Children and teens, compared to adults, have in some ways a very different understanding and experience of digital technologies. While adults have known a world before the Internet, children and adolescents have grown up with a range of digital technologies used to educate them, for them to build friendships and with which they learn about their identities. This chapter examines some of the ways in which young people use the Internet and some of the opportunities it might present to these users as well as the potential risks. We discuss the digital divide between young and older people, which makes it difficult for parents to advise young people in an informed way about the potential dangers they might encounter in cyberspace. The Identity Development section examines how the Internet has changed the way young people form an identity, providing new ways for them to reflect and think about the self as well as presenting new challenges for identity formation.
In 2011, the Oxford Internet Survey reported that young people used the Internet more than older people (Dutton & Blank, 2011). It found that almost all 14‐to‐17‐year‐olds used the Internet. Childwise (2010) reported that 90% of UK children use the Internet, the average child doing so more than five times a week and for an average of two hours a day. Box 7.1 details the statistics that Livingstone (2006) compiled about young people in the UK, and Box 7.2 outlines the statistics about youth in the US highlighted in a report by the Pew Research Center.
Researchers have suggested that, despite the rapid take‐up of the Internet by young people, there are inequalities in children’s and young people’s access to the Internet. Livingstone and Helsper (2007) found that boys, older children and middle‐class children all benefit from more frequent and better‐quality Internet usage than that enjoyed by girls, younger children and working‐class children. Similarly, researchers found that, in a US sample, African American children from lower‐income households and children whose parents had a high‐school diploma or less were less likely to use a computer at home than white children and children from higher‐income families (Brodie et al., 2000).
Wei and Hindman (2011) point out that the concern about the digital divide ought not to be about access or how much individuals use the Internet but rather about how they use it. These authors found that children from higher socioeconomic groups are more likely to use the Internet for informational purposes than those from lower socioeconomic groups. Similarly, Wood and Howley (2012) found in a sample of Ohio schools that most students had access to computers and the Internet. The differences lay in the number of available laptops that could be brought into the classroom, in access to computer labs, in adequacy of software and in speeds and reliability of Internet connections. For each of these variables, the differences typically favoured the more affluent suburban schools. However, not all researchers have found that it is the type of school that determines the extent of the digital divide between young people. In a study that spanned many countries, Zhong (2011) found the availability of ICT facilities, rather than the type of school, was a significant predictor of students’ self‐reported digital skills. They also found that it was important to consider the home environment. Adolescents’ access to ICTs in the home, their socioeconomic background and their history of using ICTs were positively associated with self‐reported digital skills. In addition, they found that boys reported more sophisticated digital skills than girls.
There are mixed opinions as to whether children ought to be online, and parents are often concerned about what their children are doing. This is partly to do with the divide between parents’ and children’s knowledge of the Internet and partly to do with perceptions about young people’s behaviour online. Livingstone (2009) argues that there is a polarized view about children online. She states:
Children are seen as vulnerable, undergoing a crucial but fragile process of cognitive and social development to which the Internet tends to pose a risk by introducing potential harms into the social conditions for development, justifying in turn a protectionist regulatory environment.
The contrasting view is that children are seen as
competent and creative agents in their own right whose media savvy skills tend to be underestimated by the adults around them, the consequence being that society may fail to provide a sufficiently rich environment for them. (p. 16)
The reality is that the Internet provides great opportunities for young people but equally presents many risks (summarized in Table 7.1). As shown in the table, there are many opportunities young people can gain from the use of digital technologies and so it is reasonable to argue that, in order to protect young people from risks online, the solution is not to create a general ban against using the Internet. Instead, parents need to be aware of the risks and of the kinds of support they need to be offering children (Livingstone, 2009). This chapter now turns to consider in more detail some of the kinds of risks young people might be facing (some of these topics, however, are also dealt with in other chapters).
