… PISA results suggest that advantaged students were more likely to read the news and use the Internet to obtain practical information than their disadvantaged peers, who were more likely to spend their online time playing games or chatting…
– Educating 21st Century Children: Emotional Well-being in the Digital Age
Both boys and girls know a few vloggers that they follow on YouTube.
– Young Children (0-8) and Digital Technology: A Qualitative Study Across Europe
The OECD report Educating 21st Century Children: Emotional Well-being in the Digital Age was released in 2019. It explores how childhood has been impacted by access to the internet and mobile digital devices. It goes in-depth into several areas such as parenting in the digital age, opportunities, and specific risks which children have to be inoculated from.
The authors are of the view that media reports surrounding children’s use of digital devices have been somewhat alarmist. They believe that the internet offers more opportunities than risks and that if the risks are managed, digital devices are on the whole a great benefit for children.
In discussing opportunities and risks, the report suggests that when online, children play three roles. They are the recipient when they receive advice (specifically addressed to them, for example through participation in an online forum or addressed to a general audience) and information (from articles, a community and videos). They are the participant when they engage in a joint online activity or conversation with others. They are actors when they initiate discussions, joint learning and create content.
Being online therefore, provides opportunities to receive, participate and act. It has to be said that language ability beyond being able to read and write, would determine how much of useful and beneficial content children receive from the internet.
The report confirms that many children spend quite a bit of time on YouTube. It has been observed that children may prefer humorous or sensational content to educational content.
One term many children may now be familiar with is Steven He’s emotional damage. Arguably, an exponential rise in mental health awareness has been the silver lining of the pandemic with even children familiar with terms which used to belong in the domain of paid, closed-door sessions. It may be that many children are familiar with the term because of the way it was expressed in the now famous video.
Given that the report is on children’s emotional well-being in the digital age, it should be noted that there has been a proliferation of free, high quality and accurate content online about the emotional domain.
Without understanding and mastering emotions, it would be difficult to harness the full potential of talent and ability. While the digital domain poses risks for children’s emotional well-being, it is also the place where the truth can set free. Given that a lot of marketing, news in places with a more liberal leaning and social media posts have taken to heart the first half of Lyautey’s strategy, understanding emotions may be the first and most important educational goal of the twenty-first century. There is now a great opportunity to finally be able to do so, online, independently, with sufficient motivation and language ability.
There are risks which can be mitigated with language ability.
One example of this is distinguishing between commercial advertising and news (Educating 21st Century Children: Emotional Well-being in the Digital Age).
The OECD report states that many OECD countries are very concerned about cyberbullying. There is a large grey space between outright cyberbullying and good faith conduct online. Language ability would enable students to navigate this grey space successfully.
The internet provides opportunities to make friends for example through the chat function in some online games. The report states that children would be open to make friends from more diverse backgrounds, online, so long as the friend is in the same age group. It says that like offline friendships children tend to become friends online with those whom they have opportunity to interact often with for example, someone who plays the same game. Like offline friendships, children tend to want to be friends with those who are prominent online, for example, those who are ranked higher in a game or those with a longer list of contacts. This may lead some children to spend more on a game to rank higher.
What must be said is this. What face to face allows and is not always possible online is the sensing of tone and micro-expressions which reveal the actual state of affairs. Typed words and emoticons can belie what someone actually feels. Children can be taught not to accept uncritically, texts and chat messages. Learning pragmatics among other things, would be useful in this regard.
The authors believe that being connected to the internet allows children to feel more connected to their peers and with sufficient precaution would allow children to develop social confidence through their online interactions.
The report has a lot of information on how parenting styles have evolved. It also discusses the impact of different types of technology on parenting. It recommends strongly that parents get involved as role models in their children’s digital lives.
We may be familiar with the traditional quadrants of Authoritative, Authoritarian, Permissive and Negligent. Parenting styles, the report terms as modern include, Sharenting, Phubbing, Holistic/Spiritual and Quick Fix/Band Aid.
A 2018 report by the European Commission on the impact of internet access on very young children (0-8) discusses how different parents view and regulate their children’s use of digital devices across 21 countries in Europe.
The authors found that in general the parents involved in their study used the following strategies. They use the devices together with their children. They advise their children on how to navigate online platforms, what to make of confusing or disturbing content and what to do when problems of any nature are encountered. They limit the time their children can be online, the websites they can visit and use passwords to create digital walled gardens. They monitor their children’s use of digital devices – the computer could be in the living room. They suggest engaging, offline activities to balance out their children’s internet use.
It was found that most parents used rules to regulate their children’s internet use. The report also highlights that if parents were able to convince their children of the need for safeguards, there would be less need for monitoring and other restrictions.
The OECD report states that children must develop resilience specific to the digital world and that to be resilient, it would be useful to allow them some space to learn from mistakes.
Knowing the bad leads to good.
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