Dr Barbie Clarke's Blog

Conferences, and myth busting about kids and digital

2011-09-30T18:49:00.000+01:00

I attended an excellent conference yesterday at the British Library (yesterday was ‘Super Thursday’, the day booksellers rush out titles for Christmas). Organised by The Bookseller, the Children’s Conference looked at the digital landscape for children and considered how this is impacting on print media; the conference had a thoughtful and receptive audience as well as insightful co-speakers. I presented key findings from our Digital Family Kids and Youth research.

It is the season of conferences; last week was the ESOMAR Congress in Amsterdam, where I presented a paper co-written with Catriona Ferris from Unilever on the change in family life in emerging countries such as China and Brazil. In the hotel lift on the way to breakfast on Tuesday I met the conference cartoonist Mark Siermaczeski (crueltyfreecartoons.com) which resulted in a highly entertaining breakfast; he has since sent a cartoon – not bad drawn from memory.

There has been much discussion about the UNICEF Research carried out in the UK, Spain and Sweden, published 14 September. Being qualitative research it inevitably focused on relatively small samples of families (8 in each country) and groups of children (2 groups or depth interviews in 7 schools per country). The report pointed out that families in the UK appear to be more materialistic than in Spain or Sweden. The conference yesterday emphasised the reality of children’s lives today and the place of digital devices, and there was discussion about digital media replacing parental engagement. Parents do feel guilty about the amount of time and the quality of time they spend with their children, but our IKEA Play Report research, carried out with 11,000 parents and children in 25 countries, emphasised how common this is in many countries, and how children do indeed want their parents to spend more time with them. While our Play Report reflects much of what was in the UNICEF research, we did not find that the UK was particularly worse that Spain or Sweden in terms of parental time and feelings of guilt.

At yet another very good conference last week the third wave of the EU Kids Online research was launched at the LSE, London. Sonia Livingstone summed up the findings by questioning a number of myths that abound around children and digital. Included in these was the myth that children are meeting strangers online. This certainly backs up our research; most children are meeting their friends online, and as I have frequently argued, it is those children who are vulnerable in the off-line world who are most vulnerable in the online world. If parents do not have the ability, the time, or the inclination to engage with their children, this can leave their children more vulnerable to becoming lonely and isolated, which in turn might make them victims of unpleasant experiences online. There was a general call for adults - parents, teachers, social workers - to become better clued up about children’s online activity, a point emphasised at yesterday’s conference by Tamara Littleton, CEO of eModeration http://www.emoderation.com/ . Tamara described the work that eModeration does in monitoring websites, and made the point that many responsible social networking sites can do a great deal to protect children and moderate language and behaviour; this must be reassuring for parents.

What is poor parenting?

2011-08-11T16:11:00.001+01:00

An American commentator said yesterday that a couple of months ago England was viewed as the land of Harry Potter and royal weddings, and now it is apparently the land of anarchy. He has a point. It is shocking to see bored and disillusioned children and teenagers behaving on our urban streets in a way that is more like Lord of the Flies than helpful, clever, Harry Potter. William Golding’s novel describes children stranded on a desert island and attempting to govern themselves with no adults around, painfully recording their decent into savagery.

Children need boundaries, and they need adults around them who will guide them, care for them and listen to them. In the aftermath of 3 days of unbounded behaviour it is easy to imagine that all children can behave like savages. Of course this is not true, any more than saying that all parents are bad. In our research we have been into many family homes where there is little in the way of material goods and even less in the way of family income, but where the warmth and love given to children by parents and grandparents is moving and impressive. Equally we’ve been into homes of prosperous families where there is no shortage of material wealth but little time for interaction with children. But most parents want to do the best for their children, and most bring them up in the best way they can. Parents do need support and they do need friendly (not prescriptive) advice; being a parent is tough, especially when children reach adolescence, and that is irrespective of social class or race.

Many studies have been carried out on resilience, considering why some children seem to survive difficult and deprived childhoods, emerging as healthy and successful adults and others are sucked into a black hole of truancy, petty theft, and drug abuse. The common factor seems to be that that there has been one person, or a group of people, to whom the child can turn for support and understanding. This can be a relative or someone in the community: for example a grandparent, a neighbour, a priest, or a teacher; someone who has taken sufficient interest in that child to make them feel worthwhile, and to build their self-esteem. Friends are important to children and especially to adolescents, but they can be a negative as well as a positive influence. Without a sense of confidence and self-esteem adolescents can be deeply influenced by their peers, and at its worst drawn into a world of gang culture and subversive behaviour.

Parents who can’t cope, who might be depressed or addicted to drugs or alcohol, are clearly not likely to be able to be a positive influence on their children. These children are then very vulnerable. Poor parenting is much more than not knowing where your child is, or what they are doing, it is about not having the time or emotional resource to be fully engaged with that child. But it should also be remembered that most of the time most parents are, in paediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott’s phrase, ‘good enough’.

5 a day – tips on parenting – helpful or prescriptive?

