Category Archives: Uncategorized

Security

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[Last updated: May 2020]

Security: The ability to protect the integrity of one’s information, digital devices and assets (e.g., login information such as passwords, profiles, and websites). 

This is a relatively nascent area for the YaM team. While we are currently not working on a concrete publication in this space, we are interested in exploring possible collaborations. Please don’t hesitate to email us if you would be interested in discussing this area further together.

Main publication:

  • Youth and Artificial Intelligence: Where We Stand
    • [Pages 10-11 and 17-18] Offers a brief overview of, and emerging questions around, AI technologies, security, and education, and the privacy and security concerns that AI systems raise more broadly, respectively.

Key learning resources:

These learning resources are available in over 35 languages! To view the translations, for each resource, please scroll down to “All Languages.” Additional languages will be added over time.

To learn about how to navigate our Digital Citizenship+ (Plus) Resource Platform — home to an evolving collection of 100+ educational tools (e.g., learning experiences, visualizations, podcasts) that can be used to learn and teach about youth’s digitally connected lives — please see the following slidedeck, presented at RightsCon Tunis 2019. The presentation also offers helpful tips in terms of adapting the tools to your context.

Safety and Well-being

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[Last updated: May 2020]

Safety and Well-being: The ability to counteract the risks that the digital world may come with to protect one’s physical and mental well-being (e.g., guarding against Internet addiction and repetitive stress syndrome). Online risks can be classified along three main dimensions: conduct (e.g., cyberbullying, sexual harassment/unwelcome “sexting”); contact (e.g., face-to-face meeting after online contact, communication with individuals pretending to be another person); and content (e.g., exposure to pornographic content, violent or aggressive content, harmful speech, content about drugs, racist content) (Livingstone, Kirwall, Ponte, & Staksrud, 2014).

While bullying, more broadly, is an age-old problem that has been the focus of research and intervention for several decades, bullying in an online world raises new challenges.  While some forms of online bullying are similar to certain types of offline bullying, such as gossiping and social exclusion,bullying in the digital landscape can take new forms, including impersonation, hacking into others’ accounts, or spreading photos and videos online (Harvard Law School, 2016). Additionally, the notion of “repeated” harm attached to offline bullying must be reconceptualized in the digital landscape.

Youth and Cyberbullying: Another Look, which serves as an addendum to our 2012 Bullying in a Networked Era: A Literature Review, provides an overview of recent, primarily academic literature on youth and cyberbullying. The paper seeks to examine the changing landscape of bullying while acknowledging the convergence between the online and offline world. It explores the nuances around defining cyberbullying and the prevalence of online bullying in and beyond the U.S., and presents practical, impactful guidance on preventing and responding to cyberbullying.and examines how various stakeholders can prevent and mitigate this form of harmful behavior in light of emerging research.

Flagship publications:

Key learning resources:

These learning resources are available in over 35 languages! To view the translations, for each resource, please scroll down to “All Languages.” Additional languages will be added over time.

To learn about how to navigate our Digital Citizenship+ (Plus) Resource Platform — home to an evolving collection of 100+ educational tools (e.g., learning experiences, visualizations, podcasts) that can be used to learn and teach about youth’s digitally connected lives — please see the following slidedeck, presented at RightsCon Tunis 2019. The presentation also offers helpful tips in terms of adapting the tools to your context.

Other publications:

Selected presentations:

(For more information, please email Sandra Cortesi.)

  • February 2020: Keynote, “Well-being in a Digital Age”, Safer Internet Day, Sao Paulo, Brazil
  • May 2019: Guest lecturer, “Jugendliche Online —  Offline.” Wie gelingt die Balance? Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
  • October 2016: Keynote, “The Positive and Negative Aspects of the Internet: Bullying in a Digital Age”, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia
  • April 2016: Panel, “Creating a Kinder World Together: How to Combat Cyberbullying,” Harvard Law School, Cambridge, USA

Privacy and Reputation

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[Last updated: May 2020]

Privacy and Reputation: The ability to protect one’s personal information online, and that of others. An understanding of the digital “trail” left behind as a result of the activities one engages in online, the short- and long-term consequences of this trail, the appropriate management of one’s virtual footprint, as well as an understanding of inferred data (i.e., new data derived from capturing and analyzing other data points, which may result in new knowledge about a person (van der Hof, 2016)).

