When it comes to kids building community, is the Internet more like a Girl Scout troop or a television set?
In the second half of the 20th Century, Americans' social connectedness plummeted. Observers place much of the blame for this decline of community on the growth of television watching -- instead of attending social or civic events -- as a central leisure activity. As children spend increasing amounts of time on the Internet, will these new habits contribute to or detract from our current and future "social capital"? Can the promise of the Internet be harnessed to promote community among children -- or will on-line living contribute to the decline of off-line connection? To put it another way:
When it comes to kids building community, is the Internet more like a Girl Scout troop or a television set?
Margie K. Shields
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Susan Linn
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Stephen Doheny-Farina
Margie K. Shields
Young people's access to computers is growing dramatically. Among households with children ages 2 to 17, ownership of home computers jumped from 48 percent in 1996 to 70 percent in 2000, and connections to the Internet catapulted from 15 percent to 52 percent over the same five-year period. An estimated 21 million children now access the Internet from home. But what, exactly, are young people doing when they sit in front of the computer screen? They could use the computer in ways similar to a Girl Scout troop or an erector set, but are more likely to use it as a game console or television.
Through the Internet, the computer can be used to facilitate activities that help youth organize and participate in political, cultural, and civic life, with the goal of working for the common good -- much like a Girl Scout troop. Kathryn C. Montgomery of the Center for Media Education has referred to Web sites that promote volunteerism and other forms of social engagement as "youth civic media." She believes that such sites hold particular promise for sparking both democratic and civic renewal among youth who are already actively engaged in the use of the new technological tools in participatory and innovative ways. However, the future of such sites is not guaranteed as the Internet becomes increasingly commercial.
The computer can also provide innovative ways to enhance learning through applications that enable children to design, to create, and to invent -- somewhat like an artist's canvas or an erector set. Children not only can log on to Web pages, but they can learn to design their own. They not only can access information and content created by others, but they can create their own stories and pictures and send them out into the world. And they not only can experience the software programs invented by others, they can program computers to give life to their own inventions.
But the data suggest that young people still spend their time with home computers mostly in much less civic-minded or creative ways. Playing games has long been the predominant computer activity among children, especially among younger boys. Now the Internet enables several children to log onto the same game and to play together from their individual homes, whether across their neighborhood or across the world. After games, children over age eight use the home computer most frequently for school assignments -- either as sophisticated typewriters for word-processing, or as a user-friendly encyclopedia for information gathering. Parents report that 20 percent of children use the Internet to do "research for school."
Another popular activity for children on the computer is surfing the Internet for entertainment, looking for music and information about their favorite TV and movie stars, using the computer as they might other media such as the television or radio. In fact, many commercial TV programs now have corresponding Web sites encouraging children to watch particular shows and visit particular sites simultaneously. Children also surf the Internet as online consumers, using computers as a virtual catalogue or shopping mall. Companies have even developed devices such as "digital wallets" to enable children to purchase items directly online. According to one industry report, teens spent an estimated $161 million online in 1999, and are expected to spend over $1.4 billion in 2002.
One of the fastest growing uses of the computer is for communication through e-mail or chat rooms. Teens, especially, report that keeping up with local and distant friends is a very important use of the Internet for them -- much like the telephone. Teens also report using the communication functions of the Internet to meet new people, get personal help, and join groups -- but not primarily civic-oriented ones. Instead, they are using the Internet to enter a virtual world of multi-user domains (MUDs), multi-identity chat rooms, and multiparty games, where time spent interacting with strangers and fabricated characters has been linked to increases in loneliness and depression.
As more and more young people gain access to computers and the Internet, it is important to understand how technology can enhance or detract from children's growth and development. Parents, teachers, and other adults who work with children need to teach young people to make good choices about their time spent with computers, to be savvy digital consumers, and to seek out software and online content that educates and inspires, mot merely entertains. We must ensure more children are exposed to uses of computer technology that enable them to create, to design, to invent, and to collaborate with children in other communities in ways that contribute to society. It is through these types of activities that young people will be empowered to help shape the emerging digital world and become responsible, engaged citizens in the 21st Century.
Margie K. Shields, policy analyst/editor at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, is issue editor for an upcoming issue of The Future of Children on children and computer technology to be released in January 2001.
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Susan Linn
Techno-enthusiasts blithely hurling children down the information highway might benefit from the distinctly non-electronic exercise of writing 50 times on a real blackboard: "The Internet is just a tool." Certainly the children would be better off.
As a tool, e-communication has the potential to help certain kids develop certain kinds of community. It is used to connect children in hospitals with kids around the country facing similar difficulties. It has been used in classrooms to link to classrooms throughout the world. But these are controlled situations where usage is shaped by significant adult intervention.
According to a market research survey by Kidleo, a division of the Leo Burnet ad agency, 36 percent of the 10 to 17-year-olds they surveyed spend time on the Internet pretending to be someone else. These kids spend about two hours a day on-line, feeling more popular and outgoing than in "real" life. Kidleo's interest in this information is purely economical: How can companies exploit this tendency to sell products? But I find it troubling.