2011-08-09T11:44:00.000+01:00

Giving tips on parenting is always a difficult area, but the news that the Coalition Government is thinking of rolling out a national campaign to help under-performing children was bound to prompt criticism (see The Telegraph as an example). This has been based on the Lib-Dem’s think tank ‘The CentreForum's report’ which suggests a ‘5-a-day’ guideline to effective parenting. It might be the name that is unfortunate. There have been many comments over the last week since the guidelines were issued that ‘5 a day’ refers to the ‘unsuccessful’ campaign that encourages children to eat fruit and vegetables. But I would question this; I don’t think we’ve interviewed a school-aged child who does not understand what ‘5-a-day’ in terms of eating fruit and vegetables is about – often prompted by their school being part of the Healthy Schools initiative. Children are frequently telling their parents about healthy eating.
CentreForum's five guidelines are: Read to your child for 15 minutes; Play with your child on the floor for 10 minutes; Talk with your child for 20 minutes with the television off; Adopt positive attitudes towards your child and praise them frequently; Give your child a nutritious diet. Twitter, Netmums and Mumsnet have all registered disquiet about ‘directing’ parents about parenting but perhaps the report deserves a closer look.
The full report ‘Parenting Matters: Early Years and Social Mobility’ by Chris Paterson at the Centre Forum is very good. The report states ‘It is now firmly established that the single most important factor influencing child intellectual and social development is the quality of parenting and care that a child receives and the quality and conduciveness of the Home Learning Environment (“HLE”) that this creates. ‘(page 12). It goes on to look in depth at early brain formation, and points out the vital need for early interaction and bonding between child and parent or care giver: ‘when strong, frequent, or prolonged exposure to adverse experiences – such as extreme poverty, abuse or neglect – are experienced in early life without adult support, the stress caused can become literally toxic to the developing brain architecture.’ (page 20). This point is made by Sue Gerhardt in her book ‘Why Love Matters: how affection shapes a baby’s brain’, based on research in neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis and biochemistry.
Issuing such guidelines in the summer school holidays may be a sound move, but in our most recent research with mums over the last week we have found that many find themselves enervated, and there’s still another 4 weeks to go before children return to playschool and school. The weather hasn’t been great, and for many families money is short; there is uncertainty about their financial future, and holidays away from home have not been possible, so not surprisingly there is trepidation about what to do with the kids in the holidays. Grandparents can play a part in helping with childcare and with ideas for entertaining the kids, but many families are now removed from family support, and mums we talk to do not necessarily turn to their parents for guidance. It is interesting to note that our research for the Ikea Playreport (the largest international study ever done on play) indicated that two-thirds of parents would seek information on parenting from the media (including websites, blogs and TV), but the most trusted source would be their parents (30%) followed by health professionals (17%). However other research has shown us that some parents can find social networking sites for mums in particular a bit daunting and patronising; having advice and support online or anywhere would help, but does it have to be quite so prescriptive?

‘Too fast, too soon’ : becoming a teenager too early

2011-07-20T13:10:00.001+01:00

More evidence emerges of children’s (unhealthy?) engagement with digital. Research released today from charities Family Lives and Drinkaware shows that 87% of parents think children are experiencing ‘teenage’ issues before their teens. We know from our recent research for The Bailey Review on behalf of Credos that parents are very worried that their children are exposed to media content that is too old for them, but feel helpless to stop it.

We have long been aware that children are lying about their age online so that they can gain access to social networking sites. In my 3 year ethnographic research with 10-14 year olds I reported in 2009 the issue of children signing up to social networking sites as young as 10, often claiming that they were 16 as this was the age they thought they had to be to sign up. My research showed that children were exposed to unsuitable advertising such as gambling sites and ads for weight loss, simply because they had claimed they were older. Today’s Family Lives and Drinkaware research shows worryingly that more than a quarter (28%) of 10-12 year olds see and read alcohol-related posts on social networking sites, over a third (37%) of 13-15 year olds see photos of their friends drunk on social networking sites and 12% of 10-12 year olds and 25% of 13-15 year olds say they have seen sexually explicit images on the internet.

I have long argued that parents are not aware of what their children are doing online, and that as in all aspects of parenting children need boundaries and their digital time should be discussed and limited. Early adolescents (10-14 year olds) will always push boundaries, try the unknown, experiment, as David Squire and I showed in our recent paper for the Children’s Media Conference. Most children are sensible, have friends who support them and parents who listen to them. For example the Family Lives and Drinkaware research indicates that three-quarters (73%) of 10-17 year olds would choose to speak to their parents first about issues they are encountering. Most children benefit from the friendship and support they receive through their social networking encounters with friends. It is those children who are isolated, find difficulty in making friends, lack parental engagement (for example through parental issues with mental health, alcohol or drugs) that are most vulnerable both off-line and online.

A happy medium needs to be sought. Children should not be discouraged from using digital media, but they need clear rules. To empower parents both Family Lives and Drinkaware have great advice on their websites, and have produced a Top Tips list. This includes advice on technology, alcohol, and parenting. On technology they advise parents to:

 Familiarise yourself with how computer and mobile technology works. Don’t worry if your child knows more about technology than you – be honest and spend time together looking at online security and privacy functions.

 Keep the computer in a room used by all the family, monitor how much time your child spends on the computer and encourage them to openly talk about what they’re looking at online.

In my last post I wrote about internet service provider Talk Talk which now offers a network-level security service Home Safe and in particular Child Safe which enables parents to restrict sites as well as time children can access the internet. Children can gain from their engagement with digital, but they also need protection.

Mind the Gap and Facebook Stole My Childhood

2011-07-06T18:36:00.005+01:00

Many of us working with children and young people will be in Sheffield this week at the The Children's Media Conference. I’m talking there alongside children’s digital whizz David Squire from DESQ about meeting the media needs of early adolescents. Our session Mind the Gap will be on Thursday at 2-3pm and again on Friday at 12.45 – 1.30 pm. In this David and I explore who early adolescents (10-14 14 year olds) are and what they need, and why we think there is a gap in media provision for this age group. Our paper outlining our thoughts is now available.

I’ll also be taking part in the panel discussion Facebook Stole My Childhood chaired by Jo Twist, Commissioning Editor for Education, Channel 4. This session takes place on Thursday at 3.30-4.30 pm. While my research has shown that there can be dangers for children on-line, including exposure to inappropriate content, cyberbullying and on-line predators, overall children can benefit from their digital social networking.

As the Bailey Review published last month pointed out, children do need to be protected in their digital world, just as they do in the real world. It is a welcome move therefore that internet service provider Talk Talk has enabled its customers to use a network-level security service which is designed in particular to help parents protect their children from harmful content on the Internet such as viruses. Unlike anti-virus or parental control software on individual machines, this tool protects anyone using the same Internet connection, and thus helps to block inappropriate content even if it’s being browsed from a games console, mobile phone or tablet. Its KidsSafe parental controls allows the account-holder to block porn, violence, and other content. There is also a Homework Time option that allows parents/carers to block sites such as Facebook at certain times. It is an interesting move and one no doubt that will be soon followed by other service providers.

