JGC - Risks and Benefits

The pros and cons of mediated forms of engagement:

- How and to what effect do children's embodied / material interactions interplay with their virtual / mediated ones?
- What are some of the cognitive, emotional, social, and physical impacts of mediated engagement on the developing child?

Kaveri Subrahmanyam
Cal State Uni / Childrens Digital Media Center LA

- Looks at informal uses of media, in school, at home etc.
- Her question she is thinking about - do learning effects in informal spaces transfer to formal settings? For example, informal writing often takes place online, yet school assessments are usually pen and paper.  How does that effect learning?
- Looking at multitasking on the computer. Showing trends that when kids are multitasking with social media they are actually doing a better job in reading comprehension than single tasks conditions.
- Multi tasking and executive skills in adolescents - sexuality, media, identity.  How kids are utilizing online interactions in social spaces to further core developmental tasks. For example, social networking tasks study.

LynnSchofield Clark
Uni of Denver

- Media use and family - family apprehension around media.
- Currently interested in the participation gap.   Finished writing a book manuscript called ' Parenting in the Digital Age'.  Had send first chapter to the book to an acquaintance, a college professor - it was how middle income and low income families negotiate media use in households.
He told about a lower income kid who got on very well with his mother - played first person shooter with his mother and often shot his mother! Healthy way to express relationship, and frustrations. He took this story to middle class parents at a group, and they freaked out, they immediately related it to violence, when we should be looking at it differently.
- The 'risk society' and the rise of an increasing marketplace that fragments our networks.
- Risk in relation to 'courage' - how do parents see themselves as courageous - being uncertain about technology is not necessarily a negative thing, but instead a moment of opportunity to connect and learn with their children?  How to change the discourse in this direction.

Sara Grimes
Uni of Toronto
- Background in political economy version of cultural studies.  Childrens cultural text, artifacts, implementation and management.
- had done work on virtual worlds for kids and the rules around them.  how terms of service conflict with game designers
- risk aversion strategies surrounding privacy.
- opportunities afforded in restricted spaces - articulating children's rights, freedom of expression etc. Possibility of these sites to contribute to democratization of mass culture to allow kids to share culture at a grand scale.
- Impotus currently to bring kids into a public domain to allow for creation, but terms of service, COPPA etc doesn't help with this.  How do we come up with better practices to find the best practices that respect kids cultural rights but still be safe


Danah Boyd
Microsoft Research

- Ethnographic work, question assumptions about frames that cultural work does with regards to kids and technology.
- Look at what is happening in the space of bullying.  Interesting takeaway - kids understand bullying.  Things and labels like 'drama, punking, gaming' assumes and puts people in roles of victim vs purpetrator when often the labels are not that distinct - don't just lump it into the frame of bullying.
- digital is not actually the space where most of the bullying happens, it just makes it more VISIBLE to adults than ever before.

Other thing she is working on is human trafficking and sex crimes against children. She wants to challenge the notion that parents are not always good actors.  Often it's the kid running away from a parent due to abuse, or a parent pimping a kid out.

COPPA - quantative survey work - result of most general purpose sites excluding kids under 13. A huge chunk of these sites including skype, gmail, FB, etc parents want the kids to have access so they can talk to family members - parents end up helping kids circumvent age restrictions.   FTC has made it clear the innovation for the under 13 market has become non-existent because of COPPA.  

Sandra Calvert
Georgetown Uni
- currently focusing on how very young children learn to read a screen.
- obesity crisis.
Both of these lines of work makes her interested in the role of characters in childrens media.  Relationships that children form with these characters including STEM with Elmo.   Started doing social networking studies after seeing college students were not listening to the class but having fun on FB.   So did a FB study.

1. they mainly learn.  Not always creating, instead mostly lurking and watching.  The 'like' button is a great idea because at least lurkers can give themselves a little 'trace' identity to show they are browsing.
2. They talk - still one to one communication with friends.
3. Not doing so well in class.  Get online first thing, check out FB.  Number of friends is phenomenal - many have 1000 'friends'.

Technology is changing but issues are not.  Was interested in identity and gender.  Boys play more, girls talk more.   Ways they interacted was very strained in study when they were interacting on a virtual world.


Christine Greenhow
Uni of Maryland

- focuses on older kids - interested in child to teen connections.  Should not look at divisions between younger kids and older kids, but convergent mediated behavior and how older kids influence younger kids.
- Wants to bridge the gap between educators and education.  Wanting to change the old 'push' of information in education.   How are kids using social network sites? Are there things that are of value that educators should identify as learning value?
- Is there social capital in these networks?   How to approach social capital at a younger age?  How to induct kids into a community of practice?
- how does our definition of literacy need to change?
- Worked on prototype social networking app 'hotdish' - will kids interested in environmental science go to this online space and become civically engaged?  This is about taking learning outside of schools into the communities.  Studies found this prototype education did help in informal learning.

DISCUSSION
'being alone together' - more privileged families believe in following the roles. Lower status incomes don't trust the rules and tend to be more flexible.
Going Solo by Eric Kleinenburg - more parents are living alone than ever before. More kids have their own bedroom than ever before.  They have so much more solo time in the home that social media is seen as a way that they are able to connect - it clearly displays the desire for connection and how technology allows for adaption.

Family involvement - discussion that Facebook changed the way kids and parents involve in social networks.  

Lower economic schools example in NYC - found there weren't many computers in schools, but it's actually that the kids do have the latest devices, it's just figuring out the way to use it. Teacher has no control over these devices, communication, and often students. If the device is taken away, often the parent complains.  An early popular device was the sidekick, which was very community driven.  now you see high end devices such as androids, which are not as collaborative but more consumptive devices.