The Impact of Caregiver's Usage of Internet on Teenager's Cognitive Skills

In the digital age, internet becomes an important source of information gathering and maintains network of human social contact. In this paper, we use micro data from CFPS to examines the effects of guardian's choice of using internet on teenager's cognitive skills. Using fixed effect model and instrumental variable model, we find that guardian's internet usage has a sizable and significant positive effect on teenager's cognitive ability measured by math and verbal test scores. Further exploration of mechanism shows that internet usage affects cognitive skills through direct channels (increasing learning resources) and indirect channels (improving parenting skills). Heterogeneous analysis shows that the impact is stronger for guardians in rural areas and less-educated guardians. The result suggests that promoting internet for the less educated family in rural areas can potentially improve children's academic performance and decrease inequality transmitted across generation. ; 隨著數字經濟的發展，互聯網成为重要的收集信息和構建社交網絡的渠道。在本文中，我們使用CFPS的微觀數據來檢驗監護人使用互聯網的情况對青少年認知的影響。使用基站密度和移動互聯網用户數量作为工具變量，我們的研究結果表明，監護人的互聯網使用對青少年的認知能力有顯著的積極影響。文中的認知能力通過數學和語言測試來衡量。對機制的進一步探索表明，監護人使用互聯網，增加了孩子教育投資，改善了監護人的教育理念，進而來影響青少年認知。异質性分析表明，農村地區的監護人或受教育水平較低的監護人受到的影響更大。結果表明，鼓勵農村地區受教育程度較低的家庭使用互聯網可以潜在地提高孩子的學業表現進而减少代際傳遞的不平等。 ; GUO, Keyi. ; M.Phil. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2021. ; Includes bibliographical references (leaves ) ; Abstracts in English and Chinese. ; Title from PDF title page (viewed on .)