Concern continues to mount about children’s access to online content, and as I wrote last month our new research Digital Kids and Youth will explore many of these issues.

The Bailey Review – The Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood

2011-06-05T20:37:00.002+01:00

In Family Kids and Youth’s research carried out for the Bailey Review on behalf of Credos - the independent research arm of the Advertising Association) parental fears centred on their child’s future: their education, their future job prospects, and social concerns such as drugs and violence. This seemed to override concerns about advertising and marketing to children, although clearly this was an issue for some parents. Parents did express unease about the lack of control they feel they have over the media content their children consume. But the nature of children’s digital world means that children are exposed to far more adult content than ever before, and parents can feel powerless to prevent this. An important message from parents was that they did not want to live in a ‘nanny state’, with government telling them what to do. They wanted and expected advertisers, marketers, broadcasters and internet providers to be highly sensitive to the issue, but they felt that the responsibility for controlling what their children consumed in terms of media messages was ultimately theirs as parents. Reg Bailey’s review is due out tomorrow, and early reports suggest that he has recognised very well the dilemma parents are facing.

In earlier research I carried out at Cambridge, I found that in many ways children want to keep their digital world separate and even secret from their parents, particularly in early adolescence when children naturally begin to seek autonomy and a sense of identity. I had several examples of children setting up separate Facebook accounts, one for their friends, and another for parents and family to access. While parents were concerned about their child’s use of digital media they could often misjudge the way they felt they were controlling it. One single mum for example did not allow her 13 year old to have a Facebook account for fear he would be approached by ‘strangers’. This meant that the child missed out on many of the social arrangements that were made by friends at school. Meanwhile he was happily playing and communicating with people he did not know on Xbox LIVE, which his mother was not aware of, simply because she did not understand the technology.

Reports suggest that Reg Bailey is calling on Ofcom to monitor parents’ view of media content, and this seems eminently sensible. And the Advertising Association’s report for this review suggests that more should be done to promote Media Smart, the excellent media literacy programme targeted to children through schools. At Family Kids and Youth we believe that there is also a need to continue to find out what it is that children are actually doing with digital media, especially as more and new means of accessing media is available on an almost weekly basis. For this reason Family Kids and Youth is launching Digital Kids and Youth, a monthly round of ethnography and focus groups with children and adolescents, monitoring their use of digital media. We will report every 4 months, and are delighted to have industry partners to help us with this.

Children are people too

2011-01-31T22:11:00.001Z

The research I carried out for my doctorate at Cambridge highlighted the naivety and trust children have in what is completely natural for them – communicating on-line. Our recent research has shown just how vulnerable young children might be. We have observed 5 year olds talking to ‘friends’ online. While this may be completely innocent what is a concern is that frequently parents are unaware of what their children are doing. This is not neglect or a lack of concern on the part of parents. It is simply a lack of understanding about what new digital technology is able to do. Accessing others to play with them on-line through their DSi, Wii, X-box live (the list is now extensive) is something children relish and welcome. There is a huge gap in informing parents about what technology is out there and what it is potentially capable of. Parents might understand the first but not fully appreciate the second. Children, of course, need protecting, but parents need informing.

Kids and Youth Conference - Part 1

2010-11-30T20:57:00.003Z

The MRS conference held last week in London took us on a journey from small children engaging with the DUKTIG range at IKEA, through the story of today’s digital kids, questions about ethics, and onto the raw and challenging world of teenage street drinkers in Tower Hamlets. Unfortunately Saher Sidhom from Great Works was unable to Chair as planned because his father was taken seriously ill. I was asked to step in at the last minute and with the support of the MRS team we managed to get through the agenda without too much delay. We missed having Saher there, and I’m happy to report that his father appears to be making a recovery, and we send them both our good wishes.

Maria Elander, who with the title of Head of Children’s School at IKEA, must surely have the best job going, has just returned from a two-week trip to Asia where she has been teaching but also observing the challenges of family life. Maria spoke about the history of IKEA, and how children have always been regarded by the company as the ‘most important people in the world’. She explained how staff and suppliers are trained in child development and safety, and how this impacts on the high standards IKEA sets for its children’s department. Maria was followed by Marc Goodchild from the BBC and me, speaking about our collaborative work on digital kids. We began looking at 10-14 year olds, but realised eighteen months ago that to gain a true picture of what children are doing, especially in terms of social networking, we needed to go a lot younger, and the study this year has looked at 5-10 year olds. The study has used ethnography in the homes of children aged 5-14 years throughout, and we have had the luxury of time to make repeat visits to the families. The report for this stage of the research will be available in the New Year.

Professor David Buckingham, Director of the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media at the University of London gave, as always, an eloquent and thoughtful talk, touching this time on his report “The Impact of the Commercial World on Children’s Wellbeing” (December, 2009). David argued that there has to be a ‘middle ground’. It is recognised that children are exposed to a wide range of media, much of it adult (e.g. reality TV) and we must be cautious but pragmatic in our approach to ensure that we put children’s wellbeing at the forefront of what we do. David’s report is available to download here: http://www.adassoc.org.uk/tasks/sites/aa/assets/File/Childrens_Wellbeing_all.pdf.

The subject of the commercialisation of childhood is one that is rightly debated regularly, and was taken up once again in the afternoon by Sue Eustace from the Advertising Association, and Peter Robinson from Dubit. Sue announced the launch of ‘Check’, a website sponsored by the Advertising Association which gives useful information about the collective rules and regulations that apply to research, advertising and marketing to children. See: www.check.uk.com.

Snow and ice and client commitments mean I have to pause here but I will continue to write about the conference in my next posting. The conference programme can be found by scrolling down at: http://www.mrs.org.uk/conference/index.htm.

The Good News about under 15’s and their use of Digital Media

2010-08-31T14:05:00.000+01:00

Another preoccupation for us over the last few months has been The Digital Media Study, carried out by Family Kids and Youth, and informed and helped by Marc Goodchild, Head of Children’s Interactive at the BBC, and Andrew Harrison, CEO Europe of Bestbuy and The Carphone Warehouse.

