March 2008 - Posts
A six month study which announces the first national strategy for child internet safety has been set out in a report for government today by Dr Tanya Byron named as "Safer Children in a Digital World"
The report argues that the government and the online and games industry must do more to provide comprehensive information to parents, young people and educators, develop an updated and consistent system for classifying computer games and develop clearer codes of practice for social networking sites.
Dr Byron states that the pace of the online revolution has left parents as "internet immigrants" and children as "internet natives" which often causes fears for parents who may be struggling to stay in touch with the ever expanding developments and trends in technology. According to the Byron report it has shown that parents are most worried by online predators but children are most concerned by cyberbullying.
The Byron Report proposes:
- A UK wide strategy to develop and deliver child internet safety across the country and support parents and educators in teaching children and supporting them to manage the risks and dangers of the digital world. This should be supported and implelmented in Schools by Government, Ofsted, Becta and the TDA.
- A national UK Council for Child Internet Safety to implement the strategy, with a fixed timetable for industry experts; a parents' panel and child development experts to implement recommendations.
- A standard benchmark for the video and online games; clearer/standard classification, improved parental controls and guidance on the advertisement of games.
- The creation of a website for parents to find out more information about online safety and how to implement control mechanisms such as filtering, pin codes and locks.
- New codes of practice to regulate social networking sites, Bebo, Facebook, Myspace, Youtube etc including clear guidelines and standards on privacy and harmful content, and for them to be reviewed by an independent body to ensure it’s being enforced.
- A new law based on a 2006 Law Commission recommendation making it unlawful to assist suicide on the internet.
- A comprehensive public information and awareness campaign on child internet safety to educate parents, young people, teachers etc to ensure they can get the most from technology without being overexposed to the risks and dangers
A recent report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) ahead of the impending Byron review, which will be offical released later today, has uncovering some interesting figures about how much time and access today’s youth has to the internet and technology.It states that "a generation of youth is being raised online"According to their findings many young people are spending in excess of 20 hours a week using popular sites such as bebo, Myspace and youtube ”. The research was conducted with young people aged between 13 and 18 from a variety of social-economic backgrounds via workshops and in-depth interviews.
The IPPR report recommends an increased involvement and responsibility on internet content by Ofcom, enforced if necessary by the government to protect young people from harmful internet content. It also recommends that popular sites should develop guidelines and limits for young people (also to be enforced by Ofcom) and should also commit to becoming members of the Internet Watch Foundation. The IPPR report will also propose that the DCFS should be given an overall control for “media literacy” and support parents in developing awareness, competency and key skills to help their children use the internet safely and manage risks accordingly.
Other findings in a report by Kay Withers called Behind the Screen: the Hidden Life of Youth (due to be published in April 2008) were that 80% (4 out of 5) of 5 – 15 year olds have access to the internet at home. 49% of 8 and 11 year olds, and 80% 12 to 15 year olds have their own mobile phone. Two in five (40%) of 8-11s and over two-thirds (71%) of 12-15s say they mostly use the internet on their own at home.Kay Withers stated that “The internet offers great benefits and opportunities for young people. But with kids spending an ever increasing amount of time online parents need to be reassured about what they are looking at. Government needs to improve media literacy programmes for kids and to make sure parents are aware of how they can support young people's positive online experiences. But more importantly internet companies need to take more responsibility for the content on their sites and promote acceptable behaviour.”
An article in The Times this week discusses the ideas raised at the annual Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) conference 2008, that teachers are becoming increasingly at risk of being victims of Cyberbullying..
A recent ALT poll found that 1 in 6 teachers had been victims of Cyberbullying by either pupils or parents. The increasing number of video phones in schools has been suggested as a possibly reason in this number. The same survey found that over half of those questioned (270 members) knew pupils who were being Cyberbullied.
The union is planning to debate a motion at its conference in Torquay that discusses the “risk posed to the privacy, safety and work-life balance of teachers by government proposals for pupils’ online access to teaching staff” and how staff and pupils can be protected.
A similar idea will also be debated at NASUWT’s annual conference.
The Swedish Media Council commissioned a report into MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) "Living in the world of Warcraft" in 2007 which was carried out by Jonas Linderoth, PhD, and Ulrika Bennerstedt, MA, of Gothenburg University. The report focused on the game World of Warcraft and 10 young people (aged 17-19) were spoken to about their experiences and involvement in the game and its impact/effects on their lives.
World of Warcraft is one of the more popular MMORPGs with around 9 million users, despite users needed to pay to subscribe to the game. The game has its own diverse lexicon and even has its own wiki to explain the complexities of the game.
The results of this report have now been translated into English and their findings make interesting reading.
One of the findings from the research highlighted the fact that users found the game needed considerable devotion and time to progress and "level" and this made the most significant impact on their lives with regards to relationships, education and even personal hygiene! However the game did provide opportunities to socialise and develop communication skills when regulated. However this can be difficult to enforce, although Blizzard (The game's developers) have taken steps towards this by adding Parental Controls to the game so parents can structure the time their children can play WOW online for.
A recent study from Tescos Computers for Schools has shown that girls may now be ahead of boys when it comes to technology and its use in today’s society. It was an independent study completed by Tickbox research on behalf of Tesco, and the total survey sample base was 1,024 UK parents with children aged 7-16.
Despite I.T. and gadgets being traditionally perceived as the territory of boys, the survey found that girls perform better on the computer, with a higher percentage of girls being able to perform key operations such as using search engines, creating and editing word documents, downloading files, creating social networking profiles and using and manipulating photography.
This recent UK research correlates with “Indeed”, a study published in December by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in the USA. It found that in a surveyed group of Web users ages 12 to 17, more girls than boys blog (35% of girls, 20% of boys) and create or work on their own Web pages (32 % of girls, 22 % of boys). Girls also surpass boys when it comes to creating profiles on social networking sites (70% of girls 15 to 17 had one, versus 57 % of boys). Video sharing was the only area in which boys outdid girls as boys were almost twice as likely as girls to post videos.
The increasing shift from Web 1.0 (downloading information) to Web 2.0 (uploading information) appears to have captured the imaginations of girls in a way previously not seen before. According to research from the Berkman Centre for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, it has been suggested that this may be because girls are encouraged to express themselves more and are using the internet as a tool for this. Boys seem to be more focused on using web 2.0 as a tool to share photos and videos possibly to “impress” peers rather than express their originality.
The UK survey also uncovered some other interesting figures:
- 73% of children surveyed are using a computer everyday
- 76% of those are using a computer up to 3 hours/day.
- 41% admit they couldn't live without the internet
- Nearly three quarters, 73% can use search engines and 62% can edit word documents by the age of 7
By their teens (16), children surveyed can confidently:
- Create a social networking profile, 70%
- Download music 59%
- Download photos 71%,
- Edit and manipulate photography 35%
- Make a film and upload it 22%
An important finding of the research in the UK that is worth thinking about was the fact that more than half (57%) of parents questioned said they relied on their children for advice on how to use their computer and the internet. Only 40% of parents considered themselves to be the most proficient computer user in their household. Compaired with the growth in ability of their children this could have an important impact on e-Safety and it's application in the home.