Adolescents on the Internet: How much do we really know?
Are children safe on the internet we created? What are they really doing in a digital world created by adults and adopted by users of all ages? I interviewed my thirteen-year-old cousin to try and get some insight into these modern questions. My cousin is a teenage boy who has grown up surrounded by older siblings and pretty much unlimited access to technology. I know from growing up around him that he is incredibly bright and affectionate, but I know nothing about how he (or other users his age) are using the internet.
I could tell very early into the interview that my cousin Thomas spent a lot of time on the internet. He said, “I don’t know how much time I spend on there every day or every week. I always have my phone, and then sometimes I have my computer or my iPad but definitely not every minute of the day” (Thomas Sweeney, 2020). I found it really interesting that he chose to explain his time spent on the internet using the fact that he spends some time offline. I would like to think that this is because his time spent offline is more noteworthy than his interactions online, but it very well may be because he spends the majority of his time on his devices. According to his mom, who I spoke very briefly with, he spends any free time she offers on electronics.
So, what is occupying so much of his time on these electronics? I found out some of his habits mirror my own, but some are completely different than any online activity I engage in. He said he spends a lot of his time on Minecraft, something I am vaguely familiar with because it was an interest of my brothers. He said the app is a fun way to waste time, but not anything that special. I asked if he played other games and he replied, “Well yeah, that’s why I was so excited to get a phone. My parents made me wait so long to get one, but my phone is all full from games now. I had to delete a lot of pictures to get my new game” (Thomas Sweeney, 2020). I think that a lot of young people also communicate through games, and he explained that a lot of the games he plays do have some social aspect. Some of them you play in teams, some of them you can message, and others are individual. He said he also plays a lot of social video games on his Xbox, but didn’t elaborate in detail on what that looks like.
Hearing about the social aspect of video games had me wondering how much of his time spent on electronics is used for socializing, and how much of that socializing is safe. He explained that he texts his friends that have phones, but a lot of them are still using iPods. He said he doesn’t do much calling, and he perceives it to be mostly adults who continue to use that feature. So where is he communicating with others? It seems like he is primarily using Instagram for connecting with his peers, specifically the direct message feature. This is a bit concerning as an adult on Instagram, knowing that strangers are able to send messages and the user is presented with an option to respond or decline. As a twenty-two-year old, I understand that I am not the recipient of a million dollars or about to be the next best model (like strangers often message me), but does my thirteen year old cousin? I asked if strangers ever try to communicate with him and how he responds to those messages he does receive.
He said he does receive random messages, but he filters them differently than me. He said, “I get messages from bots, they are so annoying. I usually decline them because I think they are fake. But sometimes people my age message me and even though I don’t know them I talk to them because I am nice. Especially girls” (Thomas Sweeney, 2020). I think it is sad that this raises alarms for me, that the internet isn’t safe enough for a teenager to make connections with someone he believes to be his age. Up to this point, he said no one has done anything “creepy” or made him uncomfortable. I hope it stays this way, but there are people out there who could take advantage of young people using these apps to socialize.
Even though Instagram felt safe, I wondered if he had ever felt unsafe on another social media cite or website. He said he had gotten a few computer viruses from websites, citing a specific example of “winning a vacation” that led to an increase in the number of ads he saw. Without much prompting, he shared another story that felt connected to safety, but also to how misleading the internet can be. He told me about a time that he was playing a game and it kept offering his to buy things or upgrade the game for gems. He did not understand that the gems were representative of real money coming out of the app store, and he ended up spending over a hundred dollars. He explained, “It wasn’t fair, I didn’t even want to spend the money. And when my parents saw they were mad at me and the website wouldn’t give it back, but I didn’t know what they were doing. Stuff like that isn’t fair” (Thomas Sweeney, 2020). I felt for him, and it is just further proof that our internet is not built for children, but that doesn’t stop them from using it.
As Thomas is my cousin, I have some understanding of how his use is monitored. Spending from his phone is tracked, and his devices are taken away as a punishment from time to time. Outside of this, he has free reign over his activity on the internet. His family has a tracking app on his phone, but it doesn’t seem like they use it regularly. I think Thomas understands this and acts accordingly, but I also hope he has the information necessary to protect himself from anyone with the wrong intentions. As a digital native, I wonder how much really understands, and even if he knows more than I do. I know that I understand a lot of educational resources in a more advanced way, but I know a lot less about many of the apps he finds interesting/uses on a daily basis.
We finished off the interview speaking about whether he believed the internet was good or bad. His began by saying good, but the longer he spoke I saw him begin to realize that there are pros and cons to being on the internet. He said he thinks he learns a lot from the internet, especially about things happening far away from where he is. Thomas also said, “I don’t know how I would talk to my friends if I didn’t have a phone or a computer. Especially lately its hard because I only go to school one day a week, it would be hard only having friends one day a week” (Thomas Sweeney). He also said he gets sad when his friends ignore him to play on their phones, even though he knows he does this himself. He also said he was sad that he won’t get snow days anymore, explaining that his teachers warned him that any snow days would be moved to online learning. I think even adults feel some sense of this, we are never really “away from work,” our communication devices follow us home and consume us long after the time we leave our physical spaces.
I felt like I learned a lot from my cousin, but I also feel like I can’t really understand his habits online. Some of the concepts we spoke about didn’t make sense to me, and I think he probably kept some of his actions secret from me out of fear I would pass information on to his mom. Overall, I think we are raising a generation of students who are highly engaged with the internet, whether or not that is for the best. I hope that at some point there are clear boundaries between work/school and personal life for this group who never had the separation, but I doubt that this will occur. On many of these topics, it will be hard for us to ever know what exactly young people do with the internet/how they view it because we are not engaging with it in the same ways.
Sweeney, Thomas. Personal Interview. 5 Oct. 2020.
*Thomas Sweeney is a pseudonym used to protect the privacy of the interviewee.