We are currently sifting through 6 months of ethnographic work that has included observation and filming of children aged 5-10 using digital media, sessions in-home, diary keeping, and observation and filming during the summer school holidays. All this is to be added to my previous doctoral study carried out at Cambridge University which was a 2-year ethnographic study with 10-14 year olds and their use of digital media. Our presentation on children and early adolescents’ emotional engagement with digital media will take place at the ESOMAR Congress in Athens in the main hall on Tuesday 14 September at 3.00 pm (see http://www.esomar.org/index.php/events-congress-2010-programme.html). The main report will be available in November. Marc Goodchild and I are also taking part in a BAFTA debate on Monday 6 September entitled The Good News about Social Media and the under 12’s held at their London HQ ,195 Piccadilly at 6.30pm.

Essentially, our message is good news. Children, we have found, are benefiting from their engagement with digital technology. Parents, as we found out in the Play Report (see previous postings), do express a concern about the time children spend with screen based media. Much of this might be parents’ concern that they are not actively engaged with their children when they use technology, although of course they could be. And we have found that many parents simply do not understand the technology their children are using, and are surprisingly reluctant to find out about it. So instead of engaging with their children, they tend to either ban it altogether, which could have social consequences for children (missing out on what other kids are up to), or they let their children get on with it. Both could potentially be harmful. There is a case for parents to become more engaged with what their children are doing online, partly to check that they are coming to no harm and that they are learning safe surfing lessons, and partly because otherwise a generational digital divide is created, one in which children and young people understand digital technology better than parents.

We have found that children can learn much from using digital technology, and that’s not just the ability to become familiar with the devices, but also allowing them to develop other skills such a numeracy and literacy. Many schools in developed countries recognise this, and are now using interactive whiteboards and computer technology in teaching. Children like to be allowed to find out things for themselves, and digital technology, the Internet and especially Google gives them huge opportunities to do just this – with the rider, always, that they understand how to stay safe. Never revealing personal information, never engaging in conversations with strangers, always reporting anything they feel unsure or unsafe about, even if it turns out to be perfectly innocent, should be a mantra for every child using digital technology. Children are having fun online, they are engaging in social interaction, and they are finding things out for themselves.

What does being a parent mean?

2010-07-31T18:16:00.005+01:00

Many parents can feel guilty, and this was emphasised in the The Play Report, referred to in my previous posting. Since its publication I’ve been interviewed and consulted about this aspect in particular. I think some parents do feel self-doubt about the way in which they bring up their children, and they also feel that they should spend a lot of time playing with them. The report showed that parents feel guilty that they are not spending enough time with their children, with nearly half, 45%, reporting that they feel they do not have enough time to spend playing with their children, and 55% feeling that they do not spend enough quality time with their children, with 3 out of 4 parents feeling they would like to have more time just to chill out with them. Cash rich and time poor parents feel a constant strain on their time, but I think it is interesting to put this into context. Parents today are actually spending more than four times the amount of time looking after their children than they were in 1975 according to a report from the Future Foundation in 2006. Other research has shown that in industrial societies, adults invest more time in children’s play, and generally aim to help their child’s educational ability.

Another aspect I’ve been asked about is whether t.v. has become the substitute ‘nanny’. I think that like adults, children sometimes need some light relief, and TV can provide this! Like anything to do with child rearing, some things are OK, but in moderation. It is simply not possible to play with your children all the time, you would each be very bored! So TV watching is OK – but of course not all the time!

I’ve also been frequently asked whether parents put too much pressure on themselves and their children when it comes to their child’s development. I think that many parents enter ‘parenthood’ in the same way they might tackle a new job. They plan, schedule, dictate in the same way they might at work, and this is probably a symptom of parents getting older. There is so much information, media interest, and ‘educational toys’ available that it can put pressure on responsible parents. There’s a sense that once a baby is born we have to rush out and buy educational dvd’s that they should be watching, that they should develop earlier than other children, that they should walk by 12 months and talk by 18 months. In reality each child will develop in different ways. I think parents need to be reassured, told to relax, you are doing a good job, engage emotionally with your children, try not to worry about it too much, try to keep your own concerns separate from the kids when you are with them – it will do you both good! Accept that each child will develop in a different way, and as long as parents are emotionally there for them and they know they are loved and cared for, they will develop resilience, and will grow to be healthy individuals.

The sponsors of the Playreport, IKEA, welcome debate about this and other aspects of children, family and play on their Facebook page, www.facebook.com/playreport.

The Meaning of Play

2010-07-30T17:43:00.007+01:00

Time has been short recently. The Play Report has pre-occupied me for the last few months, together with another major study, children and their use of digital media. Ironic that both studies have involved children and their use of spare time, and both have left us at the agency with little time to spare. But we’ve also been left with a huge sense of satisfaction from working on such interesting studies with such inspired colleagues. The Play Report was commissioned by IKEA, where we have been working with a great team in Sweden. And The Digital Media study has been informed and helped by Marc Goodchild, Head of Children’s Interactive at the BBC, and Andrew Harrison, CEO Europe of Bestbuy and The Carphone Warehouse.

The Play Report is, we believe, the largest study ever done on play. 8,000 interviews with parents, and 3,000 interviews with children across 25 countries in 19 languages. Interviews were carried out on-line by our colleagues at Research Now who did an excellent job, as did my co-author Richard Somerville who did the analysis. The brainchild of IKEA, the Play Report looks at all aspects of children’s spare time, and perhaps more importantly explores what play actually means. IKEA has been innovative and imaginative in the way in which it has used the research, and has set up a Facebook site to explore ideas about play, as well as launching an Apple app.

We discovered some interesting findings. There is often great concern voiced about the amount of time children spend in front of screens, and as our other major study - Children and their use of Digital Media - has shown, this might be misleading. Playing with friends (30%) is the single favourite pastime of children interviewed for the Play Report, followed at a significantly lower level by playing with computer games (15%), and playing with mum and dad (10%). Over half of the children interviewed (53%) feel they are very good at making friends.