Trust and acceptance are fundamental in all positive human relationships. We want to be able to count on our friends, lovers and colleagues to be who and what they appear to be. And to quote Fred Rogers, from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, we want them to like us "just the way we are." Yet cyber-space is one of the only places in children's lives where lying about yourself is not only winked at by adults, but is actually encouraged. Parents concerned about dangers -- ranging from sexual predators to corporate ones -- encourage children to mask who they are. "Pick a screen name" and "Never reveal accurate personal information" are common admonishments to young Internet users. And many experts on children and the Net see this opportunity for taking on different persona as a good thing positive. A recent New York Times Magazine article touted the Internet as a place where gay teens living in hostile communities can explore their sexuality and find acceptance. MIT researcher Sherry Turkle calls the Internet a "playspace" for adolescents and has said that the anonymity and distance of cyberspace allow young people to try out new identities.
But by definition a "playspace" has to be safe. The playspaces we traditionally create for children have known boundaries and clear rules within which children are free to explore to their hearts content and takes risks that do not threaten their lives and well-being. The anonymity made possible by the Internet catapults kids into a kind of virtual anarchy. It's just about impossible to tell truth from fiction, advertising from content, girls from boys, or adults from children. How safe is a space where anyone may be lying to you, or deceiving you, at any moment about anything?
As research is compiled about adolescents and the Internet, studies begin to show that high Internet use appears to be linked to social isolation. Some of this is attributed to the fact that it takes kids away from other social activities. But I wonder about Internet use in relation to the development of cynicism and/or mistrust. These characteristics, essential for survival in cyberlife, are antithetical building strong interpersonal relationships and, by extension, durable community bonds.
Like any tool, the Internet has potential to help and to harm, depending on how, and by whom, it is used. An erroneous assumption often made about technology is that its capabilities justify its use -- because cyberspace exists, it must be good. But just because kids like surfing the Net, taking on a persona, and immersing themselves in chat rooms, that doesn't necessarily mean that these activities are good for them. To really understand the Internet's impact on the social fabric of childhood, we need more social science research -- not market research -- to clarify both the benefits and the costs to them and to society.
Susan Linn, Ed.D., is the associate director of the Media Center of the Judge Baker Children's Center and Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
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Stephen Doheny-Farina
The Internet is so diverse and complex that it defies simple definition. If a kid is so inclined, the net can be like television -- disaffecting and isolating. On the other hand the net can enable intense communication and bonding among people who share a placed community. There is no doubt that we should have serious concerns about how our children use the net. And yet we should also recognize the net's potential benefits to the development of our children's social capital.
My primary concern is that the Internet and television are converging. A Neilsen Media Research study states that by mid-1999 there were 99 million "TV households" and 38 million "Internet households" in the U.S. While Internet use has risen dramatically, television watching has remained stable. But in statement meant to allay the fears of those invested in the traditional media, the Neilsen Vice President of Interactive Services argues that "there is currently almost no indication that Internet access cannibalizes television usage; instead it offers a targeted vehicle to supplement advertising reach among these lighter television viewers." So the net can help television do its primary job: reach target markets with sales pitches. The Neilsen report also concludes that television networks are increasingly producing "Internet content" along with its standard broadcast content while non-television Internet companies are increasingly relying on TV to pitch their Internet-based products and services. The convergence between between commercial operators in both mediums grows.
Accordingly, a 1999 Kaiser Family Foundation research report entitled "Kids and Media @ The New Millenium" concludes that the "typical American child" spends nearly 40 hours a week consuming a variety of media from watching TV, to playing video games, to listening to music, to surfing the Internet -- especially children eight and older. Of this mix of media behavior, television watching still dominates.
Furthermore, another 1999 Kaiser study -- this one completed in conjunction with the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and National Public Radio -- indicates that children are enthusiastic about the roles that computers play in their lives. Kids trust the information they find on the Internet more than adults and they are less concerned than adults about the impact of violent computer games. About 50 percent of the children polled say that computers have not had an impact on how much time they spend with friends and family although a majority note that computer use has led kids to spend less time outdoors.
If we can agree that television watching for children means the consumption of commercial products that, at best, does little to integrate them into their local communities and, at worst, alienates children from their communities, then I think it is easy to recognize that key elements of the Internet can also enable such disaffecting behavior. Surfing endless websites is primarily an act of watching displays of information regardless of the number of "interactive" clicks a kid makes. Following links may fit the definition of interactive activity but it is interactivity at its most impoverished. And engaging in anonymous chat rooms with others around the world may be an intriguing form of interactivity but it doesn't necessarily integrate them into their local communities.
On the other hand the Internet enables complex interactions in some of its more mundane corners. E-mail and instant messaging are enabling new kinds of local connectedness that children can have with their neighbors and schoolmates. But even these tools may or may not help a child develop local connectedness unless there is something offline to be connected to. And that is the key to all of the hand wringing about the impact of media and computers on local community. For those of us concerned about this issue, we should not be thinking about cutting children off from media, we should be trying to build a community that engages children offline so that they can develop a healthy symbiosis between their online and offline lives.
Once at an Internet conference I heard Benjamin Barber explain how a group that urges parents to eliminate televisions from their homes approached him. Barber said he didn't support that idea because such an action is overbroad; it cuts out the harms but also the potential prosocial benefits as well. I agree and find the Internet an even more complex challenge. So as a parent of a young child, I think the more difficult but potentially more rewarding road to take is to try to foster smart, responsible media consumption in the home, recognizing that even though the dangers are great, social capital and media use are not mutually exclusive.
Stephen Doheny-Farina is the author of The Wired Neighborhood and Professor of Technical Communication at Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY. His new book The Grid and the Village will be published in the Fall of 2001.
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