Ofcom, the British regulatory body, has published its annual report about children and the media based on two main sources: a quantitative survey of children 5-15 and their parents (July 2011) plus BARB data (TV people meter panel), etc. Very rich data of which we select only a very small sample. Children and parents: media use and attitudes report (25 October 2011).
We concentrate on the 12-15 age group. They are the youngest teenagers; they attend secondary school. When it comes to media, they set the trends. They are becoming independent, they want to be on their own. They were born after the Web, after the mobile, after digital TV. The youngest were born after Google. They invent new ways of using the media, with or without the consent of adults. Facebook, mobile, DVR, videogames, laptops: it goes without saying. It is their environment, their everyday culture. Digital native users? Almost, but not quite.
What does this report teach us about these young teenagers?
- The Web is everywhere, it is a given: less than 10% of children do not access it from home, 8% do not access it at all.
- The bedroom as mediaroom. Almost half of them (43%) connect to the Web from their bedroom, mostly with a laptop (60%). The Web is becoming a private media, intimate. 40% have a digital TV set in their bedroom. The way they use media is no longer their parents' business. Less "family viewing time"? What about so called "audience conjointe"?
- Which media would they miss the most? Mobile phones (28%), the Internet (25%), TV (18%).
- Smart with a phone. 88% have a phone - more and more often this is a smartphone: 41% have one (46% of the girls). Two-thirds have purchased it in the last six months: this is developing quickly. Smartphones are primarily used for social networking (50% at least once a week: this data is too imprecise; how many each day?). Of course, children with a smartphone use the phone for a broad range of activities (Smartphone, polyphone). Text messaging dominates the communication between 12-15. Music, photos, games, social networking follow.
- Facebook always. 76% of surveyed children have set a social profile (girls more than boys, 81 vs 76%), almost exclusively on Facebook (97%). They are active, update their location...
- Time-shifting, catch-up are in the air. DVR (Digital / Personal Video Recorder) is in two- thirds of the homes. Two-thirds of the 12-15 age group use a DVR. 32% use on-demand services. Is linear TV out? Soon!
- Videogames. 9 in 10 play video games, both boys and girls; slightly skewed toward boys.
- More and more video and Web in their life. In comparison with 2010: watching television (95% vs. 92%), using the internet (85% vs. 80%), watching DVDs or videos (53% vs. 46%). Does this mean that there is less and less of other activities (reading, sport, etc.)? Are multitasking, multiscreentasking growing? Or do we not yet know how to measure this consumption?
Smartphones first. Facebook, laptops, private use of digital media, videogames, desegregated linear TV, a la carte. Less empty time, less idleness. Busy with digital media. Mobile and private media consumption. The difference between girls and boys' behavior is practically nil.
Next time, the survey will tell us about tablets and eReaders.
N.B. Most of the questions in these surveys focus on parental control, rules, safety, supervision, etc. Since the data comes from in-home interviews with parents and children, the answers are questionable. "Everybody lies" - especially the parents!
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11 commentaires:
A l'heure d'aujourd'hui, les médias sont omniprésents quelques soient l'endroit où l'on se trouve. les technologies avancent, la mobilité aussi grâce aux tablettes et aux smartphones entre autre. Il devient donc évident que ce type de média devient de plus en plus privé et personnel. Il créé chez les adolescents une certaine bulle plus ou moins hermétique qu'il partage avec plus ou moins de monde. Néanmoins nous sommes en droit de nous poser la question, qu'elles conséquences aura le développement de ces pratiques sur les générations futures et pour les adolescents de maintenant.
Ces comportements esquissent les nouvelles formes de la sociabilité, dont l’une des plus primaires et naturelles, la famille, semble être particulièrement touchée.
Un document dont j’avais pris connaissance, mais dont le nom m’échappe, montre que d’un point de vue historique, il est intéressant de remarquer une certaine corrélation entre l’évolution des médias, des liens familiaux et de la manière d’être ensemble au sein d’une famille.
