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UK Kids Online - Young people, media literacy and the digital divide
Policy focused on benefits of the European information society
Challenge – to ensure children and young people ‘media literate’
Problems – digital inequality and exclusion; risk and safety
Also – just what do we want for kids online? And from whom?
EU Kids Online
A thematic network examining European research on cultural, contextual and risk
issues in children's safe use of the internet and new media
Funded by the EC Safer Internet plus Programme (2006-9)
Aims to compare recent and ongoing empirical research in 18 member states
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany,
Greece, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, UK
– identify and evaluate available data on children’s use of online technologies
– inform the research agenda, noting gaps in the evidence base
– compare findings across Europe, contextualising similarities and differences
– produce a best practice guide for methodological issues and challenges
– develop policy recommendations for awareness-raising and media literacy
UK Children Go Online
UK 9-19 year olds who use the internet at least once a week (N=1511, 2004)
90% do schoolwork
94% search for information
72% send/receive email
70% play games
55% instant messaging
55% (aged 12+) visit civic/political site
46% download music
44% (12+) search careers/education
44% completed a quiz
40% (12+) search goods/shop online
40% visit sites for hobbies
34% made a website
26% (12+) read the news
28% visiting sports sites
25% (12+) seek personal advice
23% info on computers/internet
22% voted for something online
21% visit chat rooms
17% post pictures or stories
10% visit a porn site on purpose
Social networking – the latest trend
MySpace 5.2 million UK users, Bebo 2.7 million; internationally, 12-17 year olds
make up 12% MySpace traffic, 14% Facebook …
USA 13-18 yrs: 75 ‘friends’ on average (SNS), 52 IM buddies, 38 mobile contacts
Pew/Internet 2007: 55% online teens have SNS profile, mixing genuine and false
info; to stay in touch with people they know (91%) and make new friends (49%)
Latest fad or exciting potential worth capitalising on? Little UK research …
What do we want for children online?
Scoping what’s available …Contents Services
Public sector PSB (TV/educational) content Children’s search engines
Museums, NASA, etc Youth helplines/ advice
Civic/participation sites E-learning provision
etc. etc.
Private sector Google Earth Children’s portals
Wikipedia Multiplayer games
TV/film/sport-related sites Search engines (Google)
etc. etc.
And what about:
Neopets, Limewire, MSN, Habbo Hotel, LiveJournal, MySpace,
Deviant art, and the many gaming sites, fanzines and more?
A Children’s Internet Charter? Children should have content of high quality made specifically for them, and
which does not exploit them. In addition to entertaining, this should allow children to develop physically, mentally and socially to their fullest potential
Children should hear, see and express themselves, their culture, their languages and their life experiences, through online content and services which affirms their sense of self, community and place
Children's content should promote an awareness and appreciation of other cultures in parallel with the child's own cultural background
Children's content should be wide-ranging in genre and content, but should not include gratuitous scenes of violence and sex
Children's content should be readily available to children and distributed via widely accessible media or technologies
Sufficient funds must be made available to make these contents and services to the highest possible standards
Governments, production, distribution and funding organisations should recognise both the importance and vulnerability of indigenous children's content, and take steps to support and protect it.
Thank you
For more information,
contact Sonia Livingstone
or see
www.children-go-online.net
www.eukidsonline.net