This last finding is immensely important. The Play Report shows that 9 out of 10 children said they would prefer to play with friends over watching TV – this is reassuring – playing with friends is an important part of child development – it allows them to develop social skills and interpret emotion in others, so playing is vital to child development. I believe that parents instinctively know how important it is for their children to have friends, and they also know how much easier it is if there are friends around to play so they can help to entertain each other! Children naturally gravitate towards each other – and this can be witnessed when families go on holiday and children begin very quickly to play together – even though they don’t know each other or even speak the same language.

I was also particularly struck by the way in which parents find out information. We asked parents who they trusted the most for information and advice on parenting, and it was interesting that parents rely on their own parents, ie the children’s grandparents most for information and advice (55%), this was followed by friends (50%), and then books and magazines (48%). Websites and blogs accounted for 38% - I would have expected that to be higher, and it is rather reassuring that despite the wealth of information available, good old fashioned advice from their own mum, or dad, is the most trusted.

Details of the Play Report can be found at www.facebook.com/playreport.

Winnie the Pooh, the Big Thinker

2010-03-31T20:11:00.003+01:00

Taking part in the Big Thinkers debate at the annual Market Research Society conference last week I proposed Winnie the Pooh (known to his friends as Pooh Bear) as having a Big Influence on the way in which we conduct research. My fellow discussants and I each had 6 minutes to argue our case.

Now this may appear to have been a strange choice for a Big Thinker. Some say, and indeed he says of himself, that Winnie the Pooh is a bear of Very Little Brain. But I argued that he is deeply philosophical, and has indeed had a profound effect on the way that research has been conducted over the last 50 years or so. The two works of fiction to which I referred in my argument were Winnie the Pooh, and House at Pooh Corner, published in 1926 and 1928 respectively, some 80 years ago. Let me explain the epistemology that lied behind my argument. Epistemology deals with the theory of knowledge, especially the critical study of its validity, methods and scope, and we know that there are two fundamental epistemologies – that of positivism – ie quantitative research - and constructivism – ie qualitative research, and it is the latter on which I focused.

Now if I had had more time I could have put forward a variety of arguments that show just how in touch Winnie the Pooh is with contemporary issues – there are many, many analogies, for example pooh sticks and the demise of the global banking system, or the obesity crisis, and I’m thinking here of course of eating too much honey and getting stuck at Rabbit’s for a week.

Much of the contemporary thinking about the way in which we carry out and interpret qualitative research, I argued, falls into post-modern thinking and philosophy, and they apply to both research methodology, and analysis. I used the example of Pooh visiting Rabbit: ‘He was humming this hum to himself, and walking gaily along, wondering what everybody else was doing, and what it felt like, being somebody else.’ (Winnie the Pooh, p28). Like a good qualitative researcher, Pooh Bear puts himself in the place of the other, in order to understand. He is non-judgemental, makes no assumptions, accepts others’ foibles, and perseveres in his endeavour to understand.

I suggested that this could also apply to Ethnography, something we heard a lot about at the conference. Ethnography derived from Anthropology (the study of people in their native cultures), and it made its way into Sociology in the 1930’s/1940’s under the Chicago School, and in the UK in 1964 the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies was founded to observe subcultures. The essence of ethnography is that routine and normal aspects of everyday life are regarded as worthy of consideration as research data – the mundane and ordinary are as equally valid as the big events that occur. Special emphasis is given in ethnography to the way the people being studied see their world – quite distinct from the researcher’s analysis of what is being observed. When Pooh and Piglet visit Rabbit, and he asks them why they have come, they reply “We’ve come to wish you a Very Happy Thursday”. Rabbit (whose life was made up of Important Things) questions what is so special about Thursdays, and is rather unimpressed when they explain. Later Pooh and Piglet discuss how clever Rabbit is, and after a silence, Pooh says. “I suppose ...that that’s why he never understands anything.” (The House at Pooh Corner, p216).

Ethnography offers us insight through thick description. It accepts what is, not what may be, and it allows for interpretation through the eyes of the participants. A skilled ethnographer has the ability to understand, learn from, and appreciate whatever happens in everyday life. A key to well executed research, is not to over complicate, and to appreciate the here and now, and Winnie the Pooh, I argued, is a superb example of just that.

Unfortunately Pooh Bear was beaten by Charles Dickens (we had to suggest fictional or historical figures). Oh well, perhaps the judges were just too clever, and therefore did not understand. But I was given immense help by my fellow researcher, Martyn Richards (he is also a trained actor) who read quotes to the audience from both books superbly. Thank you Martyn, I owe you some Honey.

Children – the subject of research

2010-01-29T15:06:00.002Z

Attending the launch of The Children’s Society report on Understanding Children’s Well-being at Westminster Hall on Wednesday reminded me just how much children are becoming used to being asked their opinion. Schools are particularly using research; just recently I have been carrying out pupil perception groups in school, asking 5-11 year olds everything from what they think of school lunches to what are their favourite things about school, and what they would like teachers to do to make lessons better for them. The annual TellUs survey, now run by the DCSF, has been asking children about their lives in and out of school since 2007, and children complete this questionnaire each summer.

While children are becoming familiar with research, how it is done is an important aspect to consider. It was the subject of the conference I chaired this week at the Market Research Society’s Children’s Conference in London. The ethics around research with children was a hot topic of debate. The debate ranged from when is a child no longer a child (The UN says 18, legally a child is defined as under 18 in the UK, in the US for research purposes a child is defined as 13, in the UK 16), to when and if it is appropriate to give a child a gift for taking part in research, and when might this be deemed to be coercion. The children’s research world is relatively small, and it was good to spend a day with so many deep thinking and responsible researchers. I have received many emails since the event telling me how much delegates enjoyed the day, and how thought-provoking they found it.