Table 7.1 Opportunities and risks relating to young people’s use of the Internet (adapted from Livingstone, 2009)
| Potential opportunities | Potential risks |
| Access to global information | Illegal content |
| Educational resources | Grooming by paedophiles |
| Social networking among friends | Encountering extreme or sexual violence |
| Entertainment, games and fun | Other harmful offensive content |
| User‐generated content creation | Racist/hate material and activities |
| Civic and political participation | Advertising and stealth marketing |
| Privacy for identity expression | Biased information or misinformation |
| Community involvement/activism | Abuse of personal information |
| Technology expertise and literacy | Cyberbullying/harassment |
| Career advancement/employment | Gambling, phishing, financial scams |
| Personal/health/sexual advice | Self‐harm |
| Specialist groups and fan forums | Invasions/abuse of privacy |
| Shared experience with distant others | Exposure to illegal activities |
The Internet has a range of content that parents would rather not have exposed to their children. The fear, of course, is that exposure to such content might be the start of a slippery slope to engaging in such activities and/or that the child is too young to understand the content. Research has yet to be conducted to help ascertain the real effects of young people’s exposure to illegal content; however, initial research has found that young people are exposed to all kinds of illegal content. For example, despite the antidrug campaigns available online, young people tend to be exposed to drug‐related and prodrug websites (Belenko et al., 2009). The National Survey of Parents and Youth, conducted in the United States with a sample of 7,145 participants, found that, in terms of their viewing of prodrug and antidrug websites, approximately 10.4% of 12‐to‐18‐year‐olds had been exposed to drug‐related websites, 5.4% had only viewed websites that communicated antidrug messages, 1.7% only viewed prodrug websites and 3.2% had visited both types of sites (NAHDAP, 2004). Interestingly, viewing prodrug websites was related to marijuana use.
Young people who engage in online illegal activities can have differing viewpoints about some online crimes compared with offline crimes. Jambon and Smetana (2012) found that the majority of US college students have illegally downloaded music. Wingrove, Korpas and Weisz (2011) sampled 172 youths at a US midwestern university and found that there was a large amount of support for illegally downloading music. In comparison to shoplifting, the ‘participants indicated lesser endorsement for deterrence, social influence, personal morality, and obligation to obey the law as reasons to comply with music piracy laws’ (p. 271–272). Jambon and Smetana found that youths also understood downloading music as a different type of crime from more traditional crimes (such as theft in the physical world), arguing that it was moral to do so because they perceived the music industry to be immoral and because music is too highly priced. Bonner and O’Higgins (2010), in contrast, found that the young people they studied believed that downloading music was immoral but nonetheless chose to download music. They argued that their participants morally disengaged from the act, believing that downloading music is a reality of the modern world.
As has been highlighted in this book, not all cultures or social groups have access to or use the Internet in the same way. School children in Nigeria, a country renowned for engaging in online crimes, have been found to be the perpetrators of cybercrimes (Amosun & Ige, 2009). School children in Amosun and Ige’s study found that the majority of the school‐aged children they surveyed (69%) had stolen another person’s name and social security number to purchase goods and services. In addition, these participants admitted to sending computer program viruses to crash servers, sending emails to solicit foreign currency, stealing people’s identities and watching online pornographic films depicting children. Participants in such crimes are known as ‘Yahoo Boyz’.
Cyberbullying is becoming an increasing concern. There are plenty of news stories that elucidate the horrors of cyberbullying, such as the following:
The alleged cyberbully – a girl who used to go to Orono High with the victim but now attends a high school in southern Maine – was arrested and charged with the offenses on Nov. 1 by Veazie police Sgt. Keith Emery.
‘I’ve handled harassment calls for 24 years and have never seen threats as violent, disgusting and vulgar as these,’ Emery said last month of the anonymous posts, which began appearing on the victim’s Tumblr blog account in late September.
