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The vast majority of social networks aren’t supposed to accept users under age 13, according to the federal government’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection?Act (COPPA). Yet millions of children use these sites daily. As such, it’s challenging to gather research or information about these invisible users, according to the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. The organization says there needs to be a concerted effort to address the developmental, emotional, and cultural habits of children who use social networks, rather than pretend they aren’t using these sites.
The Eight-Year-Old Entry. Age eight represents a key turning point when Internet users start to have a firmer understanding of the purposes of social networks. At this age, children switch their online focus from playing games to having interactions with others.
Kids Lie. The majority of social network research relies on self-reporting and user categorization. However, when researchers query children, they find that kids often lie or contradict themselves. Therefore, adequate contextualization and in-depth analysis is especially needed when surveying children’s social network usage.
Legal Challenges. Many kid-friendly sites are formally prohibiting young users rather than addressing COPPA requirements. Banning children from social networks often has as much to do with policy compliance as with issues of age-appropriateness.
In addition, social network users are often encouraged to share or upload their own projects. This engagement has added a new complication to legal issues pertaining to authorship, intellectual property ownership, and copyright, because children fall under different legal guidelines than adults. Other legal issues that have yet to be examined include children’s freedom of expression and access to fair use exemptions.
Invisible Users. Some “non-users” of social networking do not have their own profiles, but log on using parents’ accounts. Others use social networks in groups. It’s important to realize that some young users who are classified as “non-users” because they don’t have their own profiles are actually engaged with social media.
It’s Not Only Facebook. The vast majority of research pertaining to social network usage and behaviors solely examines Facebook. Yet particularly among young users, social networking includes a variety of sites, such as Club Penguin, Whyville, and Webkinz. In addition, one report distinguishes among social networks, games, and video sites, and in doing so, fails to consider the sites that allow children to engage in a variety of activities. This means, for instance, that statistics that report that children spend five minutes a day using social networks may not reflect that most of this time was actually spent playing games.
Ed note: As we go to press, the Federal Trade Commission released its new guidelines that update COPPA, which initially passed in 1998. YMA will have complete coverage in an upcoming issue.
Source: “Kids Online: A New Research Agenda For Understanding Social Network Forums,” Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Catherine Jhee, Managing Editor, 1900 Broadway, New York, NY 10023; 212-595-3456; cooney.center@sesame.org; www.joanganzcooneycenter.org.
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