Gila Cohen Zilka (2018). E-safety in the use of social networking apps by children, adolescents, and young adults. Interdisciplinary Journal of e-skills and lifelong learning Volume 14, 2018.
INTRODUCTION
The article starts off with what they are researching. They are following the use of social networking applications by children. Adolescents, and young adults. The study is meant to show the participants point of view in utilizing social media.
This includes:
-Characteristics of SNA usage, -The e-safety of SNA, -The gender difference between age groups, -habits of use, -Hazards and solutions, -sharing with parents and parental control.
All of these categories will show the point of view of the children, adolescents, and young adults. As the article continues they focus on SNA and say that safety is a major issue and relates to a range of activities on social media. This includes online privacy, cyberbullying, exposure to violent content, and more. They also include the positive sides of SNA such as it is used for communicating with others and allow people to interact with strangers and friends.
They also mention that the number of children and youth utilizing social media is on the rise. They mention that more than 90% of American teenagers are on the internet.
METHOD
They used a mixed-methodology. They studied a sample of 551 participants from Israel. They mention that 71.1% were female and 28.9% were male. Since this data is mostly female participants the males point of view will be underrepresented. Out of the participants only 110 were interviewed in person. As for their data they created categories in which they came up with different questions. For example a category was “Habits of use and fulfillment” in this category they asked questions such as “What don’t you like about SNA?” and “IN how many groups do you participate in SNA?”
RESULTS
As for the results they made 5 charts. The first chart is about Extent of various activities in a course of a week. From the data it showed that the adolescents used SNA for about 11.06 hours a week while young adults came second and lastly children. This data also showed that in total the participants spend roughly the same time during phone calls and face to face meetings.
The 2nd chart showed the age group of face to face meetings and participation in SNA. The 3rd one the total of who the children and adolescents and young adults were talking too. The 4th showed the dark side of social media. It shows how each of the children, adolescents and young adults experienced bullying, Invasion of privacy, dispute and quarrels and much more. From this data it was concluded that there was a high percentage of bullying the tao being 41% in total. There was also a high percentage in privacy issues. The total being 40%. The 5th chart showed if they will let their parents look at their social media and the reasons they might. The conclusion was that children, adolescents, and young adults opposed the idea of being watched by their parents. They felt they were invading their privacy.
CONCLUSION
Finally the findings of this article was that the most significant dangers in social media networking apps was the invasion of privacy and bullying. The main problem is that shaming and bullying is happening through social media among friend groups, They mention that although this is a negative side to social media , they say it can also be positive because since the shaming and bullying was through social media they are able to find evidence of all of it and report it. They also mention that by increasing awareness of interpersonal relations can reduce future arguments and quarrels. They also mention that as age increases they grow to become more aware and responsible on social media. I believe that the parents should watch over mostly on children on social media. The parents have to educate their kids on the dangers such as bullying and privacy.
