Research

There is a lot of news articles available about children and social networking which reinforces the reason for why we have decided to educate them on it.

Such articles include

• BBC (2008) Children Flock to social networks. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7325019.stm
• Mail online (2009) Social websites harm children's brains: Chilling warning to parent from top neuroscientist. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1153583/Social-websites-harm-childrens-brains-Chilling-warning-parents-neuroscientist.html
• Times Online (2008) Children's social network pages 'must have privacy lock'. Available at: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3663312.ece

The information that we found interesting were that "Ofcom's survey of 5,000 adults and 3,000 children found 49% of those aged between eight and 17 have a profile" and that Ofcom also stated "almost 60% of children use social networking sites to make new friends." (BBC, 2008) The latter quote gave us the idea behind the scenario for the video. Hopefully the video will demonstrate to children the negatives to choosing being on the internet instead of playing with friends, and the positives to playing with friends instead of going on the internet to make new friends.

Another quote that encouraged us to make a project on children and social networking is from the article from Times Online (2008) "Tanya Byron, the psychologist on the BBC TV show Little Angels, said that children and parents needed better education on internet safety. Personal profiles on social networks are typically created without security features, but privacy settings can allow the pages to be accessed only by friends."

During our research we also visited the Decode exhibition at the V&A. This inspired us to create a mosaic/pixelated type interface, which will feature a face and certain pixels will be the buttons to different parts of the project. Also, the exhibition made us realise how much interactivity has developed in todays society and that it is an important factor in gaining audiences attention. In particulars the works by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (make out) and Ross Phillips (video grid) interested us the most.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/microsites/decode/