Anne Bubnic's List: Digital Citizenship/Research on Digital Youth

John Palfrey & Urs Gasser [Berkman Center] identify 9 myths about Digital Natives and offer succinct interpretations based on research and observations of youth. Educators involved in digital citizenship efforts may find a shift in thinking is necessary in how we educate students about issues related to online safety, copyright, privacy etc....where their confusions are and what they do/don't understand. It's also important to understand the significance of social groups and online communities on our youth and how they motivate development of friendship-driven and interest-driven content.

U.S. moms and dads estimate that their children spend only two hours a month on the internet, but kids say they actually spend 10 times more time - or 20 hours - according to a recent study, the first <b>Norton Online Living Report </b>by Symantec (via MarketingCharts). 41% of respondents age 13-17 say their parents have no idea what they do online, and only 33% of parents worldwide say they set parental controls and monitor their children’s online activities.

Links to video/audio and full transcripts of a children's online safety panel [May 2007] with Danah Boyd, David Finkelhor, Amanda Lenhart and Michelle Yberra. This was the first time these prominent academics have appeared together to present their research, which, altogether, represents volumes of data on the state of online youth victimization and online youth habits. The 34-page transcript/download is worth the read. You'll also want to download a copy of David Finkelhor's <a href ="http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/internet-crimes/Internet Factsheet_portrait version_2-6-08_khf.pdf"><b>Just the Facts: Getting It Right </b></a>, which he developed so that presenters would accurately represent his research findings. In this document, he coaches you explicitly on how to report the facts. Very valuable, since reports on incidences of online victimization are so inconsistent and so many people misinterpret the findings! <br>

An academic research team -- joining people from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland -- is hosting and working on the core of this wiki, which illustrates the beginning stages of a larger research project on Digital Natives. The site offers a wealth of information in 10 topic areas:<br>\nDigital Identity, digital safety, digital privacy, digital creativity, digital opportunities, digital information overload, digital information quality, digital piracy and digital education. <br><br>

Anne Collier provides us with thoughtful analysis and commentary on the MacArthur Foundation's recent symposium [April 2008) at Stanford, "From MySpace to Hip Hop: New Media In the Everyday Lives of Youth." Click here for the entire <a href=""http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/blog/3"><b>Digital Youth presentation</b></a>.

On April 23, 2008, public forum, <b>"From MySpace to Hip Hop: New Media In the Everyday Lives of Youth," </b> reported on the interim findings of the ethnographic project funded by the MacArthur Foundation, <b> "Kids' Informal Learning through Digital Media," </b>conducted by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Southern California. Part 1, 4-23-08. This event addressed how digital technologies and new media are changing the way that young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life. The forum was presented by Common Sense Media, the MacArthur Foundation and the Stanford University School of Education.

Danah Boyd participated in the Berkman Luncheon Series [Harvard] to discuss her work and research in the area of social networks. She provided a great historical context to the various sites that have come and gone from the center of Internet activity, as well as some insight into what brought about their successes and failures.\n\nPrior to her presentation she explained, "Publics offer youth a space to engage in cultural identity development. By engaging in public life, youth learn to interpret the cultural signals that surround them and incorporate these cultural elements into their life. For a diverse array of reasons, contemporary youth have limited access to the types of publics with which most adults grew up. As a substitute for these inaccessible publics, networked publics like MySpace and Facebook are emerging to provide contemporary American youth with a necessary site for peer engagement."

Media technology is an integral part of children's lives in the twenty-first century. The world of electronic media, however, is changing dramatically. Television, until recently the dominant media source, has been joined by cell phones, iPods, video games, instant messaging, social networks on the Internet, and e-mail.This volume examines the best available evidence on whether and how exposure to different media forms is linked to child well-being. Contributors to the volume consider evidence for both children and adolescents and consider the quality of the available studies.

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society, originally established as a research center at Harvard Law School, has been elevated to a University-wide, interfaculty initiative: the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. This transition enhances the University’s capacity for interdisciplinary exploration of issues involving information technology.

Blog from Danah Boyd. Last week, she and three other social scientists participated in an Internet Caucus panel in DC. David Finkelhor (Director of Crimes Against Children Research Center), Amanda Lenhart (PEW), and Michele Ybarra (President of Internet Solutions for Kids) all presented quantitative data. Most of the press coverage of Michele and David's work has been terrible in representing the implications of their findings and they helped clarify some of the misinterpretations. The Internet Caucus put the video up online so you can view the actual conversation. <br><br>Personal note: David Finkelhor has a great document that helps clarify interpretations of his work. He coaches you on what to say. You can download <a href = "http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/internet-crimes/Internet Factsheet_portrait version_2-6-08_khf.pdf">INTERNET SAFETY EDUCATION FOR TEENS: GETTING IT RIGHT</a> and use it for your next presentation! <br> <br>

[May 18, 2008] Most online Americans view online shopping as a way to save time and a convenient way to buy products. At the same time, most internet users express discomfort over a key step in online shopping -- sending personal or credit card information over the internet. Internet users like the convenience but worry about the security of their online information.

From the UK Home Office Task Force: Best Practices for the providers of social networking and other user interactive services. Download the full Report. <br><br>The first UK Social Networking Guidance provides advice for industry, parents and children about how to stay safe online. This has been developed by a taskforce of representatives from industry, charity and law enforcement agencies including Vodafone, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). <br><br>

UC Berkeley study administered by the Institute for the Study of Social Change. The findings on three years of ethnographic work on 22 different case studies of youth engagement with new media will be published in Summer 2008.

Teens write a lot, but they do not think of their emails, instant and text messages as writing. This disconnect matters because teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them.

With the release of Version 3, Diigo has fairly effectively expanded its reach into the social networking venue even farther. Aside from that, the inherent tools available on Diigo as a aggregationa and research platform have been expanded greatly also.

Well-integrated technology opens social networks for students and allows children to develop key social skills, according to two recent studies conducted by researchers at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In alarming numbers, teenagers who think they are fully prepared to make ethical decisions are also driven by the pursuit of success to cheat, by time constraints to plagiarize, and by vengeance to inflict physical violence. This paints a disturbing picture for employers who will be relying on this age group to fill the pipeline in their future workforces. The fifth annual <b>JA/Deloitte Teen Ethics Survey </b>found that while most teens (71 percent) feel fully prepared to make ethical decisions in the workplace, nearly 40 percent of those young people believe that lying, cheating, plagiarizing, and violence are sometimes necessary to succeed in school. Download the attached Executive Summary and survey results documents to learn more.

The percentage of U.S. youngsters aged 10 to 17 who said they were victims of cyberbullying increased from 6 percent to 9 percent from 2000-05, to a report by the <b>University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center</B>, as reported by USA Today Tuesday, said.

The report also found that the number of young people who said they had "made rude or nasty comments to someone on the Internet" increased from 14 percent to 28 percent in the same period.

Teens who build and frequent social networking sites are learning 21st century skills (tech skills, creativity, diverse viewpoints and communication skills), according to a University of Minnesota study. This page takes you directly to video interviews with the researchers from U of M.