Should we ban young children from social media? Do children know the pitfalls of TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat? To coincide with the celebration of International Literacy Day, we talked to Dr Cristina Costa, from our School of Education, who has been working on a digital literacy project with children at a County Durham primary school. She explains how her project co-producing picture books about social media topics with children can help to better understand how young people view social media.
What is your research about?
My research is focused on how people use digital platforms, like social media. I am particularly interested in exploring how digital technology fits in with education and society and how young people's experiences take shape. My most recent projects explore how teenagers and primary school aged children develop their digital literacies.
You recently worked on a project to learn about how young children view social media. What did you learn?
In general terms, young children are very keen on using social media and, as you would expect, are technically quite good at it.
They are generally quite aware of some of the pitfalls of social media and are often told the "do's" and "don'ts" to make them aware of the dangers. However, this kind of risk management approach doesn't necessarily create space for them to talk about their own experiences (good or bad), question certain practices or discuss what they think of as ethical behaviour when online.
This is what we have tried to do by creating space for students to talk about their own experiences and practices and what they see other people do. Our goal has always been one of not telling them what to do or not do, but rather have them arrive at their own conclusions.
The project involved the co-production of books with the children. What message did that help get across?
The picture books we are co-creating with primary school children are about social media, privacy and digital footprint. They have been designed to capture the discussions we had with the children on these issues via the development of 'cultural circles'. The books have also allowed the young people to represent their thinking about such issues in their own words, via the text used and the illustrations they created, which are now being adapted by a professional illustrator. We hope that the books will provide a good basis for discussion and will become a good resource for other children, parents and teachers who may wish to discuss such topics. We are very excited about the books which will be launched in November.
What would you say to policymakers or worried parents who want to ban the use of social media for young children?
I understand what they are getting at as at the end of the day we all want to protect people from the potential hazards of the internet/social media. That said, banning the use of social media for young people teaches them very little, if anything at all. I think it is more important to engage young people in the discussion of digital practices as well as screen time - on a regular basis as well as modelling behaviour. Young people are very capable of reasoning about such issues and when prompted can provide very insightful views and be highly critical and reflexive of their own and others' digital practices. I think we all benefit from such discussions.
