(I)f we are committed to taking children’s rights seriously, then it is vital that we, as powerful adults, facilitate continuous, open dialogue with children and youth about their use of digital technology and seek their views [author’s emphasis] on how it can best be harnessed to serve their rights, now and into the future (Coppock and Gillet-Swan, 2016 p.374).
The Workshop Framework
In Lewis and Coles–Kemp’s (2014a) study of a tactile visual library which supported user experience storytelling using comic strips while eliciting information from an adult cohort was undertaken. This was achieved by providing a series of prompts and blank templates and participants were told what tools they would be given to use. In the workshops for this study the children followed a similar format and the participants were offered minimal guidance as to how they should complete the task. Both the visual and written narrative provides an easy, accessible approach to children that supports free and open exchange of thoughts, opinions and feelings. Due to the nature of the research topic of child safety and safeguarding, this freedom and safety of self-expression was imperative, so that the workshops would be a safe space for the participants. Furthermore, it allowed the participants and the researcher to work together in a classroom environment with equilibrium.
The workshops were delivered using an adapted version of the KidReporter and were located within the field of HCI and UCD techniques which allows the use of narrative to be controlled and shared by the storyteller, in this case the child.24 The use of narrative, storytelling and visual accounts are part of a participatory design approach and enables an alternative viewpoint to facilitate discussion and understanding in user or product design (Lewis and Coles-Kemp, 2014a; 2014b). As Lewis and Coles–Kemp (2014a) state, in this context narrative allows ‘for complex ideas to be represented simply and to a variety of people, which results in a greater communication of meaning’ (p.1). The KidReporter activities use both visual narrative and storytelling which allowed the children to express themselves in an abstract, child-friendly way, thus giving them a free space to explore and share their own beliefs, experiences and ideas.
Setting for the workshops
24 A research method for working with children and young people as partners in design technology (Bekker et al., 2003).
Prior to every workshop the room was prepared accordingly, ensuring there were enough tables and chairs, coloured marker pens, pencils, and papers for the participants. This included a simple, colourless template for the first visual narrative activity, two pieces of lined paper and a prepared child-friendly pictorial questionnaire. When the participants entered the room, they chose their seat at one of the tables.
Once the participants had been welcomed it was explained that they could use any of the pens or pencils on the table to complete the exercises. During most of the initial work at the tables the participants would mess with the paper and ask if they could complete the questionnaire first. The colourful pictures had attracted their attention. However they were asked to wait and follow the instructions to come. The data was generated completely by the KidReporter adapted model and the researcher’s observations and interpretations. This made the process accessible for all the children and ensured that they remained in control of their level of input and engagement in the workshop.
Adapted KidReport Model
The KidReporter model is a child-friendly way of using drawings and storytelling in a light- hearted atmosphere, partnering with children to get them to imagine and share their ideas for the design of a safeguarding app, as well as generating questions, concepts and content for design features (Lewis and Coles–Kemp, 2014a, 2014b). It is divided into four activities. The first activity acted as a prompt and a warm-up to engagement. This visual narrative exercise was used at an early stage to influence the level of engagement throughout the workshop, and it became a novel way to begin to empathise with the participants. The second activity consisted of free narrative in the format of questions and answers, forming part of an informal story about app design and development, which contributes to user talk (Lewis and Coles– Kemp, 2014b). The third activity was experimental, free-expression through storytelling or short scenarios; as Lewis and Coles–Kemp (2014b) confirm ‘scenarios that integrate stories, stylised in natural language, allow UCD participants to enhance user attention and engagement, memory and organisation of detailed user research data’ (p. 2490). The fourth task was the completion of a questionnaire. Prompt sheets (A4 paper) were made for three of the activities and they were placed in the middle of the tables and, when the allocated time for the activity ended, the researcher placed the next prompt card over the previous one. This gave the participants a visual reminder of the task.
The Workshops
Part One: The researcher asked all the participants to place the template in front of them and they were given the instruction from the prompt card that read, ‘Draw a picture about what you worry about most to be able to keep safe - also in the picture include what information is important for you to tell someone if you felt unsafe and why. Then write about the picture underneath’. The participants could choose to use the coloured markers or pencils. Many of the participants found it more enjoyable and engaging to use the coloured pens. I responded to any questions or queries that the participants raised, which were mainly for clarification purposes and to reassure them that it was OK to draw or write about their worry. In one incident in particular, this questioning led to a domino effect around the room, with the majority of participants deciding to share the same worry (for example, concern over killer clowns). A very small minority of participants chose not to share their worry, but were able to draw a representation of not sharing, for example drawing a ‘No Entry’ sign. Overall, this activity raised a lot of conversation and discussion among the participants. Approximately ten minutes was allocated to this exercise.