‘They started out telling the girl she was ugly, a whore, slut, et cetera. As the messages continued through October, they got threatening,’ the sergeant said. ‘Just very vulgar and horrific threats. There were dozens of these types of messages.’
Emery said last month that the suspect, whose name was withheld because of her age, confessed after she was interviewed at the Veazie police station in October. The terrorizing charge was elevated to felony status because the threats prompted the victim and her family to evacuate their home on several occasions, he said. (Gagnon, 2012)
Cyberbullying is defined as intended and repeated harm caused by communication via the use of computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices. It can involve the expression of malicious or cruel sentiments to another person, and/or the posting of humiliating or embarrassing information about someone in a public online space. It might also involve more than one person conducting the bullying and more than one person becoming a victim of the bully or bullies. Bennett, Guran, Ramos and Margolin (2011) noted four methods of cyberbullying: direct hostility, intrusiveness, public humiliation and exclusion. Sexting, as described in Chapter 5, is sometimes used as a form of bullying, in which bullies post compromising photographs or videos of the victim on websites and SNSs, with the intention to humiliate the victim, often offering disparaging remarks.
As we learnt in Chapter 3, online relationships can sometimes be very detached from the physical world, and cyberbullying is a good example of a toxic form of the disinhibition effect. Alvarez (2012) claims: ‘The potential for anonymity and the lack of empathy on behalf of the bully are in fact considered to be among the most injurious aspects of cyberbullying’ (p. 1206).
Children and adolescents are being bullied online, especially in SNSs, and then have to deal with the aftermath in the playground. Internet bullying peaks in middle school and declines in high school (Williams & Guerra, 2007). Unfortunately, cyberbullying appears to be underreported, with studies finding that 28–50% of victims do not tell anyone about their victimization and that less than one third tell their parents (Bennett et al., 2011; Slonje & Smith, 2008; Wolak, Mitchell & Finkelhor, 2006). Boys are more likely to be the cyberbullies and girls more likely to be the victims (Bennett et al., 2011; Wang, Iannotti & Nansel, 2009). Raskauskas and Stoltz (2007) found that being a victim of bullying on the Internet or via text messages was related to being a bully at school. Loneliness has also been found to be a predictor of cybervictimization (Sahin, 2012). Barlett and Gentile (2012), in a longitudinal study of university students, found that positive attitudes towards anonymity and strength (i.e., the view that the only way for weaker people to acquire strength is to get even with bullies in an online environment) significantly predicted attitudes towards cyberbullying. Moreover, they found that positive attitudes towards cyberbullying, strength and anonymity all significantly predicted engaging in cyberbullying behaviour.
The psychological harm caused by cyberbullying can be quite severe, causing young people to feel frustrated, angry and sad. Bullied children have been known to refuse to go to school, to have become chronically ill, to have run away and even to have attempted suicide (Hinduja & Patchin, 2007). Parris, Varjas, Meyers and Cutts (2012) identified two coping forms for high‐school children: reactive coping (avoiding the bullying situation) and preventative coping (talking in person and increased security and awareness). They also found that a group of students felt unable to cope with being cyberbullied. At this stage, psychologists need to further research prevention strategies for cyberbullying as well as how to support victims.
In Chapter 12 we will learn more about online scams; however, it is important to note that adults are not the only victims of fraud. Fraudsters are also targeting teenagers. Fraudsters lure young people onto websites promising them free goods, including video‐game systems, iPods and so forth. The information the teenagers give out, such as email addresses and personal information, can then be sold to marketers and potentially be used for identity theft.
Teenagers are also having their identities stolen so that their grandparents can be defrauded. In a fairly recently emerging type of fraud, teenagers’ identities are being stolen from spaces such as SNSs to use in what is known as the ‘grandparents scam’ or the ‘emergency scam’. In this scam, a fraudster using the stolen identity pretends to be the teenager in a distressing emergency situation and contacts teenagers’ grandparents seeking assistance in the form of money. The false narrative might be about the teenager having had their wallet stolen or even needing bail to get out of jail. In each situation, the fraudster posing as the teenager asks that the grandparent should act quickly and not tell the parents.