How young people navigate the digital space increases both the importance and the challenge of addressing concerns about privacy in the world today. Research has captured the variety of popular social media platforms youth now use and the extensive amounts of information young people share about themselves. Being able to use many of these platforms simultaneously, enables youth to channel various aspects of themselves in creative expression, identity formation, and social experimentation — all relevant parts of youth life.

Contrary to popular assumptions, research suggests that youth very much care about, contemplate, and manage their privacy online. However, their conceptual understanding of privacy (while it continues to evolve) tends to be different from the one of adults. Rather than conceiving of privacy as a matter of institutional risks involving strangers and eager third parties, youth often view the concept as more of a social concern (“What can my friends see?”) and manage their privacy in relation to people they already know. Moreover, young people report learning about privacy largely on their own by way of searching for information or intuitively stumbling upon it.

Acknowledging that youth perceive and may learn about privacy differently than adults does not diminish adult concerns, many of which are valid. Today, digital information about young people is collected, stored, and searched at an unprecedented rate, no longer checked by laborious paper record-keeping or costly data storage. Neither youth nor their parents have control over how this information is handled by third parties, as data is frequently gathered, accessed, disclosed, copied, and sold without consent or knowledge. Meanwhile, online reputation has an increasingly large sway over a young person’s future social, academic, and professional prospects.

Main publications:

  • Born Digital: How Children Grow Up in a Digital Age (Chapter 2: Dossiers / Chapter 3: Privacy / Chapter 4: Protections)
  • Teens, Social Media, and Privacy. Flagship reports based on a collaboration between the Youth and Media team at the Berkman Klein Center and the Pew Research Center. The report presents data from a nationally representative survey as well as insights and quotes from focus groups.

Main efforts:

  • Urs Gasser is a Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School. Since 2013, he has taught at Harvard “Digital Privacy” from a global perspective. Each semester, several classes address questions of youth and digital privacy issues.

Key learning resources:

These learning resources are available in over 35 languages! To view the translations, for each resource, please scroll down to “All Languages.” Additional languages will be added over time.

To learn about how to navigate our Digital Citizenship+ (Plus) Resource Platform — home to an evolving collection of 100+ educational tools (e.g., learning experiences, visualizations, podcasts) that can be used to learn and teach about youth’s digitally connected lives — please see the following slidedeck, presented at RightsCon Tunis 2019. The presentation also offers helpful tips in terms of adapting the tools to your context.

Other publications:

In the media:

Selected presentations:

(For more information, please email Sandra Cortesi.)

  • July 2019: Keynote, “Youth, Personal Data, and Social Media”, VII International Conference for the Protection of Personal Data, organized by the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce, Cartagena, Colombia. Short interview available here.

Positive/Respectful Behavior

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[Last updated: May 2020]

Positive/Respectful Behavior: The ability to interact with others (both individuals and the larger collective) online in a respectful, ethical, socially responsible, and empathic manner.

Main publication:

Key learning resources:

These learning resources are available in over 35 languages! To view the translations, for each resource, please scroll down to “All Languages.” Additional languages will be added over time.

To learn about how to navigate our Digital Citizenship+ (Plus) Resource Platform — home to an evolving collection of 100+ educational tools (e.g., learning experiences, visualizations, podcasts) that can be used to learn and teach about youth’s digitally connected lives — please see the following slidedeck, presented at RightsCon Tunis 2019. The presentation also offers helpful tips in terms of adapting the tools to your context.

Other publications:

Media (Literacy)

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[Last updated: May 2020]

Media (Literacy): The ability to analyze, evaluate, circulate, and create content in any media form (e.g., print, visual, interactive, audio), and to participate in communities and networks. “Media literacies,” in the plural, include “media literacy” (Hobbs, 2010), what some researchers have conceptualized as “new literacies” (Lankshear & Knobel, 2007), and “new media literacies” (Jenkins, Clinton, Purushotma, Robison, & Weigel, 2006). That is, they encompass literacy approaches that not only focus on individual engagement with media (media literacy) but also competencies that address community involvement and participatory cultures. “Media literacies” also include literacies such as reading and writing.

We encourage you to visit our page on “Digital Citizenship,” which features more information about the skills we feel are important for youth to fully participate academically, socially, ethically, politically, and economically in our rapidly evolving digital world.