L’apparition de la radio et de la télévision incita les membres de la famille à regarder un film ou écouter une émission ensemble. Par la suite, la multiplication des chaînes télévisées et l’augmentation du nombre d’écrans dans les ménages poussa les membres de la famille à s’isoler pour ne consommer que leurs programmes préférés et non ceux choisis par les autres membres. Enfin, l’avènement d’Internet et des réseaux sociaux donna une nouvelle dimension à cet « isolement » en permettant à l’individu de partager et de commenter son programme préféré avec les autres membres d’un réseau virtuel.
Au final, c’est toute la chaîne de transmission de valeurs entre parents et enfants qui est bouleversée. Nous ne sommes plus seulement dans un format de transmission descendante, c'est-à-dire de parents à enfants, mais aussi dans un format de transmission horizontale, entre membres d’un même réseau virtuel, voire quelques fois ascendante, c'est-à-dire des enfants vers les plus âgés.
I think that technology has an interesting effect on our notion of privacy.
On the one hand, our lives are becoming less private by choice because we are engaging in online relationships, as well as using social networks and other online social media to tell the world where we are, what we're doing and how we feel. For example, the social media FourSquare allows users to note their location, and that of their friends or any other given stranger using the website. Facebook now allows us to 'check-in' and share our thoughts via our 'status' on our page. The concept of a personal or private life seems almost extinct.
However, on the other hand, these digital technologies have made our lives MORE 'private', in the sense that we post these updates, check-in etc from our own private mobile devices. As you mentioned, kids are accessing the internet from the privacy of their bedrooms and teenagers are starting to use mobile phones & smart phones at an increasingly young age.
I find it interesting that we seek privacy in our real, physical lives but are willing and even eager to share intimate details with online communities from behind the safety of a digital screen.
Ces statistiques permettent bien de se représenter l’environnement dans lequel l’enfant vit actuellement. Les plus jeunes sont surexposés à l’image mais il y a souvent un manque d’éducation à l’image. Une tv dans la chambre ou même un accès illimité à internet et donc peu de contrôle des parents sur les programmes visionnés ou les sites consultés, peut poser à mon avis de gros problème dans le développement psychologique de l’enfant et peut avoir des conséquences sur son comportement futur. Certaines affaires récentes de violence (assassinat du jeune Alexandre par 4 mineurs http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/alexandre-a-dieppe-meurtre-entre-ados_1101661.html) viennent nous rappeler qu’il y a un réel besoin d’éducation à l’image dans notre société…
Erstaunlich diese rasante Entwicklung von Medien.
Die Definition von "privat" hat sich geändert, was man mit anderen teilt oder nicht wird ganz anders beurteilt.
Dabei bleibt immer zur Diskussion in wie fern es sich hier um Überwachung und in wie weit man persönliche Daten benutzen oder verkaufen darf.
Ich denke, dass es von Vorteil ist dass die neue Generation direkt mit den neuen Medien aufwächst und damit mit dem Problem anders umgehen wird.
This kind of research, as well as it's results, makes us aware of the great changes that have occured with all the new technologies. They have drastically changed interpersonal relations and shaken children's lives (those born after the Web).
Whether these changes are for the best or not is yet to see. But for the time being, we can already sense a number of potential problems for the role of parents which is being put to the test. Children between 12 and 15 years old may be the youngest teenagers, but they are still children. Even if born after the web, they need to be fully "educated" to these technologies, they need to see the "other side of the coin" and be fully aware of the potential harm they face if they use, for example, their Facebook profile, without being aware of the possible risks (see article "Is Facebook for Kids", http://www.avoidfacebook.com/2012/05/12/is-facebook-for-kids/). We can therefore ask ourselves number of questions after reading these statistics: Are children not wasting precious time when they could be in direct communication with other children (face to face)? Should parents not help children live their lives fully rather than in front of a screen? Or has our environment changed so much that children can no longer not be connected to all the new media?