Of course the Internet does not offer a completely bleak picture for children and adolescents; instead, it can offer many opportunities. Some of these opportunities are summarized in the next two sections of this chapter, in which we consider issues such as identity development and activism.
Chapter 2 outlined a number of theories about the self and the self in cyberspace. We summarized theories on adolescent development and identity achievement, such as the work of Erikson and Marcia. Here we examine, in a little more detail, empirical work on the utility of the Internet when it comes to identity development for adolescents.
There has been much research that demonstrates that cyberspace is a rich and safe environment for adolescents to explore and experiment with identity (Rheingold, 1993; Stern, 2004; Valkenburg & Peter, 2008). Online identity experimentation can involve pretending to be someone else online (Valkenburg & Peter, 2008) or changing some aspects of one’s offline identity in one’s presentation of oneself online (Whitty & Gavin, 2001). Lenhart, Rainie and Lewis (2001) found that, in the US, almost 25% of adolescents who used instant messaging pretended to be someone else. Valkenburg, Schouten and Peter (2005) found that Dutch boys and girls do not differ in the frequency in which they experiment with identity, but do differ in the sorts of identities they select.
There are a number of advantages to experimenting with identity online. In a study by Valkenburg and Peter (2008) that surveyed 1,158 Dutch adolescents between 10 and 17 years of age, it was found that those adolescents who experimented more frequently with their identity online (i.e., pretending to be someone else when communicating online) were also more likely to communicate with people online from varied ages and cultural backgrounds. These online identity experiments were found to have an indirect positive effect on adolescents’ social competence.
In addition to the advantages the Internet provides adolescents, digital technologies have been found to be a useful resource for personal growth and reaffirming identity. In a qualitative study consisting of in‐depth interviews with immigrant adolescents from the Soviet Union residing in Israel, it was found that the Internet provided a space for these young people to develop and strengthen their identity (Elias & Lemish, 2009). For example, the participants below had the following to say:
Sometimes I feel worthless, as if Russians are not as good as Israelis. So I try to be better than them in school, in general knowledge. I am proud of the fact that I am a good student, that I know lots of things … Thanks to the internet, I always have something to say. (Anna, 12, five years in Israel)
I prefer professional websites that explain how to build internet sites. I also like to redesign computer games. I even changed my cellphone. I’ve downloaded a program from the internet and put it into my phone. As a result I don’t have the Hebrew and the Arabic languages in my cellphone, but only the Russian and the Ukrainian. What does it give me? A feeling of power! (Andrei, 15, 1.5 years in Israel) (p. 541)
Similarly, Whitty and Gavin (2001) found that young people felt freer to express themselves online. For example, two participants had the following to say:
They all think I’m a six foot tall tanned lifesaver. I tell them certain things that are true, but other things are bull****. I mean, I can get away with it so why not? What they don’t know won’t hurt them. I will admit that I am pretty sly when it comes to smooth talking certain ladies on the Net and if it means lying to get to second base then go for it. (22‐year‐old male)
You can never be sure that anyone you talk to on the Net is telling the truth so there’s very little trust. That can work both ways because you’re free to be whatever you like, which means you’re not intimidated by what people think. (17‐year‐old male) (p. 629)
There are numerous spaces online where individuals might engage in political activities. Political engagement online can either be expressive or involve acquiring information. Expressive behaviour can include writing blog posts, writing political statuses on Facebook, uploading political videos and sharing political opinions. Informational behaviour might include reading political blog posts (Macafee & de Simone, 2012). Social media has been said to afford individuals new ways to exchange information and to self‐present and self‐express their political views (Macafee & de Simone, 2012).
