Survey shows kids embrace the adventure – and danger – of life online

The Ottawa-based Media Awareness Network has revisited the landmark study of young Canadians’ Internet use it first conducted in 2001, and found that the pace of technological adoption among youngsters has accelerated greatly over the past four years. More than 5,200 children in Grades 4 to 11 – a group that spans the ages nine to 17 – were interviewed for the confidential Young Canadians in a Wired World survey. This time around, however, there was a clear trend towards the youngest ones surveyed becoming more advanced and emulating the behavior of older respondents. "I think that what we found really surprising was how active they are in…Grades ," Cathy Wing, program coordinator for the Young Canadians in a Wired World report. "They’re doing all the same activities that older kids are." While those nine-, 10- and 11-year olds still aren’t spending as much time online as older children, they are downloading digital content, creating weblogs and personal websites, and talking with others in real-time on instant messaging and chat programs. Playing games online was voted the most popular activity online for the youngest cohort of boys, with gaming sites Addicting Games and Miniclip proving the two most popular destinations for all ages on average (see table on page 1). However, gaming took a backseat to instant messaging and chat for girls even at the youngest ages, and soon fell to second-place among older boys in the survey sample. And while convergence projects – especially those driving fans of a TV show to the web – were popular in the 2001 phase, they were less so this time around. "Although with the younger kids YTV and the Family Channel are still coming up in the top five…after Grade 4 and 5 you don’t see that anymore – they’re almost all gaming sites," Wing says. Another finding was that digital devices other than personal computers were gaining with kids and teenagers, with 23% of those surveyed saying they had their own cell phone. Of those, nearly half said their phones were Internet-capable, providing another point of access to the Web, while more than half said their devices featured IM and text messaging. Kids were also going online for schoolwork more frequently, Wing says. "Even in Grade 4 and 5, they’re using the ‘Net everyday for school," and most prefer to draw on online sources rather than make a trip to the library: 91% of Grade 11 students interviewed choose the Internet over books from the library. However, there is a caveat, she says. While more than half of all kids believed using online sources didn’t adversely affect the quality of their schoolwork, "you have the vast majority saying ‘I need to know if the information I’m finding online is true’," Wing states. She adds that many kids expressed a desire to see courses that teach skills to determine the veracity of online material taught in their schools. ONLINE SAFETY STILL NEEDS WORKOne in three of those interviewed said they had visited a site featuring objectional material, including pornography, hate, gore or violence, gambling or adult chat, with boys more likely to do so than girls. Despite that relatively high number, Wing says it’s overwhelmingly due to an interest in unknown or forbidden subject matter, a standard experimental phase for kids. The proof of that, she says, is the concern they express about kids younger than themselves viewing the same material they’ve been exposed to. "They’re seeing things that disturb them, because when we ask ‘Do you think kids should be protected from these types of sites?’ they say yes, in huge numbers, especially when ‘Should you protect someone two years younger ?’ Almost 90% of the kids are saying yes," Wing notes. "And really, kids are just often one click away from something disturbing." Many kids said rules governing the amount of time spent online and the type of content that could be accessed were in place within their homes, but more so for boys than girls. Wing says she believes this gender discrepancy could account for the fact that more boys say they’ve viewed age-inappropriate content, meaning such rules work. "What this survey shows really clearly is that in homes where there’s rules, the behavior is impacted in a really positive way." And while she admits high school-aged kids are less likely to follow such rules, "it still has an impact." Many parents employ software filters and other methods of keeping their kids away from offensive websites, but the study didn’t ask kids whether or not they were subject to such controls. "They told us that they were largely ineffective; there’s too many places of access that are unrestricted for them, and they just felt that they weren’t useful for that reason," Wing says. "It’s impossible to protect kids completely." And while graphic child safety campaigns of yesteryear dealing with telephone etiquette and talking to strangers have been updated to reflect the realities of the Internet era, many kids still strike up online friendships that eventually culminate in a real-world meeting. "They know about stranger danger, though I think they’re still quite naïve and trusting when it comes to these relationships that they develop online." Nearly a quarter of the kids and teens interviewed overall said they had eventually met up with someone offline that they’d first met on the Internet, with a third of Grade 11s admitting to doing so. Sadly, some youngsters may not be getting the message when it comes to protecting their personal information. Nearly a third of kids across all age levels and genders said they’d give their real name and address if required when signing up for a free email account such as Yahoo Mail or Gmail, with older kids more likely to do so. In order to create a personal profile on a service such as Microsoft Corp.’s MSN, 27% of kids said they’d provide such information. This occurs, despite the existence of legislation and industry standards in Canada that limit the types of information that can be gathered for under-13 year-olds online, perhaps because kids value privacy from their parents’ prying eyes more highly than keeping strangers at bay. As might be expected with such an anonymous medium, many of those surveyed said they had pretended to be someone else while online at least once in the past. More than half said they’re pretended to be someone of a different age – presumably older – with personality and appearance rounding out the top three. Interestingly, 15% of kids said they’d pretended to be someone of a different sex, a figure Wing again says is likely due to healthy experimentation. "The boys in the focus groups they all wanted to be a woman girl, in their early 20s," she says. "Lots of fodder here for psychological research, I’m sure, in the future." Despite the perils and pitfalls awaiting kids online, the Internet is becoming a permanent fixture for many. In 2001, 79% of those interviewed said they accessed the Internet from a home connection; four years later, that figure jumped to 94%. And, one in five Grade 7 students and more than half of Grade 11 students reported having their own Internet-enabled computer. Says Wing: "We used to talk about it being another world, but kids don’t see it that way. It’s really just an extension of their life."

Survey shows kids embrace the adventure – and danger – of life online

News | 12/09/2005 5:00 am EST

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