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Stages of
Development and Media
Influences:
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Understanding kids developmental stages helps us
to understand what motivates kids online, for example
the need for intense peer socialization of
14-year-olds. Also,
understanding the impact of online media on their lives
helps us to better evaluate the risks and hazards, as
well as decide what is age-appropriate for our
children.
1. Stages of Adolescent
Development
2. The
Center on Media and Child Health at
Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, and
Harvard School of Public Health is dedicated to
understanding and responding to the effects of media on
the physical, mental, and social health of children
through research, production, and education. Visit their
page on What
You Need to Know About Media and Kids' Health
3. The
Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child
Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child
Bonds from the American Academy of
Pediatrics [pdf file]
4. Media Influences on Youth. (Dated
but interesting and relevant.)
5. Stop
Scammers from Targeting Your Teens by Elizabeth
Rogers [March, 2009]
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About
Children
Online
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Children Online offers
innovative and comprehensive workshops on Internet
safety and online education to students, parents,
faculty and administrators. Our approach,
unique in the field of Internet safety, combines a
thorough understanding of Internet technologies, child
development and counseling, to focus on the impact of
the internet on the social, emotional and language
development of young people.
Doug Fodeman and Marje
Monroe, experts in technology, counseling and education,
work together to provide invaluable research and tools
for parents and schools with practical real-life
solutions to the issues faced by young people
online. Since 1997, Marje and Doug have spoken to
thousands of students, teachers and parents.
They have several publications in the area of Internet
safety and offer a free online newsletter. More
detailed information can be found at
ChildrenOnline.org.
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31st
Edition of the Children Online Newsletter.
Each year we meet
with several thousand students in grades four through
twelve and we often have the opportunity to survey them
about their Internet behavior.
Our surveys and
work with students have led us to many interesting
insights about what motivates their online behavior and
why they often fall prey to certain scams and
tricks. This month's newsletter addresses the most
common reasons kids are drawn to the Internet.
Next month we will follow with a newsletter that details
why most kids can't avoid a good scam.
As always,
we invite your comments, as well as ideas for future
newsletters. Our telephone number for Children Online is
413-214-1225.
Best wishes,
Marje Monroe and Doug
Fodeman
Contact Marje or Doug via
email at marjem@childrenonline.org or
dougf@childrenonline.org for information about our
programs or consulting services.
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What Drives Kids to the
Internet?
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Kids
today as young as two or three may know how to use a
keyboard before they can use a pencil. Children see the
Internet as an integral part of their culture. For
kids the Internet is a toy, a TV, a phone, a connection
to others and a portal into a world of socialization and
adventure. Adults on the other hand generally view
the Internet as a tool to help them negotiate tasks in
their life (although this is beginning to
change!).
Young kids generally begin their life
on the Internet through game playing websites.
Sites such as PBS, NickJr, Disney and others offer a
world of fun and colorful games. For the most part
young children simply use these sites for fun and
games. As kids grow older game playing begins to
intensify and children turn to Webkinz, Club Penguin,
AddictingGames, Miniclip and Runescape, among others for
their fun. These sites all have exciting,
interactive game playing and colorful graphics geared
toward young children. These sites may also
contain viruses, scams, inappropriate advertising and
the ability to chat with others.
As children
enter sixth and seventh grade we begin to see a
significant switch away from game playing to
socializing. These young teens begin using
Internet tools such as instant messaging, chatting or
texting to communicate with others. Many young
teens begin using Facebook chat or MySpace chat for
their main source of communication, beating out
"voicing' or the traditional use of the phone, and
instant messaging. While girls generally switch to
socializing a bit earlier than boys, this year we have
witnessed significant numbers of boys flocking to
Facebook and MySpace around age eleven or twelve.
Game playing becomes less important than connecting with
others and forming relationships. This, of course,
mirrors what we know about age developmental research on
children.
As the game playing dwindles and
socializing becomes more important most teens make the
jump to social networking sites such as Facebook and
texting by age thirteen. The age of first use of
Facebook, however, gets younger and younger each
year. Social networking sites with the
ability to have "private" chats become the most popular
avenue for teens to reach out to others, play games,
form relationships and create a sense of community.
The one site that seems to move seamlessly
through the stages of childhood to adolescence is
YouTube. According to our research, YouTube is the
most popular site for children ages ten through
eighteen. YouTube with its fun, and often silly,
videos and ability to communicate with others offers
diverse and exciting alternatives for kids. It can also
offer quick exposure to pornography, harassing language
or age-inappropriate material. For children
YouTube can be a TV, a jukebox or a social networking
site much as Facebook or My Space. Many younger
kids flock to YouTube to see themselves in school
concerts or to watch episodes of the Simpsons, Dora the
Explorer or their favorite cartoon. Due to the
likely exposure to inappropriate content, we recommend
that parents watch YouTube clips with their young
children and not allow young children to "wander" around
YouTube.
Scammers, marketers and others who wish
to take advantage of children also have a great
understanding about what motivates kids of different
ages to be online. Scams have littered dozens of kids'
popular game sites. Malware creators also create
fake sites causing computer infections putting everyone
using the computer at risk. These sites are
designed to turn up in Google searches for things kids
commonly search for including "game cheats", Miniclip
and NewGrounds (popular game sites), free music and,
lyrics sites. Scammers also perpetrate a great many
scams in social networks including inside popular
Facebook games such as Farmville.
Virtually,
every online venue where kids of all ages congregate it
is possible to find those who are trying to manipulate
them and take advantage of them. And though
children and teens today may know an awful lot about how
to use technology, they don't always know how to spot a
scam or know when they are being manipulated. They
still require our oversite, love and guidance as they
try to navigate life online, just as they navigate real
life.
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INTERNET
SAFETY CURRICULUM
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Safe Practices for
Life Online
Children Online has a
curriculum on Internet Safety that includes nearly 100
student exercises and lots of information on many topics
including social networks, instant messaging,
cyberbullying, online marketing, scams directed at kids,
protecting privacy online, avoiding identity theft and
impersonation, creating strong passwords and
more.
 There is also a student
edition which includes cartoons and "Did you know"
sections of interesting facts for students.
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© Children Online 2009
Doug
Fodeman & Marje Monroe.
For permission to reprint
please contact
DougF@ChildrenOnline.org
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