Assessing the relationships between young adults’ travel and use of the internet over time

Although young people’s mobility behaviors and their association with information and communications technologies (ICT) usage have been extensively researched, few studies have considered the relationship between changes in the use of ICT over time and young people’s travel patterns. This paper explores how use of the Internet during adolescence/late childhood and the degree of change while transitioning from late childhood to adulthood is related to sustainable travel patterns in young adults. We are particularly interested in the mediating role that attitudes towards the environment have on the relationship between early age Internet use and sustainable travel in young adults. The use of rich, longitudinal datasets, the 2004 British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the Understanding Society Survey (Wave 4, 2012/14), allow an investigation of these attitudes and relationships for the same people from childhood to adulthood. We use structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the complex interrelationships between young adults’ Internet use over time, their travel modes and attitudes towards the environment, and other related behaviors. Our key finding is that consistently high levels of Internet use between adolescence and young adulthood is associated with the formation of environmental attitudes. While other factors not considered in this study might also have an effect, we find that these attitudes are indirectly but significantly associated with young adults’ sustainable travel patterns and behaviors.

"study differentiates between the travel outcomes of young adults who are heavy users of the Internet (defined as those who used the Internet on a daily basis) from those who do not use the Internet heavily. We find that the frequency with which the Internet was used by young adults is positively related to their sustainable travel behavior. Young people who used the Internet heavily over time in a sustained manner resulted in having a long-term and intensive exposure to the Internet, which may have played an important role in the formation of their environmental attitudes and awareness. Such attitude significantly influences their travel patterns, which makes their travel behavior distinct from that of other young adults, who did not consistently use the Internet heavily over time. We also considered those who recently started using the Internet daily. We call this group as new heavy users. Although new heavy users are inclined to use bus, train, and car-sharing modes frequently, such Internet-travel interactions tend to be immediate and direct as they are not additionally mediated by the travelers’ positive attitude towards the environment. For experienced heavy users, however, their long-term exposure to the Internet results in an even stronger interaction between ICT and travel, which is greatly mediated and supported by their pro-environmental attitude. As a result, they have more sustainable travel patterns with even lower levels of car use and more cycling" (Wu et al. 2019: 18).