EU research on the use of SNS by Children

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EU research on the use of SNS by Children

• Dr Leslie Haddon
• EU Kids Online
• Meeting on European Social Networking Taskforce,
• Brussels, 26th June, 2008

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Examples of academic research Europe

• Surveys looking at frequencies in relation to
  social networking sites e.g. Denmark, Ireland,
  UK
• Studies including social networking e.g. Norway,
  UK, Italy, Belgium
• Qualitative studies of specific social networking
  sites e.g. Estonia, Denmark

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Examples of academic research Europe

• Other qualitative studies e.g. UK (styles and
  privacy), France (emergence of networks), Estonia
  (content creation)
• Other quantitative e.g. The Netherlands
  (self-esteem), Cyprus (personal information
  online)

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Youth interest in Social Networking Sites

• Overlap with young peoples offline interests
• hanging out,
• flirting,
• trying to build social status,
• deciding what image they want to present
• (Boyd)

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Youth activities online

• Building own profiles (present self to peers)
• Visiting other profiles (to see how others
  present themselves)
• Commenting on profiles, photos etc
• (often positive, reciprocated)
• Important for self-confidence, self-identity,
  self-esteem (Netherlands)

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Authentic vs. fake profiles

• Hence, many of the profiles are authentic, even
  if presenting themselves in a good light
• Sometimes there is great criticism of fake
  profiles (e.g. Denmark)
• BUT Some youth themselves create fake profiles
  (as identity play)

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Example

• You can pretend to be anyone, you can trick
  someone. A friend of mine told someone she was
  gay! We could do anything and we changed our name
  and someone thought we were boys and we were gay
  and we played a trick on this girl - Girl 15, UK

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Negative communications

• Various national studies stress how much
  communication is positive (e.g. Denmark, France,
  UK, Netherlands, Italy, Estonia)
• Only a minority of actions on SNS were negative
  e.g. following arguments offline between peers,
  ex-boy/girlfriends, teasing by posting
  embarrassing pictures

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Online continues offline

• From the countries where we have research, most
  social networking sites are used by youth to
  communicate with known people, usually peers
  (e.g. Norway, Denmark, UK, Estonia, Ireland)
• E.g. (UK) 92 mainly use sites to stay in touch
  with friends, family they see a lot

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Adding friends

• One practice, is competing to add friends to the
  friends list - as a sign of popularity
• BUT, this does sometimes mean adding friends
  who young people have not meant offline (Ireland,
  UK)
• Even if privacy settings are set to private, it
  means these strangers have access to profiles

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Making new friends and age

• Although not the main use, some young people did
  use SNS to make new friends
• E.g. 12 of youth in an Irish survey said this
  was the main aim
• 20 of 12-14 year olds say this as the main aim
• vs.
• 9 of the 15-17 year olds

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Contact with strangers

• 17 talk to people I dont know on SNS (OfCom,
  UK)
• Meeting people only known via SNS no figures,
  but the OfCom qualitative study noted that some
  young people mitigated risks by meeting in public
  places and bringing friends.
• For some it was free online dating

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Background to privacy issues

• Young people spend a lot of time in adult
  supervised spaces (school, many parts of the
  home, after school activities, etc) and this may
  be increasing
• But space for unmonitored peer interaction is
  valued
• This is part of the appeal of the Internet and SNS

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Privacy issues

• Hence privacy is valued from adults, especially
  parents! (e.g. Norway, UK)
• Privacy is considered e.g. what to put on the
  profile (Livingstone, 2008)
• But putting up some things in the profile that
  are personal is also a means to gaining intimacy

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Privacy issues

• Hence, they may be aware of adults online, but
  they put up details anyway
• That said, US research shows that many do take
  some precautions e.g. putting some fake details
  on profiles, not giving details that would allow
  a stranger to locate them

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Privacy issues

• What adults think should be private is not
  necessarily what young people think should be
  private
• Various studies indicate information that young
  people give out (e.g. Ireland) 8 home address,
  12 mobile phone, 49 date of birth

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Privacy settings

• Mixed picture in Europe (in the UK, 41 of youth
  had profiles set to public)
• There could be problems understanding settings
  (OfCom, Livingstone in the UK)
• But part of the decision to leave the settings
  public can be the desire to be visible to other
  teenagers (Boyd)

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Parental rules

• In general, most studies suggest that parents do
  not know much about SNS
• 65 parents say the set rules about their
  childrens use of SNS, 53 of children said the
  parents set rules (OfCom, UK)
• Two main types of rule meeting new people (30)
  , giving out personal details (27) (parents
  figures)

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Young children

• (OfCom UK) 27 of 8-11 year olds claim to have a
  profile on a site
• Some sites cater for younger children, but most
  have minimum age that is higher
• The qualitative study confirmed underage use
• In addition 15 of 6-11 have used Bebo, 4 have
  used Facebook, 8 have used MySpace (Nielsen,
  August 2007, in the Ofcom report)