In the second part the prompt card read ‘in pairs write 5 questions: If you had an app to tell people you were unsafe or felt unsafe what would be in it? And what things would you like to say or share by using this app. Swap and answer your partner’s questions’. Participants were asked to use one sheet of lined paper to write their five questions, then to work with the person next to them. Where there was an unequal number on a table, three participants were asked to work together and their questions were just passed round so another participant answered a different set of questions. Again approximately ten minutes was allocated to this exercise (five minutes to write the questions and another five to answer their partners’ questions).
In the third part of the workshop participants spent upwards of twenty minutes writing their stories or scenarios. The prompt card stated, ‘Your story... How would you design a ‘safeguarding’ ‘keeping safe’ app and what would you like it to be able to do? Things to think about:
• What are the most important things in such an app?
• What information would you share on this app?
The verbal prompts, such as, ‘if you were techies and you had lots of money how you would design this app?’, ‘with all your imagination what you would have it do or what would it be like?’, ‘anything could be possible in your design’ were provided. Once the task was understood the level of conversation and noise in the room fell and many participants became engrossed in their writing, with some writing at least half to a full page, whilst others produced just a few lines.
In part four, once participants had finished writing their story, they were asked to complete the questionnaire. The questionnaire aimed to collect demographic data such as age, ethnicity, disability and the frequency of their use of technology; for example, computers and mobile phones. They were mainly pictorial in design, which the participants seemed to find exciting, and they all wanted to look at them and complete them quickly.
All the participants apart from year eleven were enthusiastic in sharing their ideas for the activities and engaging in the tasks. Most of the workshops finished before the allocated one hour, although this did vary depending on numbers in the group.
Findings
As noted earlier (see Chapter Four) apps currently do not appear child-focused, nor do they map their journey for improving outcomes, thus representing a denial of their agency and promoting only adult-centric discourses (James and Prout, 1997). Therefore the analytic context here is within the paradigm of socially constructed childhoods where children are social agents for change in their own right (James and James, 2001a; James and James, 2004b; James and Prout, 1997). There have been numerous perceptions and constructs of childhood over the last two hundred years; for example, through education, health care and medicine (James and Prout, 1997). The twenty-first century digital world childhood space needs to be co-created to promote children informing and activating their citizenship in a less adult dominated way and for adults to understand their worlds (Coppock and Gillet-Swan, 2016).
Children are now part of a childhood space that combines human and digital technologies. It is this version of childhood that is discussed and presented here. The data is organised into a set of characteristics and practices used to understand the childhood worlds of the participants
and how they begin to construct the design principles for apps in that technical and social childhood space. As James and James (2001a) perfectly summarise ‘children are competent social actors who may have a particular perspective on the social world that we, as adults, might find worth listening to’ (p. 26). It is from this perspective that the analysis of the workshop data addresses the key issues for the design principles from a social - technical childhood space. This social - technical childhood space is a structural site and the children within the Primary and Secondary schools as participants occupy this collective space. Childhood is marked out in society and viewing this as a constant and recognisable component of all social structures leads to an understanding that every child is a member of this collective space and has their own agency (James and James, 2004b).
How is the space constructed for children through narratives of their experiences, ideas and concepts? Moreover, how does this permit them to be ‘designers’ or equal partners in the design principles for new safeguarding apps? Analysis will show how this impacts on design of, and relevant content in, apps and also highlight who, and what, the app should be connected to. Furthermore, the findings convey how children act in this space through their stories and narratives (James and Curtis, 2012). This childhood space is also a generational space (James and James, 2001a) and shared attributes and diversities will be made from the children’s own perspectives, as well as on the movement through the space from Primary to Secondary school.
Access to devices
A range of devices that children access populates this social and digital technological childhood space. The questionnaire responses find that forty-seven per cent of the children always used a smart phone and nineteen per cent always used an android phone. Years Five and Six were sometimes more likely to use a computer and/or laptop. These findings correlate with the rise of the use of portable devices, as found by Ofcom (2016) who note that;
• Tablet ownership among children is increasing
• Tablets and mobile phones are now the most popular devices for going online, knocking laptops back to third place
• And one in five of all 5-15s only go online using a device other than a desktop or laptop
• 5-15s are more likely to both own and use a mobile phone than in 2015
• The preference for mobile phones over other devices begins at the age 11 (p.6).
Digital World Worries
An analysis of the worries of children as a visual narrative can start to shape and conceptualise their needs within the childhood space. The social concerns that the participants drew and reported suggests what it is like, or could be like, as part of the social - technical culture, which can change through the generations (James and Prout, 1997). Through their individual and collective narratives key themes that could only make sense as part of the social - technical childhood space emerged.