Researchers have asked whether civic ‘online participation’ might invigorate democracy and/or whether the Internet motivates young people, in particular, to engage with politics. Before moving on to consider the research, it is worthwhile to consider Haythornthwaite and Wellman’s (2002) assertion that the Internet does not function on its own but rather is embedded in real life. In other words, what we do online is real life. The findings about how politically active young people are online are mixed. In the main, however, the findings suggest that the Internet does not promote greater interest and participation in politics by young people.
Online exposure to campaign information has been found to positively affect young people’s political efficacy, knowledge and/or participation (Kenski & Stroud, 2006). Some researchers have found that those who use the Internet more frequently to gain information are also more likely to regularly engage in civic activities (Pasek, Kenski, Romer & Jamieson, 2006). However, others have found no relationship between the two (Scheufele & Nisbet, 2002).
When considering online participation, it is important also to consider participation in the physical world – to examine how these might be similar or different. Hirzalla and Van Zoonen (2011), for instance, have surveyed young Dutch people about their online and offline civic activities. They found that young people’s offline and online participation correlated. Moreover, they argued that the term ‘online participation’ is too broad a concept and that instead researchers should consider various functions and forms of online participation. Macafee and Simone (2012) found that expressive use of social media incited offline behaviour but that informational use did not. Calenda and Meijer (2015) concluded from surveying 2,163 students in Italy, the Netherlands and Spain that the Internet can reinvigorate political participation but does not trigger a shift from ‘old’ to ‘new’ politics.
Police are urgently trying to trace Shamima Begum, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15, after they flew to Istanbul from Gatwick airport on Tuesday. It is believed they have fled to Syria to join Islamic State.
Reports have emerged that at least one of the girls had been in contact with Aqsa Mahmood, who left her Glasgow home in November 2013 after becoming radicalized.
The former foreign secretary, William Hague, said it was unrealistic for the security services to find everything. Now the Commons leader, Hague praised the work of the security services, telling Pienaar’s Politics on BBC Radio 5 Live: ‘It’s unrealistic to expect that every single thing is found and remember that we’ve spent the last couple of years being heavily criticised for having so much surveillance.’ (The Guardian, 2015).
This concern about radicalization has been echoed by various groups, including the UK Safer Internet Centre, which put out the following notice in November 2014:
The UK Safer Internet Centre is taking the unusual step of publishing this special bulletin to all Local Safeguarding Children Boards [LSCBs] due to the unprecedented online threats posed to children across the UK from radicalization and extremism. This action follows discussions with colleagues at Home Office and [the Department for Education] and in the same way that the Government have raised the threat level, this bulletin aims to mirror this heightening of concern particularly with regards to children.
The threats we are seeing take many forms, not only the high profile incidents of those travelling to countries such as Syria and Iraq to fight, but on a much broader perspective also. The internet, in particular social media, is being used as a channel, not only to promote and engage, but also as Robert Hannigan (Director of GCHQ) recently suggested, as a command structure. Often this promotion glorifies violence, attracting and influencing many people including children and in the extreme cases, radicalizing them. Research concludes that children can be trusting and not necessarily appreciate bias that can lead to them being drawn into these groups and adopt these extremist views, and in viewing this shocking and extreme content may become normalized to it.
This threat is not just from groups, such as Islamic State, but from ‘far right’ groups also.
We are perhaps more familiar with this ‘grooming’ process and the risks posed to children by older young people and adults who form relationships with children to ultimately abuse them – the process is similar and exploits the same vulnerabilities.
