News for the Week of October 21, 2007
Topping youth-tech news this week is a new study that says a majority of teens don't feel threatened by online stranger contact.
Teens and stranger contact
Pew researcher Aaron Smith likens the Internet to a park, mall, or any other public space, where most of teens' encounters with others are fine, but some can be scary or risky. "Just 7% of online teens have ever had an interaction with a stranger that made them feel scared or uncomfortable," though nearly a third (32%) "have been contacted by someone with no connection to them or any of their friends," according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project's press material about the study.
The uncomfortable contacts - which the study found girls have more than boys - aren't terribly surprising, the study says, however, since a full 49% of social-networking teens "use these sites to make new friends." Also not surprising, the Associated Press's coverage suggests, "because Pew counts as 'stranger contacts' comments left on photo-sharing sites and requests to become friends at social-networking sites." It just may be the case, Aaron adds, that teens "see some level of unwanted contact as a known downside" of social networking - "a relatively minor 'cost of doing business' in this environment."
Who's at higher risk
Teens who post photos online, create social-networking profiles, and use social sites to flirt are more likely to experience online stranger contact, the study says. Still, while social-networking teens are more likely to be contacted by strangers in the first place, "they are no more likely to find these interactions scary than other online teens."
Parents, you may want to note that it's the child's intention that is key, here. The study found that "teens who use social-networking sites to flirt are more likely to be contacted by people they don't know … although a similar effect is not seen in teens who use social-networking sites to make new friends." This finding is consistent with another emerging fact in online-safety research - that it's the teens who are seeking out risk in life in general who are more at risk online (see "Profile of a teen online victim").
Interestingly (and consistent, it appears to me, with research at the Crimes Against Children Research Center - see "New approach to safety education suggested"), Pew found that "there is no consistent association between stranger contact and the types of information posted in a profile" (e.g., first or last name, school name, email address) and "no statistically significant association between stranger contact and having a public profile (letting everyone see your profile instead of just friends)".
The Pew Internet Project is a non-partisan, non-profit research center that examines the social impact of the Internet. View the full, four-page data memo here.
In other news...
- Kids' virtual worlds hot. There's a mini boom of kids' virtual world afoot, CNET reports, probably fueled by the success of Webkinz and Neopets and Disney's acquisition of ClubPenguin. One reason: "more kids are flocking to imaginative, character-driven environments. An expected 53% of children on the Web will belong to a virtual world within four years, more than doubling the current population of 8.2 million members," reports CNET, citing eMarketer figures. Other worlds and services CNET mentions are WebbliWorld.com from the creators of Wallace & Gromit, GaiaOnline.com, Stardoll.com, and Nickelodeon's Nicktropolis. I would add Whyville.net as another prominent one, and possible Finland-based Habbo.com, though it probably skews slightly older. A related CNET article asks, "Are kids ready for ads in such spaces?". Since this interactive advertising goes well beyond cereal boxes and TV spots to immersive games and other forms of direct involvement for children, it's a good question to ask.
- Copyright protection on the social Web. A handful of very large media and social-Web companies have created a coalition designed to protect copyrights on sites such as MySpace, the Associated Press reports. The coalition announced some copyright-protection guidelines for the industry to follow, including 1) having in place by the end of the year "filtering software that blocks all content media companies flag as being unauthorized," 2) keeping the filters up to date, and 3) "cooperation between media and Web companies to allow 'wholly original' user-generated videos to be posted and to accommodate 'fair use' of copyrighted material as allowed under law. Coalition members include Disney, Viacom, CBS, NBC, and News Corp. on the media side and Microsoft, MySpace (whose parent is News Corp.), Veoh Networks and Dailymotion on the Web side.
YouTube didn't join the coalition, possibly because of Viacom's lawsuit against it. YouTube did, however, just announce its own copyright protection system that employs "software to find unique characteristics in the clips so it can detect copies posted by YouTube users without permission," the Los Angeles Times reports. Both the AP and the L.A. Times said neither the new coalition nor YouTube have as yet defined "fair use," though both said fair use of copyrighted material would be allowed. Stay tuned. - Kids' screen time. Nearly half of US parents say their kids watch too much TV and "about a third of parents believe the Internet sucks up too much of their child's time," CNET reports. Where the Net's concerned, how much time is that? "More than three-quarters of Americans age 12 and older spend about 8.9 hours online per week, up about an hour from a 2005 study from the USC-Annenberg Digital Future Project," CNET says. "But young people, specifically ages 8 to 18, spend about an hour on the computer and 49 minutes playing video games per day, according to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation." The article cites the view of CommonSenseMedia.org founder Jim Steyer that the need is for engaged parents promoting balance among all of a children's activities, on screen and off (see Common Sense's "Tips for a Healthy Media Diet for Young Kids").
- Family PC purchase decisions. There's help from the Wall Street Journal, where tech writer Walt Mossberg says people who prefer Windows XP can still get in on some new PCs (e.g., Dells), and there's reason to do so. He offers a host of tips on what to look for in purchasing any PC or laptop, from OS to hard drive to memory to the benefits of buying home vs. business computers.