This kind of research, as well as it's results, makes us aware of the great changes that have occured with all the new technologies. They have drastically changed interpersonal relations and shaken children's lives (those born after the Web).
Whether these changes are for the best or not is yet to see. But for the time being, we can already sense a number of potential problems for the role of parents which is being put to the test. Children between 12 and 15 years old may be the "youngest teenagers", but they are still children. Even if born after the web, they need to be fully "educated" to these technologies, they need to see the "other side of the coin" and be fully aware of the potential harm they face if they use, for example, their Facebook profile, without being aware of the possible risks (see article "Is Facebook for Kids", http://www.avoidfacebook.com/2012/05/12/is-facebook-for-kids/).
We can therefore ask ourselves a number of questions after reading these statistics: Are children not wasting precious time when they could be in direct communication with other children (face to face)? Should parents not help children live their lives fully rather than in front of a screen? Or has our environment changed so much that children can no longer not be connected to all the new media?
Technology is dominating our world. Kids grow up with these new technologies and I think they are losing their creativity by playing video games which are already made. They get a finished product with instructions how to use it instead of using their own creativity (what can you do with a little stone in the middle of the nature?) Furthermore the kids are not living in a real world anymore by chatting with their friends and creating facebook friends. Instead of meeting them, going to the cinema etc, the sit in front of a screen and chat with their friends. Besides you can pretend to be a person on the internet you aren't. You can create false profils and adapt a new identity.
And what about the family life? Sitting together, playing card games, talking and having fun. A lot of families just sit in front of their computers/tablets/phones and don't interact personally anymore with the other members of the family.
Sad tendences. But I have to confess that I'm critizising these developments while using these technologies as well right now writing this comment...
First of all a little remark to the N.B. part of the article: The author stresses the fact that the data come from in-home interviews. So we have to assume that some of the children or parents did not say the truth and that therefore the collected information is questionable. Ok, that might be true. I just don’t understand why they should only have lied in terms of rules, control and safety? Why the other information given by the interviewed people should be veracious? Or the other way round: Why is this other information (for example regarding to what kind of social profile they have) considered to be true enough to talk about in the article above whereas the safety-aspects and co. are not?
Besides that, I think that the article is really interesting and that we should much more often focus on the youngest part of the population. Firstly, because their behaviour serves as a forecast for how media are going to be used in the future. Secondly, because even I (and I am studying the subject!) am quite often surprised about the way my youngest sister (16 years old) uses the medias. She is only 5 years younger than me and nevertheless her behaviour already differs from mine a lot! Once more we have something that makes us realize how fast everything in this field is changing.
I have got something else to say about the subject: In Switzerland, the official statistics from the federal office of statistics concerning the internet usage only takes people into consideration who are older than 14 years. Why that? To my mind, the confrontation with the internet starts much earlier nowadays. And (as I already mentioned in the other comment to this article) information about the using habits of children firstly reveal a lot and secondly have the potential to surprise!
http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/themen/16/04/key/approche_globale.indicator.30106.301.html
And I need to add something concerning Internet-safety for children, even if the subject is only shortly indicated in the N.B. part of the article. But I consider the subject to be very important and also very delicate. Important, because children are our future and by definition need to be supported. Delicate, because, as I already mentioned in the first of my comments for this article, children’s media-behaviour seems to change very fast nowadays – much faster than the one of older people. It is therefore difficult to handle the media-education of children and teenagers, because in terms of media young people are often one step ahead of their parents/teacher.
But parents and teacher try to help, of course. And on the official website of the federal administration of Switzerland you find a subpage with tips and links for teacher and parents about how to teach children how to correctly use (new) media. Theoretically a good thing - but the last update was in January 2010. And to my mind that is much too long ago! Because you simply can’t compare the media landscape of that time with the one of today.
http://www.edoeb.admin.ch/themen/00794/01124/01602/index.html?lang=fr
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