The Children’s Society’s Understanding Children’s Well-being research referred to earlier had been carried out in schools by Ipsos MORI April-July 2008 and included nearly 7,000 children in Year 6 in primary school and Years 8 and 10 in secondary schools, in other words children aged 10, 13, and 15. In many ways it is quite encouraging, with the majority of children scoring a level of well-being at 7.7 out of a scale from 0 to 10, although questions from the audience pointed out the difficulty of assessing well-being. But the authors make the point that it is subjective well-being. It is estimated by the researchers that 7-10% of children could be said to have low levels of well-being. It is interesting to note that subjective well-being appears to decline somewhat with age, and this is especially the case for girls. In this country around 1 in 4 families are headed by a lone parent, but the research did not find a link between well-being and family structure. The research confirms previous research that colleagues and I carried out at the Faculty of Education in Cambridge (funded by the Nuffield Foundation on Adolescent Well-being and Schools, headed by Professor John Grey) that indicates that the quality of relationships and change in life events such as school transition has the most impact on children’s level of well-being. An important message for us all is that given that UK children are rated lowest in developed countries on levels of well-being (UNICEF 2007), we need to be constantly asking questions, of children, and of ourselves as researchers, to find ways of improving this abysmal rating.

More of a tweet than a blog

2009-10-29T11:33:00.000Z

In final throws of submitting my PhD. Three years in the making it will be like handing over a child, hoping that its custodians will understand and appreciate it as much as I do!

This month we are dealing with sensitive issues, talking to teenagers about sexual health, and to children and young people with behavioural difficulties. We are also mid-way through a very large study on play, also a sensitive issue it seems as parents feel guilt about not spending enough time with their children. The Family Kids and Youth team have been amazing and supportive, so thank you to them for carrying on despite my preoccupation, and especially thank you to Julia Macpherson.

Running before you can walk (or using the App Store before you can read)

2009-09-09T09:59:00.000+01:00

No postings last month as I’ve been completing the final section of my PhD thesis. Now, happily, I’m editing so life is a bit back to normal, and I’m hoping to submit next month. I also managed to go to Italy; the thesis came with me and I was able to do a bit of editing, but somehow sun, food, wine and Italy do not fit in with thesis editing ...

With me for part of my time in Italy were 6 year old Stanley and 4 year old Woody. The subject of my PhD is children’s engagement with digital technology and it was ironic to be reminded of just how intuitive even young children are when it comes to using digital media. Woody, 4, asked if he could play a game on my iPhone, and I absentmindedly said of course. A few minutes later he was back complaining that the game he wanted was not on the phone. ‘But don’t worry’, he said, ‘I’ll go onto the Apps Store and get it’. Still somewhat vague (I was swimming at the time), I said that was fine. Out of the pool, Woody handed me the phone, ‘can you put your password in’ he said, which I obediently did, and a few minutes later he was happily playing ‘Sonic Hedgehog’ level 2, which when challenged I found quite difficult to complete. Later that day I received an email receipt from the Apple Store for £3.49, thanking me for my custom and for purchasing Sonic the Hedgehog.

Woody had managed to purchase this from the ‘App Store’ on my iPhone completely unaided, and yet he does not yet read. In fact he was a bit worried about reading. Due to start school for the first time last week he had asked whether he had to read when he started school. ‘Not on your first day’, his 6 year old brother Stanley helpfully told him. As someone who has been studying and writing about child psychosocial development over the last few years, it never ceases to amaze me how adept children are at using the technology that we may all take for granted, but which to them is completely second nature.

Asking teenagers to write about their media consumption

2009-07-16T21:09:00.001+01:00

There has been much written about Matthew Robson (aged 15 years and 7 months) this week. Matthew has produced a report about teenagers’ media habits, and apparently it has created enormous interest from international fund managers and analysts. His supervisors have described the report as ‘one of the clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen’. The 15 year old was lucky enough (and brave enough) to accept an internship at Morgan Stanley where the US investment bank’s team of media and internet researchers set him the mission of reporting on how teenagers use digital media. The Times (14.7.09:4) described his new found fame as in part luck, ’It was not just what Matthew knew, but whom he knew, or rather, whom his dog, Rudolph, knew.’. Apparently Matthew’s mum had been walking Rudolph, and had met Patrick Wellington, a senior financial analyst at the bank, who was also walking his dog; Matthew’s internship was secured.

Needless to say I am pleased that Matthew’s findings reflect findings from my own research with younger children (10-14 year olds), some of which I presented at the Showcomotion conference last week http://blog.showcomotionconference.com . Having spent the last three years on the research, and about to publish, it would be distressing to find that a 15 year old had usurped me!

Matthew states that ‘teenagers don’t twitter’, and I have certainly found this to be the case. When Twitter first entered my consciousness a couple of years ago, I assumed that this would be the next social networking site to be embraced by young teenagers, as I have watched young people over a three year period move from MSN to Piczo to Bebo, then My Space, and finally settling on Facebook. The Twitter perspective however is not one that young teenagers fully comprehend. After all unlike adults who find ‘twittering’ an on-going commentary of their lives amusing and sometimes compulsive, most young people have been using IM (instant messaging) since they were 10 years old, and SMS since they got their first mobile phone at 11, so for them there is nothing new in this. And with Facebook Chat now available they can be talking to each other live, uploading pictures, playing games and putting comments on each other’s walls all at the same time. A short message in less than 140 characters is not really their thing.

Matthew has done a great job in summarising teenagers’ views on media, but it may be that those of us who know teenagers well have not found Matthew’s report that surprising. What is perhaps more surprising is that the report has come as such a revelation to the investment bankers who after all must be responsible for funding some of the most prominent media providers. Time Magazine’s Dan Fletcher, while describing Matthew’s efforts as ‘impressive’ concludes that ‘Those at Morgan Stanley need to spend a bit more time with their kids. ... Ultimately, Robson’s report does more to reveal how out of touch some in the business world are than to shed light on anything new about teenagers and the media.’ (15.7.09). Or as another blog commentator has said ‘What is shocking about this article is the relative "shock" created for these "executives" - - - - TWITTER - ummm, yeah - - - anyone with adolescent kids'll tell you that they DON'T . . . . This 15 year old is master of the obvious. Those that need attention are the ones that are expressing surprise at his statements.’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/13/twitter-teenage-media-habits

Are social networking sites harmful to children?