There were only two male participants (aged thirteen and fourteen years old) that did not want to share their worries and both illustrated this by drawing a no entry sign.
Figure 6.1: Drawing by a Year Ten, male participant.
‘Don’t want to share’.
There were no clear differences between boys and girls in relation to their worries, as descriptions were generic across both genders. The only topic that was exclusively written by two females (both aged thirteen) was a concern about terrorist attacks.
‘I am worried about terrorist attacks. I am worried about this because I could lose my family and close friends, which I don’t want to happen’.
A key theme across every year group was found in the drawings and reports expressing a concern that related to digital technology. For example, receiving horrible/rude/nasty messages online or in social media, being approached by strangers on their social media accounts (Figures 6.4 – 6.8) or being threatened in online gaming environments (Figure 3). Figure 6.3: Drawing by a Year Ten male participant.
‘So there is a man trying to go to the boy’s house and kidnap the boy. They are both playing together on FiFa 16 and the man is trying to ask where the boy lives and how old he is and things’.
Figure 6. 4: Drawing by a Year Ten, male participant.
‘I meet someone on line and they track me down, rob everything I have, then kill me and my family but still remain anonymous’.
Figure 6.5: Drawing by a Year Seven, female participant.
‘On Facebook and other social media’s there are clowns breaking into houses and chasing people with weapons. Some clowns were at McDonalds. If I saw a clown I would ring the police straight away because the person dressed as a clown would be prosecuted / sent to jail or prison’.
Figure 6.6: Drawing by a Year Eight, female participant.
‘Clowns worry me because they can stalk and groom you on the Internet, arrange to meet you and they could hurt you. I would tell people don’t talk to them and don’t meet up with them’.
Figure 6.7: Drawing by a Year Eight, female participant.
‘I am worried about getting cyber bullied because it could lead to suicide or getting seriously ill, also because no one will want to talk to you’.
Further examples of worries convey concerns relating to mitigating risks when on or off line; for example, a Year Ten participant would use their to phone for help; Year Eleven expresses concerns in relation to Internet attacks by hackers and a LAC expressed not being safe on social media. This also gave rise to their use of language that has a natural dialogue, sharing their worries about digital technologies.
Figure 6.8: Drawing by a Year Nine, female participant.
‘On social media I feel safe but not safe as sometimes because you don’t know if the person is really them or not so you have got to be careful’.
These constructs, embedded in this childhood space, show that there is a consciousness of, and concern about, personal digital safety. Equally it is a challenge for children to find rapid solutions to fears spreading via social media, as, for instance, with the killer clowns phenomenon. Individually, dependent on age, their concerns about online safety increase as
they get older; with Year Eleven male and female participants describing Internet attacks and being safe online as their main worries (as depicted in Figure 6.9 below).
Figure 6.9: Drawing by a Year Eleven, male participant.
‘I worry the most about safety online because every day there are new dangers that we may not know and this also has a large impact on what could happen in real life’.
Thus, there are differences in worries corresponding to the different age groups, but also there are some commonalities, such as the fact that every year group revealed that they were worried about bullying, online or offline.
Figure 6.10: Drawing by a Year Five, female participant.
‘I am scared of getting bullied because the amount of people who commit suicide from bullying is unreal’.
A recurring and shared worry was death, both dying and being killed. Many were worried about ‘killer clowns’ (see Figures 6.5 and 6.6). 25 In this context it is worth noting that of the
25This workshop was conducted on the 19th October 2016. A week prior to this it was confirmed that some children had been left distraught after being scared by clowns and this message had gone viral via social media. The Guardian reported on the 10th October 2016 that,
apps designed by adults (see Chapter Four), only one app was identified that related to this topic created for children and young adults aged eleven to twenty five years once they have been bereaved. This research clearly suggests that children are worried about death before it takes place, however they are only able to get some support via an app after the event. That this is not being heard suggests there is a disconnection and lack of understanding of current childhoods positioning the child as a passive participant in the design of digital support strategies (James and Prout, 1997).
In addition to cyber-bullying, death and being approached by strangers, differences in individual worries were wide-ranging. Examples include:
Year Five: elder siblings moving to a high school or university and being kidnapped via online gaming;
Year Six: going to the dentist, leaving school and their friends, getting into senior school, family members being ill, stranger messaging and others getting hold of their passwords; Year Seven: one boy was worried about being scared of heights;
Year Eight: dad in prison, viewing a scary movie;
Year Nine: plane crashes, terrorist attacks, losing close family members;