computing (sites that could be used for specific instructional purposes by teachers or students, general research and reference resources, and computer network resources) 14.2 percent 20.0 percent (41.4 percent) 60 s Music, games and fun (sites geared to entertainment and leisure) 10.6 percent 9.5 percent (19.7 percent) 48 s Commerce and e-services (commercial sites offering products or online services.) 10.5 percent 10.0 percent (20.7 percent) 51 s News and sports (online versions of national news, sports magazines, local news) 5.0 percent 6.2 percent (12.8 percent) 58 s Business and finance (financial news sites and online brokerage firms) 1.5 percent 1.9 percent (3.9 percent) 52 s Communities (sites providing content targeted to specific demographic groups and typically containing a large amount of user generated content such as chat and message boards.) 1.4 percent 0.7 percent (1.4 percent) 44 s According to these data, in-school Web access to sites related to e-commerce, chat and message board services, and recreational activities accounted for 20 percent of student activity. If time spent at portals and search engines is spread out proportionately over all other categories, non-educational Internet time accounted for 40 percent of student activity. Noting that these data are derived from schools in which a filtering system was in place, it is likely that the filter inhibited to some extent student use of inappropriate (and hence non-educational) sites, and so in the absence of the filter, the fraction of student Internet time spent on non-educational activities might have been higher than 40 percent. These data suggest that the presence of the filter does not keep students "on task" for much of their Internet time, but it is unknown what would have happened if the filter had not been present. SOURCE: N2H2, Inc. Analytic Services, K-12 Internet Use, N2H2 Winter Quarter, Learnings Report, Winter 2000. Available online at <http://web.archive.org/web/20000930212613/www.n2h2.com/edwhite/edwhite.pdf>.