Types of Internet Usage Among Higher Education Students in the Romanian-Hungarian Cross-Border Area

The present study aims to fill the existing gaps in the Eastern European empirical analyses, providing a descriptive and explanatory image of the university students’ Internet usage patterns. We used the data collected within an international research project on higher education students in the Romanian (n=1,323) – Hungarians (n=1,295) cross-border area. Overall, Hungarian students spend more time online daily (a median of 120 minutes/day) than their Romanian counterparts from the same region (a median of 100 minutes/day). We found that university students’ Internet consumption patterns are differently affected at country level by gender, residence, financial situation and parents’ education level. Based on a factorial analysis, we differentiate three types of online activities of the students: for academic purpose, for entertainment and consumption, and for information and communication. Subsequently we examined the socio-demographical correlates of the amount of these types of activities. Overall, we found that Hungarian students use more the Internet for academic purpose than Romanian students. For the last subsample, the academic usage of the Internet is the less frequent online activity. Romanian students tend to be involved in entertainment, communication and leisure online activities in a larger measure than the Hungarian in the investigated area. This was explained by students’ residence, marital status, and by their parents’ educational level and financial situation.