2004-02-11 "Y'know Ð For Kids!": Social Software for Children http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_sess/4716 (Fiona Romeo) How can we ensure children's safety while letting them have expressive identities in social software? This is research that can be applied into people's own work. MSN cited the reason for closing their European chatrooms as children's safety -- this was applauded by various charities. * Research Pre-teen girl persona: her identity work is copying older girls, but it's really not a self-conscious thing. Teenage boy: identity work is something that really concerns our persona, 'Jake'. * Identity management When Jessica talks about management she talks about her mood in different contexts (home, school). Jake has roles assigned to him by his peer group. It's really important to him to save face, he gets really embarrassed by labels. So he doesn't do homework incase he gets labelled like that. None of these kids case about sharing data. They're quite happy to give away address information, phone numbers etc. Children are most as risk online at 12-14 because parental supervision is being relaxed at that time. Sites ask for all kinds of personal info -- and not just your own, but they ask for your friends' information too. We use metaphors like "journal" to talk about publishing. Traditionally journals are private things, but these journals are public. How can we encourage a sense of privacy? [I only want people to be able to see my weblog if they're in my buddylist *and* I'm online.] * Role-playing We've got to remember the identity play that kids really like to do, and online services are really good for that. For Jessica it's trying out being older. For Jake it's competitive and about escape. It's very difficult for him to present different selves in real life, so this is really useful. Lots of learning by doing, girls pretending to be lesbians for 10 minutes, boys pretending to be girls to practice talking to girls -- all important uses for identity play. * Visual representation Jessica likes pretty things. She wants to have a colour she likes, or a feather or something as part of her avatar. Not too worried about a picture of her. Jake is very reluctant to choose a single image. He has a fear of being summed up for good. * Friendship and groups (buddy lists) Peer expectations. Jake really cares about social symbols. Brand of trainers. And his image is really important: hair gel, deodorant, Clearasil. Pressures: Jessica would lie about having an interest to be included. It's about involvement. Jake would hide anything that might exclude him from his group. [I wonder whether he'd actually try to change himself to fit in?] It's about reassurance, the group has to take or bolster his identity. * Implications for blogs and wikis Awesome idea for a wiki to help children express their identities through stuff they collect. Very visual for people like Jessica. [What I really like about this is that it's for children and it's automagically safe because it just wouldn't *appeal* to adults, it wouldn't even be a place they'd spend time.] For blogs, use parents as moderators. Involve parents in a positive way.