🔮More Than Robots #40 / April 2021
Hello,
'Then fill up a bumper and make it o'erflow,' Robert Burns
Some things are springing back to life and a few green shoots are emerging - so here is an extra-large edition for the longer days ahead...
📖 Research
Coronavirus and UK kids / BBC Newsround
28% of children said they didn't have a device to themselves - they either didn't have one at all (1%) or they had to share it with one (19%), or more than one (8%), other person
Engaging in risky online behaviour - prevalence and associated factors: initial findings / Gov.scot
60% of 12-year-olds have not engaged in any of the risky online behaviours.
Children with lower levels of mental wellbeing and those who identified themselves as being less close to their parents were more likely to have engaged in risky online behaviour. However, no association was found between how much parents spoke to their children about staying safe online and their participation in any of the risky online behaviours.
Digital opportunities and harms / DCMS
A digital characteristic can sometimes cause harm on its own, but often the characteristics work in combination with each other to cause or magnify harm
A Picture of Health: Measuring the comparative health of online spaces / Demos
Users in online spaces do not behave consistently across multiple spaces, but adjust their toxicity or civility to the norms, rules or cultures of the spaces they use
Supporting the Digital Wellbeing of Young People Through Purposeful Collaboration / RGC
Digital entertainment industries should acknowledge a shared responsibility for and take steps to support the digital wellbeing of the people who engage with or on their platforms or products
Children in low income families: local area statistics / DWP
In the UK in 2020, there were 2.99 million children living in families in 'Relative low income' and 2.44 million children in 'Absolute low income'; 81% of children were aged under 16 for both measures
📎 Resources
Techshock podcast / Parent Zone
An interview series explaining the mysteries of digital technology to parents, teachers, professionals and policymakers
Sharing the Brain Story / NSPCC
A booklet to support 'a shared and simple language around child brain development that can be used by all professionals, parents, carers and children'
Connected to culture / Google
A toolkit to help organisations build their cultural programmes online
In our own words / 5 Rights
'A young people’s version of the UNCRC general comment No. 25 - that sets out children’s rights in the digital world'. Full text of UNCRC general comment 25
Loneliness and reconnection guide / University of Bath
'A brief, practical guide for parents, teachers and practitioners about what loneliness is and what help can be found'
Jobs Boards – Under Represented Groups
A directory of sites to find and share job opportunities with a diverse range of audiences
🗳 Take Part
Children’s Code: Transparency champions open call / Deadline 30th April
Submit ideas and examples of privacy information designs that enable children to easily understand how, when and why services use their data free from friction, opacity or confusion
💬 Inspiration and opinion
Lockdown & Me
‘The entire fabric of the universe as we know it has just slowed down, and so my brain has slowed down too’
Can we occupy technology with love?
'Perhaps the innovations that are sold with good Powerpoints and slick pitches are only really more important than sea shanties on TikTok because they are dressed up to look more important'
You and the Algorithm: It Takes Two to Tango
'Promoting individual agency is the easy bit. Identifying content which is harmful and keeping it off the internet is challenging, but doable. But agreeing on what constitutes the collective good is very hard indeed'
Consequence Scanning: How to build responsibility into product development
'Every product and innovation comes with consequences: There is no such thing as neutral change and there will always be an impact associated with creating something new'
The Ad-Based Internet Is About to Collapse. What Comes Next?
'As the internet began to be commercialized, it was not a given that advertising would emerge as such a central business model. It was the product of decisions made by corporate actors'
...and finally
Lockdown has intensified our relationship with our working space...what will happen when this becomes the office of the future...