2009-07-02T10:50:00.000+01:00

It is perhaps difficult to believe that the term ‘social networking site’ (SNS) was not widely recognised back in 2004 when teenagers in the US first discovered MySpace (see boyd & Ellison, 2007). With the ‘open’ nature of social networking using digital technology, concern about children’s safety remains paramount to commentators and child experts. While there are many positive aspects of children using social networking sites, dangers undoubtedly exist - not just infiltration by online predators but also the possibility of cyberbullying. While children are open about their lives and want to share their worlds, they could potentially be putting themselves at risk, causing them emotional distress. My doctoral research carried out over the last three years however has indicated that most children are careful about who they speak to online, and are aware of the dangers.

Young adolescents, that is 10 -14 years olds, have only begun to use SNSs with such enthusiasm in the last three years, with the start age becoming ever younger, despite an age restriction of 13 plus. In the past decade there has been immense interest in looking at children’s use of the internet, indeed my colleagues and I at NOP (GfK NOP) carried out ‘Kids.net research’ 1999 – 2002, a six-monthly quantitative and qualitative study that measured and sought to understand the way in which children aged 7 – 16 were using the internet. The notion of looking at young people’s social networking sites such as Bebo, Facebook, Piczo in the last year or two has generated several large research studies. Many parents, perhaps prompted by media headlines that point out the ‘dark side’ of such sites are fearful of their children’s use of SNSs. Mizuko Ito and her team in the US have considered this in their comprehensive Digital Youth Project (2008). Ito argues that while adults may worry that their children are becoming social isolates, ‘what’s interesting .. . with the internet and gaming is that most of these activities are being conducted in a social context, even though the kids may not be physically together.’ Similarly the excellent EU Kids Online research that Sonia Livingstone has co-ordinated with colleagues at the LSE has concluded that concerns about the ‘darks side’ of the internet need to be balanced with a recognition that children also gain a great deal in their use of digital technology.

From my ethnographic study carried out over the last three years, my sense is that while most children in my research appear to be very sensitive and wise about their use of social networking sites, there is some concern for those children who are more vulnerable. It might be that the same children who are vulnerable to predators in the off-line world are the same as those children who are vulnerable in the on-line world. I will be exploring this more on Thursday when I’m speaking at the Cambridge (Faculty of Education) Bullying Conference , (http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/events/conferences/) and on Friday when I’m speaking at the Showcomotion Conference (http://www.showcomotionconference.com/) .

Observing Children at Home and Positive Psychology in School

2009-06-14T09:56:00.000+01:00

Children and young people behave very differently at home than the way they do at school. The recent half term holidays meant we were all very busy; between us we visited over 25 homes and grandparents’ homes, looked into fridges, were shown contents of wardrobes, took photos of favourite digital equipment, attended cricket matches and swimming lessons, and Amanda even went to a birthday party. We were all completely exhausted by the end of the week, but agreed that the insight we gained into children’s lives, their friendships, their activities and hobbies, was well worth it.

The children and young people we meet in our research are mostly happy and carefree. But there is of alarm expressed about the fact that children in the UK and the US are at the bottom of the league table of developed countries in the Unicef report on children’s wellbeing (2007). Australia was not part of the report, but has similar concerns about the wellbeing of its children. This week I went to a seminar at Cambridge that looked at children and positive psychology run by Professor Felicia Huppert, the Director of the Wellbeing Institute at the University of Cambridge. Charlie Scudamore, deputy head of Geelong Grammar School in Melbourne, Australia was speaking. Geelong is one of the oldest fee paying schools in Australia, founded in 1855. The school has recently opened its $16 million Handbury Centre for Wellbeing (named after Helen Handbury, philanthropist and sister of Rupert Murdoch), and a major ethos of the centre is what Scudamore describes as ‘positive education’, a whole school approach to teaching and learning.

A concern for the general wellbeing of its pupils alerted Geelong Grammar to the notion of positive psychology after a visit in 2006 from Martin Seligman, considered to be the father of the modern positive psychology movement in the US, and whose work has focused on optimism and happiness, and learned helplessness. Martin Seligman and his colleagues have developed the Penn Resiliency Programme, which has been running in schools in the US for some years. The curriculum teaches cognitive-behavioural and social problem-solving skills, and pupils learn to challenge negative beliefs by considering alternative interpretations. The programme also teaches a variety of strategies that can be used for solving problems and coping with difficult situations and emotions. Pupils learn techniques for assertiveness, negotiation, decision-making, social problem-solving, and relaxation.

Charlie Scudamore prefers the description ‘positive education’ rather than ‘positive psychology’ because virtually every member of staff, from receptionists, to the bursar, to teachers has undergone the 9 day training course. Implicitly, the whole school is aware of and is consciously concerned to promote children’s wellbeing. Scudamore uses terms such ‘the notion of flourishing’ and ‘an enabling institution’; he aims to increase positive emotion in students by encouraging them to ‘engage their character strengths for personal and community goals’. The school wants to engage students to ‘have a meaningful life’, this means giving positive messages to even the least able child.

Measuring the outcomes of such a scheme is difficult. The Penn Resiliency Programme has been introduced on a trial basis into 22 schools in the UK in Hertfordshire, South Tyneside and Manchester. This is its first comprehensive UK trial and the largest scale trial to date in any country. 90 workshop facilitators delivered PRP to a cohort of 2,000 students in the academic year 2007/8 and the impact on student wellbeing will be evaluated over the course of three years. The evaluation is being carried out by LSE and supported by DCSF.
An interim report has been issued and can be viewed at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/programmeofresearch/projectinformation.cfm?projectid=15690&resultspage=1

Co-creation with children

2009-05-20T13:46:00.000+01:00

If you want to design a new product for children, ask a 9 year old. This week and last we’ve been spending time in schools and in homes, asking children to help us with some designs. As always the 7-10 year olds we’ve been talking to have come up with innovative and unique ideas that none of us adults could have imagined. This co-creation gives immense input into such a project, and also allows children to feel empowered and part of the creative process.

