The Advisory Committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus assembled several researchers who focus on online victimization with the intent of informing congressional decision making. The hour and one-half sessions is available from the link and the site also identifies key papers from the presenters.
The general conclusion might be that public perception is off target.
Some descriptive statements from the presentation:
Seldom young victims (most are teenagers).
Small percentage involve violence or abduction.
Seldom involve deception. Most are clear about sexual intentions. Multiple meetings for sex.
These findings have important implications for intervention – need to target teenagers, not teachers or parents (except to get them to talk to teenagers). The core problem is not about giving out personal information, having a blog, etc. Rather, predictors involve being willing to talk about sex online and going to sex sites. The situation is more like convincing teenagers not to engage in other risky behaviors (drinking, smoking).
Several months ago I highlighted Quintura – a search engine that generates both hits and a tag cloud in response to a query. The tag cloud allows the user to modify the original search (click on a tag) for more specific results.
Quintura now offers a beta version of Quintura for Kids. This site applies the same principles but offers what the company sees as a fun interface with suggested content areas not requiring an initial query and a a database of kid-friendly content. Traditional queries are also possible.
A blog post from Weblogg-ed brought my attention to a New York Magazine article entitled “Say Everything“. The article examines the issue of adolescent online openness through a series of personal accounts. The article concludes the behavior we witness online is a function of the following factors:
THEY THINK OF THEMSELVES AS HAVING AN AUDIENCE
THEY HAVE ARCHIVED THEIR ADOLESCENCE
THEIR SKIN IS THICKER THAN YOURS
New ideas?
The concept of audience (imaginary audience and personal fable) is not new as a way of thinking about adolescent behavior. I remember this topic from my early days teaching Adolescent Psych – a kind of egocentricism in which one makes the assumption that others are watching leading to a personal preoccupation with the story being played out. Of course, the Internet as a stage is not imaginary, but as in the FTF imaginary stage, the individual is possible the one paying the most attention.
The notion that we are purposefully creating a personal archive is possibly akin to a personal diary.
So assumed audience and archiving are not new, but the intent to distribute and the actual access of others may be different.
They are tougher. I am not sure I agree – perhaps it is important to act like “you just don’t care.”
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has released a recent study entitled Online Victimization of Youth: Five Years Later. Given recent political consideration of this topic focused on school and library access (DOPA), I read the report looking for some specific things. While any danger directed at our sons and daughters should concern us (I encourage you to take the time to read the report rather than rely completely on summaries such as this), each of us must also acknowledge that as adults responsible for children (as educators or parents) we constantly make decisions that expose our children to some element of risk. How do the risks match up with the educational potential of applications that may involve a certain element of danger?
A couple of data points from this study:
Four percent of those surveyed indicated experiencing an “aggressive sexual solicitation” (perpetrator made an effort to take the “experience” offline through phone contact, mail, or face to face meeting).
Location of computer when experiencing an agressive sexual solicitation – 79% home, 12% friend home, 9% school, library, or other.
Age of solicitor associated with “aggressive solicitation – 44% <18, 34% 18-25, 15% >25, 7% – no clue
Means of access – chat 32%, IM 54%, other 13%
Reaction – 44% removed self from situation, 23% warned solictor, 7% changed online name, 15% ignored, 2% reported to parent or authorities, 7% met person
It is the combination of these percentages we have to process. Is there a risk to adolescents? Obviously! Are school uses of communication technology involved? Rarely! Do adolescents act responsibly? Mostly!
While harsh, we have to make decisions about how a technology with a less than perfect record, but benefits to our children is to be implemented.
As a parent, I made a similar conscious or unconscious decision every time I let me children drive to school or take public transportation. It would probably have been safer for me to take the time to provide transportation myself. Maybe I was lazy. Maybe I decided that learning to drive responsibly or to handle the people one meets on the bus was part of the process of growing up.
What are the odds my son might have experienced permanent damage to his knee playing football? What are the educational benefits of playing football when evaluated against this potential for physical harm? Do a search on “high school”, “football” and “heat stroke”? You might be surprised by the number of deaths. It is interesting which risks seem to generate a response from the politicians.
Imbee, a new “safe” social networking and blogging for 8-14 year olds, has just been announced. There is a cost for full service and I wonder how this will influence participation (there are free alternatives – e.g., blogmeister).
I would guess the success of such ventures depends on some type of “critical mass.”
Will your average 7th grader be interested if his/her friends don’t have the $30 per year to join?
How important is the “unknown audience” to bloggers? Perhaps knowing that the audience is restricted will reduce motivation to be an active participant.
I see that additional individuals can be added at a much reduced rate. Perhaps there is some way to enroll a class of paricipants if the class can raise the money.
I think critical mass is a crucial concept in the popularity of social networking. The challenge is how to achieve what adolescents accept as critical mass within a restricted environment. I do think it is great that investors are willing to offer some alternatives. The services likely warrant the price. Good luck.
I have run into a number of issues within the last couple of weeks that have reminded me of the concept of disruptive technology.
These issues include:
DOPA – legislation proposed to require schools to block commercial networking sites
Net neutrality – issue of whether service providers should be able to prioritize what users access (e.g., preventing dsl providers from slowing access to VOIP)
What these issues have in common is a perceived threat from new capabilities of technology. Internet users may use VOIP rather than the phone because VOIP is less expensive than long distance. Kids in schools may access inappropriate web content or take pictures and use them inappropriately.
Will attempting to block these “opportunities” be productive?
If VOIP is valued, those who access VOIP using DSL will move to cable.
If MySpace is valued, kids will access from home.
If generating digital images or video is valued, kids wanting to capture images will use their cell phones or home computer.
Technologies with wide appeal have a way of surviving.
I am writing to indicate my opposition to the “Deleting Online Predators Act” or DOPA. To me this proposal seems a misguided overreaction to a legitimate problem. Blocking social network sites will remove many significant learning opportunities without addressing the core problem. Students need to learn about the infrequent, but real dangers of the Internet. Blocking access to a wide collection of sites – many of great value – will not increase student understanding or eliminate the problem once students are outside of the relatively well-monitored environment of the classroom or library.
In my opinion, the opportunity to turn access to specific sites on and off is not a realistic compromise and is seldom actually used. Many small schools in North Dakota receive service through Edutech – a state supported provider. I believe if you check you will learn that it is impractical for this provider to manipulate access for individual web sites for individual schools.
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