It is for this reason that we are calling on all LSCBs to:
- Consider and discuss the threats from radicalization and extremism for their children
- Include the conclusions in your Strategies and Action Plans, ensuring that addressing Radicalization is effectively embedded in safeguarding practice and that PREVENT coordinators are engaged and signposted
- Consider how the threat of Radicalization through the Internet and Social Media is being addressed
- Review how the above points are being addressed within your member agencies and their success/effectiveness
- Review esafety education in the light of these widening and extreme risks. (UK Safer Internet Centre, 2014)
Stories such as the one reported by The Guardian (above) and concerns raised by many groups in society are becoming increasingly common. Much more research is needed, however, into understanding how young people are radicalized, the role of the Internet with regard to radicalization and how to prevent this radicalization. Online radicalization might be achieved via various methods. These include speeches, graphics, training manuals, slides, blogs, podcasts, tutorials on building bombs, tutorials on how to sneak into Iraq, tutorials on setting off improvised explosive devices, fundraising effects and video games (which children and adolescents are encouraged to play pretending to be a warrior killing US soldiers) (Wright, 2008).
Researchers at RAND Europe tested the following five hypotheses by conducting interviews with 15 extremists:
They found support for the first two hypotheses but not for the last three. They argue the case that, although the Internet facilitates the radicalization of individuals, it is not the sole driver of the process (RAND Europe, 2015).
Neumann (2013), who is an expert in cyberconflict and terrorism, makes the poignant point that removing content from the Internet is the least desirable and least effective approach to counteracting online terrorism. Instead, he contends, governments should spend more time and resources on reducing the demand for radicalization and violent extremist messages (e.g., by educating young people to question the messages they see online as well as by discrediting, countering and confronting extremist narratives). The best approach, Neumann believes, to counteracting radicalization is to exploit violent extremists’ online communication by gaining intelligence and gathering evidence in a comprehensive and systematic fashion.
In his paper, Neumann summarizes six processes and dynamics that explain how online radicalization works. First, he contends, being immersed in extremist content (e.g., discourses about martyrdom and death and videos of suicide operations and beheadings) for extended periods of time is likely to desensitize a person. Drawing from Pyszczynski et al. (2006), he argues that ‘constant exposure to discourses about martyrdom and death – combined with videos of suicide operations and beheadings – can produce “mortality salience,” an overpowering sense of one’s own mortality, which increases support for suicide operations and other, often excessively brutal, terrorist tactics’ (p. 435). Second, emotionally charged videos from conflict zones (e.g., atrocities by Western troops, such a torture and rape) can lead to ‘moral outrage’. Third, when people spend too much time in virtual communities, online spaces starts to function as ‘criminogenic environments’ – that is, environments where deviant and extreme behaviours are learnt and absorbed and extreme ideas become normalized, especially given that the other individuals that people are spending time with hold similar extreme views. Fourth is an effect already mentioned in this book, the ‘disinhibition effect’, where groups and individuals are less likely to abide by social rules and more likely to become hostile online. This is thought to occur in online spaces where individuals are anonymous. Fifth, as also previously mentioned in this book, individuals can often feel distressed and depressed when there is a large discrepancy between their actual and ideal selves. Individuals who play online role‐playing games and choose a character that is close to their ideal self can start to feel increasingly anxious and depressed. Neumann theorizes that those individuals who play a character who is violent, over time, might wish to live out their pro‐violent selves. Finally, the Internet can link up people with similar interests (in this case, extremists) who might never have met had there been no Internet. Neumann’s points are interesting, and future research in this area might benefit from considering whether these six processes and dynamics do explain why individuals become radicalized on the Internet.
Although the Internet is no longer a new medium, it was nonetheless not in existence when many adults were young. Of course, this was also previously the case for other types of media, such as television and radio. However, as our earlier chapters have pointed out, the Internet has opened up new ways to relate, exist and express oneself. Young people are bound to have different experiences from those of the older generation, and the generation after them may also experience technology differently as it continues to evolve and become a part of people’s everyday lives. This chapter has raised some pertinent points about some of the issues that concern young people in relation to the Internet, including identity formation, harassment and bullying, criminal activities that are cyberenabled and cyberdependent, engaging in politics, and online radicalization. The research raises important questions about the ways in which young people need to be educated and made aware of how to engage online in safety and in psychologically beneficial ways.