Classification of online problematic situations in the context of youths’ development
Keywords
youth
online risks
online problematic situations
relationships
school
sexuality
identity
health
morality
Publication details
| Year: | 2014 |
| DOI: | 10.1515/commun-2014-0111 |
| Issued: | 2014 |
| Language: | English |
| Volume: | 39 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Start Page: | 1 |
| End Page: | 19 |
| Editors: | |
| Authors: | Smahel D.; Wright M.; Cernikova M. |
| Type: | Journal article |
| Journal: | Communications |
| Publisher: | Walter de Gruyter GmbH |
| Topics: | Risks and harms |
| Sample: | The average number of focus groups was six in each country; three focus groups included girls and three included boys, with age distributions of 9-10 years, 11-13 years, and 14-16 years (two focus groups each). The average number of interviews was twelve in each country, and six for each gender, with the same age distribution as the focus groups. Youths were selected from at least three different schools (public x private, city x suburban x rural schools) and/or youth centers.. In the schools or youth centers, researchers chose youths who use the Internet at home at least several times per week. Youths used for the interviews were different from those included in the focus groups. There were 57 focus groups (N = 236) and 113 interviews (N = 113) conducted across the 9 countries (see Table 1 for an overview of data collection). |
| Implications For Parents About: | Parenting guidance / support |
| Implications For Educators About: | Other |
| Implications For Policy Makers About: | Other |
| Other PolicyMaker Implication: | Prevention and intervention programs |
| Implications For Stakeholders About: | Researchers |
Abstract
Previous research on youths’ online risky experiences has mostly uti-lized quantitative designs. However, some of this research does not account foryouths’ views and perceptions. This qualitative study fills this gap by describ-ing online problematic situations from the perspectives of European youths,focuses on classifying online problematic situations based on youths’ perspec-tives and interrelates these with their developmental contexts. As a theoreticalframework, the co-construction model was adopted, which proposes thatyouths’ online and offline worlds are interconnected. Interviews and focusgroups were conducted with youths between the ages of 9 and 16 from Belgium,the Czech Republic, Greece, Malta, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and theUnited Kingdom. Youths’ responses reflected the complexity of the variousproblematic situations online they encountered or indirectly experienced, andhow such experiences were interconnected with the developmental contexts ofpeer relationships, parent-child relationships, romantic relationships, school,sexuality, identity, health, and morality. We recommend the development ofcomplex educational programs focused on youths about problematic situationsonline, which discuss the possible situations they may encounter and how todeal with them.
Outcome
"Youths’ responses reflected the complexity of the various online problematic situations they encountered or indirectly experienced, and how such experiences were interconnected with the developmental contexts of peer relationships, parent-child relationships, romantic relationships, school, sexuality, identity, health, and morality." (Smahel at al., 2014, pp. 1)
"We enriched the Content-Contact-Conduct (CCC) ..., the axes of Content, Contact, and Conduct were simplified to Content and Communication in our model because we found that youths did not differentiate between problematic situations involving communication with adults (Contact) and communication with peers (Conduct). Furthermore, they were sometimes unsure about the age of individuals whom they communicated with online. We also enriched the CCC model by linking youths’ developmental contexts to their experiences of online problematic situations." (Smahel at al., 2014, pp. 13)