Flagship publication:

Law

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[Last updated: May 2020]

Law: The ability to engage with legal frameworks, concepts, and theories surrounding the Internet and other digital tools (e.g., copyright; fair use), and the ability to apply these frameworks to one’s activities.

While we are currently not working on a concrete publication in this space, in the past, we have explored the intersection of law and technology in the classroom (see below under “Other Publications”), and have developed learning resources that focus on some of the fundamental legal frameworks, concepts, and theories in the context of the digital world.

In the future, we would be delighted to explore possible collaborations law; please don’t hesitate to email us if you would be interested in exploring this space further together.

Main publications:

Key learning resources:

The learning resource “Introduction to Reputation” is available in over 35 languages! To view the translations, please scroll down to “All Languages.” Additional languages will be added over time.

To learn about how to navigate our Digital Citizenship+ (Plus) Resource Platform — home to an evolving collection of 100+ educational tools (e.g., learning experiences, visualizations, podcasts) that can be used to learn and teach about youth’s digitally connected lives — please see the following slidedeck, presented at RightsCon Tunis 2019. The presentation also offers helpful tips in terms of adapting the tools to your context.

The learning resource “Introduction to Reputation” is available in over 35 languages! To view the translations, please scroll down to “All Languages.” Additional languages will be added over time.

To learn about how to navigate our Digital Citizenship+ (Plus) Resource Platform — home to an evolving collection of 100+ educational tools (e.g., learning experiences, visualizations, podcasts) that can be used to learn and teach about youth’s digitally connected lives — please see the following slidedeck, presented at RightsCon Tunis 2019. The presentation also offers helpful tips in terms of adapting the tools to your context.

Other publications:

Information Quality

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[Last updated: May 2020]

Information Quality: The ability to find, interact with, evaluate, create, and reuse information (broadly speaking; e.g., news, health information, personal information) effectively (Palfrey & Gasser, 2016).

The Internet has led to structural changes in the information environment that affect the quality of this information. The increased and more diverse set of “speakers” online, the lack of traditional gatekeepers, the entrance of new intermediaries, the disappearance or replacement of mechanisms and standards aimed at ensuring certain quality levels, media convergence, and context shifts make quality judgments about information in the digital media ecosystem arguably more challenging and makes corresponding skills even more important.

In 2012, members of the Youth and Media team published a flagship report called “Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality“. In the report, the authors put forward a new conceptual model – the information quality framework – that guides our research and policy discussions of information and information literacy. This framework is both process- and context-oriented (it accounts for the fact that information seekers don’t make information quality decisions only at the point of evaluating a source. Rather, it considers how youths’ levels of digital skills, social patterns, practices of online content creation, and general engagement with digital content affect how they search for, evaluate, and interact with information on the Internet).

Since the publishing of the report, the YaM team continues to apply the information quality framework to two types of information that have remained underexplored from a qualitative information search, evaluation, and creation perspective:

  1. Online news
  2. Health information

With regard to news, the YaM team seeks to close an important knowledge gap about youths’ online behavior–including news gathering activities, evaluation practices, and creative re-use of news. While earlier research suggests that youth (not unlike adults) prefer online news that is visual in presentation, relevant in topic, and manageable in size, additional research is needed to explore the social and creative elements of online news and, based on this understanding, to optimize curricular and tool development programs. In particular, we need a deeper understanding of the variables that affect youth behaviors related to online news. For example, what demographic factors lead to differences in young people’s online news behaviors? Understanding such factors is critical to the design of curricula and tools that accommodate variations in skills and habits among diverse populations of youth.

The Youth and Media team also wants to better understand how youth search for, evaluate, and share health information online. Research shows that young people are increasingly relying on the Internet as a primary source for health information. This presents a critical topic of investigation, because the consequences of misinformation or other forms of low-quality information can be serious. Yet, this space also presents opportunities for informing youth about health issues that they might have felt hesitant about scoping out elsewhere.

Flagship publication:

Key learning resources:

To learn about how to navigate our Digital Citizenship+ (Plus) Resource Platform — home to an evolving collection of 100+ educational tools (e.g., learning experiences, visualizations, podcasts) that can be used to learn and teach about youth’s digitally connected lives — please see the following slidedeck, presented at RightsCon Tunis 2019. The presentation also offers helpful tips in terms of adapting the tools to your context.

Other publications:

Selected presentations:

(For more information, please email Sandra Cortesi.)

