News for the Week of November 18, 2007
Topping kid-tech news this week is a look at the lessons - both good and bad - kids learn from virtual worlds and videogames.
What virtual worlds teach kids
Their effect is not entirely unlike hanging out at the shopping mall in the "real world," is my take-away from reading CNET on researchers' just-released study of kids' virtual worlds. Of course, my characterization is simplistic and on the negative side, but "the inherently commercial nature of virtual worlds like Club Penguin and Webkinz, which encourage kids to play games, dress up online characters, and buy virtual goods to decorate their in-world homes or avatars," seems to send kids the message, they said, that good residents, users, or "citizens" know how to make money (amass points by playing games) and buy the right things ( e.g., furniture for your igloo, cute pets, and attractive clothes and accessories, I've found from watching my 10-year-old play in ClubPenguin).
But there were positives among the findings of researchers at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communication, the recipients of major funding from the MacArthur Foundation for research on young people's use of digital media. "Kids who are active members of virtual worlds are learning how to socialize" and "how to be technologically savvy" - things they'll need when they enter the workplace - as well as "how to be good little consumers," writes CNET's Stefanie Olsen. Important to know, since "more than 50% of kids on the Internet will belong to such an environment by 2012," she reports.
Another thing they're learning in virtual worlds: the ability to adapt to and move in an environment of constant change. I was particularly interested in one thing Stefanie picked up on: that absorbing information is no longer the most important form of education - it's what to do with information and distinguishing between fact and fiction, i.e. media literacy. An educator said that to me recently: "Our kids know so much more than we did when we were their age. We don't need to fill their brains more. We need to help them manage all they're taking in."
Videogames: Great teachers for good and bad
Videogames are very effective teaching tools, a new study found, including for teaching aggression. "Students who played multiple violent video games actually learned through those games to produce greater hostile actions and aggressive behaviors over a span of six months," reports Science Daily, citing a study of almost 2,500 young people - "Violent Video Games as Exemplary Teachers: A Conceptual Analysis" - to be published soon in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. It worked with 430 kids in grades 3-5, 607 in grades 8 and 9, and 1,441 students with an average age of 19, assessing "aggressive thoughts and self-reported fights, and their media habits - including violent video game exposure. Teachers and peers were also asked to rate the participants' aggressive behavior." With the grade-school students, "playing multiple violent videogames increased their risk of being highly aggressive ... by 73%, when compared to those who played a mix of violent and non-violent games, and by 263% compared to those who played only non-violent games."
In other news...
- UN to target Net predators. One of the outcomes of the United Nations' recent Internet governance conference in Rio de Janeiro was a call to protect young Net users from predation. "The meeting, which was attended by more than 1300 representatives of governments, the private sector and the internet from 109 countries, centered on keeping children safe from pedophiles lurking on the internet," Australian IT reports. Participants said that there were disagreements on a lot of topics at the meeting, but not on this one. The Council of Europe's representative called on countries to join a convention toward greater international cooperation on catching online predators.
- YouTube's push to beat cyberbullying. YouTube has set up an anti-bullying channel, the BBC reports. The channel "aims to revolutionise how young people access information on how to avoid being bullied and importantly on how to avoid being the person who does the intimidating." Here's YouTube's channel.
- Japan's cyberbullying problem. Bullying can be 24/7 in Japan too, but there it's as much over the phone as on the Web in this country where 96% of high school students have mobile phones. Reuters cites the experience of now 19-year-old Makoto, who stopped going to school it was getting so bad. But even after that he "became anorexic and rarely emerged from his room for nearly half a year," and he attempted suicide twice. Reuters adds that "the problem drew public attention in July, when an 18-year-old boy leapt to his death at his high school in Kobe, in western Japan, after classmates posted a nude photo of him on a Web site and repeatedly sent him emails demanding money."
- UK data security breach and kids. A massive security breach involving the personal information of "virtually every child in Britain" has occurred in the United Kingdom, The Guardian reports. It "could expose the personal data of more than 25 million people - nearly half the country's population," CBS News reports. The data concerns "families with children, including names, dates of birth, addresses, bank account information and insurance records." Two computer disks containing the data were sent via ordinary mail between two government departments and were apparently lost in the mail. The breach was announced to the House of Commons yesterday by Alistair Darling, Britain's equivalent to our treasury secretary. He said this wasn't the first time Britain's tax agency had experienced such a breach. There was, however, no evidence that the data has fallen into criminal hands.
