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Summary Topic Always Connected: Key insights in youth, media and technology
Lecture 1
General: developmental stages
1. Early childhood 0-5
- Infants (0–2)
- Toddlers (2-4)
- Preschoolers (4-5)
2. Middle childhood 5-12
- (early) middle childhood (5-8)
- Tweens (8-12)
3. Adolescence 12-19
- Specific: early (12-14), middle (14-15), late (16-19)
- However in this course we call it: adolescence (12-19)
Why this course now? Importance of topic Youth & Media
The media landscape has changed immensely since 2005
2005 Today
Youtube launches 1.8 billion logged in monthly YouTube users
Netflix US based DVD company Netflix streaming site active in 190
countries developing 700 original content
shows (Netflix originals)
Facebook 12 million users Facebook < 1.5 billion users
Smartphone ownership 2% (US) Smartphone ownership 77% (US)
No SmartTV, AppleTV, Chromecast Connected TVs, screencasting
No Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat Instagram WhatsApp, Snapchat, etc.
WiFi 1 million hotspots in 2010 WiFi 279 million hotspots
Kids and youth entertainment landscape is changing rapidly
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We do not only have Youtube, but also Youtube Kids.
Netflix and Netflix Kids
They are focusing on kids content
Also what kids are playing with, has changed dramatically.
Are these good developments?
Classrooms are also changing: we used to have a paper and pen, then we started to
use computers and now most of the kids use laptops! There are even laptop schools!
Also VR in the classroom.
What about Augmented reality? Will it be implemented in the classroom or just a
gadget? Will it be a benefits or disadvantages?
What to think of these changes?
Many headlines are negative about kids and media, like “Screen Addiction is Taking A
Toll on Children”
This negative view is not only in Western countries, but everywhere.
Kids and iPads
Got a lot of attention, mostly because it’s user friendly. It’s very accessible to young
kids rather than a computer with a mouse.
Also here you see a lot of negative headlines
It’s hard for parents to know that your child would be very happy to use the iPad, but
at the same time there are people who say that you’re ruining your kid.
Is there a reason for concern?
Media and technology in the classroom
In The Netherlands, anyone can start a new type of school.
In 2013 we got the first 7 Steve Jobs schools. They only used iPads.
In 2017 they didn’t do so well. Either the schools hadn’t started yet and other schools
figured that it didn’t work: the kids didn’t perform as they should have. So the
schools went bankrupt.
Does this mean that these schools are not possible? No, this shift takes time.
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A lot of big companies have their eyes set on the classroom: Apple (creativity),
Nintendo Switch (math), Microsoft (school program) and Google (sponsoring schools
and free software).
All these companies are trying to get into the educational space
Media and technology: identity, well-being and relationships
What is the influence of media and technology on identity (development), well-being
and relationships?
Again, a negative view on this. “Technology! It’s destroying our youth!”
Cyberbullying, narcissism, materialistic, snapchat dysmorphia and sexting.
Also problems with 13 reasons why.
Is there any news from the sunny side?
Texts and tablets more than double time parents spent reading to children
It can also improve reading abilities if you use it in a specific way. It’s often expected
to distract kids from reading, but it can enhance kids attraction towards reading.
Improving social skills for autistic kids with Google Glass
App helping Syrian refugees learning kids to read
There are tons of things that technology offers that improve our lives.
Book: balance between sunny and dark side
Kids and youth lucrative market
Difficult population, for research but also to please
Young people are fickle; they change their mind quickly
These companies are really keying to appeal to this audience
Facebook experience that young people are leaving the platform, so they try to
renew it for younger users
Snapchat is using kid brands to engage with the platform. If you have kids on your
platform, you want to have kid brand advertising
Also Netflix is investing a lot on the Kids and Family content
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Media Theory then & now
Thinking about the role of media and technology
How did our understanding of media use and effects have changed over time? What are
children drawn to and how can we explain that through their developmental characteristics?
How are children affected and through what mechanisms? What determines these effects?
THEN – Blast from the past
Hypodermic Needle Perspective = the idea that all of us are affected by media to the
same degree all the time.
Idea: We have media exposure here and have an outcome there. We expect these
two to be related.
During the heyday of motion pictures, scholars assumed that media effects were:
- Immediate
- Direct
- And the same for everyone
For example: everyone would experience the movie Saw in the same way. That is
what the hypodermic needle perspective states.
From 1929 to 1933
Women were covering their ears in a silent movie when they saw gun shots, because they
were so immersed in the story that they expected the sound.
So yes, we can be immersed by media. But not everyone was running away in the cinema
and not all women were covering their ears.
It took quite some time for this simple idea to catch on.
There were several studies that did look in kids and media (at the end of the 20s). The first
talkies came out (movies about mobsters and gangsters). People were concerned that all
these young people would be inspired by this movie to become a gangster. So there were
studies that looked into how kids were affected by these movies (Payne Fund Studies:
interest in youth + media effects). They provided the first evidence that there are such
things as media effects. However they didn’t go much further than this.