Identity Exploration and Formation

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[Last updated: May 2020]

Identity Exploration and Formation: The ability to use (digital) tools to explore elements of one’s identity, and understand how the communities one is part of shape one’s identity.

While we are currently not working on a concrete publication in this space, we have spoken about the dynamics of this area at different events and in the media, and have explored emerging ways youth are experimenting with identity exploration (e.g., through the creation of multiple Instagram accounts).

Against this backdrop, we would be delighted to explore possible collaborations around identity exploration and formation; please don’t hesitate to email us if you would be interested in examining this space further together.

Main publication:

  • Born Digital: How Children Grow Up in a Digital Age (Chapter 1: Identities)

Key learning resources:

These learning resources are available in over 35 languages! To view the translations, for each resource, please scroll down to “All Languages.” Additional languages will be added over time.

To learn about how to navigate our Digital Citizenship+ (Plus) Resource Platform — home to an evolving collection of 100+ educational tools (e.g., learning experiences, visualizations, podcasts) that can be used to learn and teach about youth’s digitally connected lives — please see the following slidedeck, presented at RightsCon Tunis 2019. The presentation also offers helpful tips in terms of adapting the tools to your context.

Other publications:

In the media:

Selected presentations:

(For more information, please email Sandra Cortesi.)

  • July 2019: Keynote, “Youth, Personal Data, and Social Media”, VII International Conference for the Protection of Personal Data, organized by the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce, Cartagena, Colombia

Digital (Literacy)

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[Last updated: May 2020]

Digital (Literacy): The ability to use the Internet and other digital tools and platforms effectively to find, interact with, evaluate, create, and reuse information (Palfrey & Gasser, 2016). The ability to comprehend and work through conceptual problems in digital spaces (Carretero, Vuorikari, & Punie, 2017).

We encourage you to visit our page on “Digital Citizenship,” which features more information about the skills we feel are important for youth to fully participate academically, socially, ethically, politically, and economically in our rapidly evolving digital world.

Flagship publication:

Key learning resources:

  • Creating a Resume
  • Social Media and Sharing
  • Online Presence
  • Passwords
  • Public Wi-Fi
  • Cybersecurity, Phishing, and Spam

These learning resources (with the exception of “Creating a Resume”) are available in over 35 languages! To view the translations, for each resource, please scroll down to “All Languages.” Additional languages will be added over time.

To learn about how to navigate our Digital Citizenship+ (Plus) Resource Platform — home to an evolving collection of 100+ educational tools (e.g., learning experiences, visualizations, podcasts) that can be used to learn and teach about youth’s digitally connected lives — please see the following slidedeck, presented at RightsCon Tunis 2019. The presentation also offers helpful tips in terms of adapting the tools to your context.

Digital Economy

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[Last updated: May 2020]

Digital Economy: The ability to navigate economic activities online and offline to earn different forms of economic, social, and/or cultural capital (e.g., earning money, increasing social connections, building personal brands).

Young people’s lives are increasingly shaped by digital technologies. While significant digital divides and participation gaps remain, an increasing number of young people around the globe participate in and contribute to the digitally networked environment in many forms, ranging from creative expression on social media to interactive gaming and collaboration.

The YaM team is exploring young people’s digital engagement through the lens of the digital economy and hopes to gain an initial understanding of youth’s practices, motivations, skills, pathways, and modes of value creating as they interact with a digital environment in which the boundaries between the commercial and personal spheres, between work and play, are often blurring.

Flagship publication:

  • Youth and the Digital Economy: A First Look at Youth Practices, Motivations, Skills, Pathways, and Value Creation. In addition to sketching building blocks toward a framework, the paper brings together three essays that explore in different application contexts both the opportunities and challenges that surface when young people engage with and participate in the digital economy.

Ongoing collaboration:

Key learning resources:

The learning resource “Who Do You Want to Be?” is available in over 35 languages! To view the translations, please scroll down to “All Languages.” Additional languages will be added over time.

To learn about how to navigate our Digital Citizenship+ (Plus) Resource Platform — home to an evolving collection of 100+ educational tools (e.g., learning experiences, visualizations, podcasts) that can be used to learn and teach about youth’s digitally connected lives — please see the following slidedeck, presented at RightsCon Tunis 2019. The presentation also offers helpful tips in terms of adapting the tools to your context.

Other publications:

Selected presentations:

(For more information, please email Sandra Cortesi.)