WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) and the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project have agreed to conduct a research project aimed at understanding teenagers’ behavior online. The research will examine how this behavior ties to digital citizenship – the behaviors, expectations and skills teens have around interacting with others in digital spaces. The research is jointly funded by the Pew Internet Project and Cable in the Classroom.
The study will look at teens’ online skills and their comfort level with using technology. It will examine teens’ pro-social and anti-social behaviors, ranging from the creation of support groups to cyber bullying and cyber harassment in online spaces. A better understanding of these different dimensions of digital citizenship will help parents, educators, policymakers and industry leaders determine ways to help teens maintain a safe online environment.
“The notion of digital citizenship is a hugely important umbrella topic that has the potential to speak to concerns around cyberbullying, sexting, flaming and other online behaviors,” said Amanda Lenhart, the Pew Internet Project’s lead analyst on teens and families and the leader of the research study. “Our goal is to examine teens’ own views about what digital citizenship entails and the kinds of responsibilities they think they need to assume.”
The Pew Internet Project, a non-profit, non-partisan “fact tank” that studies how Americans use technology, will field a national phone survey of teens – on landlines and cell phones – as well as in-depth, qualitative interviews to understand the broad concept of digital citizenship. The survey will cover topics such as the types of positive and negative experiences teens have online; how teens know how to behave, react or interact in online spaces; and the types of skills that teens employ in coping with negative online experiences.
The Family Online Safety Institute is an international non-profit organization dedicated to making the online world safer for kids and families and has partnered with the Pew Internet Project to conduct the study. “Our partnership with the Pew Internet Project and Cable in the Classroom is an exciting step forward for the online safety movement,” said Stephen Balkam, CEO of FOSI. “While there are a number of ways in which the Internet can improve teens’ lives, teens are also exposed to many new and unexpected challenges online. This research will provide us with reliable data that we hope will inform continuing discussions over these issues.”
“Wonderful things and bad things can happen in digital spaces, but we don’t yet have a good idea of which things happen most often and what impact they have,” said Frank Gallagher, Executive Director of Cable in the Classroom. “Right now, debates on this subject are dominated by anecdotes and guesswork. We hope this research will provide baseline data that everyone in this urgent national conversation can use.”
The study will begin in November 2010 and results are expected in November 2011.