Co-creation was a theme that came up repeatedly at this month’s MRS Youth Research Conference at Sadler’s Wells. It is a theme aptly described by Andrew Needham of Face as a process where ‘creativity is democratised’. There were excellent sessions in the conference that discussed the way in which young people can help to create campaigns, including Beth Corte-Real from Coca Cola, Philip McNaughton and Andrew Needham from Face and Nadia Zohhadi from Unilever.

I ran a couple of the panel sessions, and the morning discussion focused on the ways in which market research is borrowing from and working with academic research to find new and original ways to explore the world of children and young people. We decided to debate this link because we are aware that as market research becomes ever more sophisticated, we are using different and unusual research techniques, many of which have their origin in academic research – and I’m thinking particularly of ethnography and semiotics, but of course there’s much else: discourse analysis, psychosocial analysis , Action Research etc.

There has been much debate about this recently. Procter & Gamble’s Kim Dedeker proclaimed earlier in the year that ‘the research industry will be on life support by 2012 unless it turns to methods more in touch with the lifestyles of the consumers we seek to understand.’ And Joel Rubinson, the Chief Research Officer for the highly influential Advertising Research Foundation in the US said at its conference that ‘There’s a shift in how humanity is communicating which produces a continuous stream of data in people’s naturally occurring conversations. Consumers are a genie that won’t go back in its bottle.’ And he goes on to say that the industry should look to anthropologists and behavioural scientists to provide a greater understating of consumers. I’ll be writing more about this next week.

Getting Real

2009-05-07T09:49:00.000+01:00

In contrast to the Tanya Byron debate described in the last posting, an earlier session at the BBC Children’s Festival had interviewed father and son Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain, creators of E4’s hit comedy drama series Skins, and winners of the 2009 Bafta TV Audience Award. Interesting to note that Skins was the only show on a digital channel to win a TV BAFTA, and beat among others in the category The X Factor, the Apprentice and Coronation Street. Jamie pitched the idea for the series to his dad, who was already a well established script writer, when he was just 15. Skins is a programme about 16-18 year olds in Bristol, with a story line that includes graphic accounts of drug taking, drinking and sex, but that also looks at the ‘storm and stress’ of the teenage years with humour and close observation. Bryan and Jamie admit that many of the original story lines and characters in the series were based on them and their own father – son relationship. It is a programme that often incites controversy, with accusations of it having a ‘dark side’ and indeed the moving scene from the second series where Chris dies was shown to a noticeably silent audience at the Festival. In response to very good and close questioning by Lizo Mzimba (former CBBC Newsround presenter and now BBC News Entertainment Correspondent), Elsley said he believed that teenagers do have many of the experiences that are shown in the series, ‘Friends do die, horrible things do happen to teenagers, and how they cope with that is really interesting. We wanted to introduce that element into the show to give it some realism.’ Teenagers I’ve spoken to feel that the series reflects an element of their lives (they are likely to know someone who has become pregnant, someone who has got lost with drugs, someone who has lots of sex), but are keen to point out that it does not reflect all teenagers’ lives. It was noticeable just how articulate both Bryan and Jamie are, and I particularly like Bryan’s insightful understanding of the lives of young people. He spoke for instance of just how important friends are to teenagers, and the influence they have on each other’s lives. Studies on resilience have shown that adolescents who have a strong peer support system are likely to cope better with difficult family circumstances such as parents with substance abuse or divorce and separation (Dunn, 2004; Gore & Eckenrode, 1996). In many ways Bryan Elsley reflects Tanya Byron’s view of the importance of putting young people at the centre of the message. For the new series actors were recruited from open auditions held in Bristol and London, and young people are encouraged to write for the series in a sort of Skins University of Writing; Elsley admits it takes around 2 years to become a fully fledged writer, with the average age being 17. It is interesting to note the way Skins was first promoted to its target audience, with a buzz around the new programme created on MySpace (see http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/casestudyskinsmyspace.html for more details of this campaign). Congratulations Bryan, Jamie and colleagues on winning the BAFTA.

The BBC Children’s Festival and the Commercialisation of Childhood

2009-04-29T14:23:00.002+01:00

I spent a day at the BBC Children’s Festival last week. A great showcase for all they do and a reminder of how well the BBC understands children and young people, and just how innovative they are. There was a debate between Agnes Nairn (co-author of ‘Consumer Kids: how big business is grooming our kids for profit’ with Ed Mayo of Consumer Focus) and Robin Hilton of Dubit, Rae Burdon COO of the Advertising Association, and Neil Ross Russell, MD of BBC Children’s Worldwide. Agnes pointed out that there are serious anomalies in the way digital technology is communicating with children, with examples of inappropriate sexual messages, and advertising and marketing to children that appears to be unregulated.

In my ethnographic research that has been monitoring children’s use of social networking sites over the last 2 years, I’ve seen many examples of advertising for gambling sites, alcohol, and weight loss programmes (loose 20lb in 2 weeks was a recent example), all being viewed by girls and boys aged 10-14. The session was chaired by Tanya Byron, author of the Byron Review that made sound recommendations for protecting children in their digital world. The consensus was that of course no one would condone such explicit exploitation of children, but that currently regulation has not kept pace with technology, and as Byron pointed out, many adults are just not that familiar with what children are doing online, something she addresses fully in her review http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/byronreview/. Children should be at the heart of what is done to raise awareness of harm and exploitation in their digital world; they are after all the experts, and involving children in educating their peers to be aware of their safe digital use makes perfect sense.

There is another review currently being carried out that is looking specifically at the impact of the commercial world on children’s wellbeing. Chaired by Professor David Buckingham at the Institute of Education, it is in response to the government’s commitment in the Children’s Plan published in December 2008 which called for an assessment of how children’s engagement with the commercial work has changed, and the impact this has on them. Many of us involved in consumer research, academic research, advertising, marketing, and the media were consulted at a stakeholder meeting in January. Results are expected to be published in the summer.