Technology and Social Values Tools to Enable Children's Voices in the World

Introduction

The landscape of childhood in the 21^st century increasingly involves technology. As information and communication technologies (ICTs) become ubiquitous in homes, schools, libraries, and play spaces, children are plugged-in and online with greater frequency and at a younger age. Parents, educators, and researchers have raised concerns about how children interact in online space, the safety and privacy of interactive technologies for children, and the difficulties of providing age-appropriate play and learning opportunities for connected youth. These include technologies designed expressly for children, as well as adult technologies which children appropriate for academic tasks, entertainment, and communication. Concerns regarding new and emerging technologies like the immersive Internet, mobile phones, and social networking sites often lead to highly charged, emotive responses aimed at reducing the risks associated with such technologies. These reactions focus our attention on children in the role of victimized consumer, and privilege the perspective of a single stakeholder, the parent. Consequently, children and young people can become disempowered in decisions about how they use technologies, as well as how technologies are designed to meet their needs and activities. This desire to protect young technology consumers runs contrary to the increasingly participatory techniques intended to give greater voice to all users in the design and development of the very technologies they are using.

A broader, more enlightened perspective on the role of technology in the lives of children recognizes the multiple roles, stakeholders, and value propositions which affect interactions with ICTs. Rather than casting children in the limited role of consumer of technology, participatory and value-sensitive design techniques afford children the role of tester, evaluator, appropriator, co-designer, or co-investigator.

Creating and sustaining a pluralistic society means providing sufficient opportunities for the voices of children as well as adults in the decisions that affect their lives and their futures. This panel will ground discussion in current empirical research studies where a child’s voice is actively sought as part of the design and evaluation of technologies as an opportunity to speculate about the need to go further in ensuring that children are active participants in the decision making process. The panel will invite discussion about ways that the information science community could be taking a far more active role in terms of awareness raising, advocacy and mediation among the various stakeholders to enable a stronger voice for children in society.

Background

It provides an opportunity for discussion and awareness-raising about the need to do more to bring children into conversations (politically, socially, technically) about their access to and use of technologies. Participatory design approaches and frameworks have been employed in projects around the world to enable children’s voices to be more present in the design, development and implementation of technologies like the internet, mobile phones, and social networking sites. However, there is a need to move beyond the advances made using participatory approaches to technology design. We need to begin thinking through the consequences for our communities and societies with regards to the risk landscape that is taking shape for our children. This presentation will serve to start this discussion. Panelists will share projects involving children in the design of mobile phones in ways enabling children to have more voice in the design process whilst countering the concerns many adults have about children needing to be 'protected' from technology (such as mobile devices, social networking sites, etc).

While it is important to minimize risks, there is also a danger that the responses of adults to the new and emerging technologies essentially remove opportunities for children to develop the “risk taker’s advantage” that researches would suggest children can only acquire through experience.

Giving children the risk-taker’s advantage in relation to information and communication technologies begins with giving them a greater voice in the decisions surrounding their access to and use of such technologies. Two key questions for the panel and the audience are:

• How are we to handle these risks and help children to handle these risks?
• How can we extend existing participatory programs associated with design of technologies to designing the infrastructures, services and policies that will shape children’s lives and use of technology?

Structure and Format of the Panel

The panel will integrate a series of case examples involving the application of participatory and value-sensitive approaches to the design, evaluation, and use of youth-centered technologies. By illustrating these approaches with empirical work, we ground our philosophical discussion in real-world research and design practice. The panel presenters will elaborate on how they bring the child’s perspective into the investigative and design processes with philosophical discussions of the values that are and/or should be informing work with children’s technologies. Each project will present questions designed to foster discussion with the audience and among panelists about the implications that work in the spirit and form of that presented may hold for software developers, interaction designers, youth service providers, and researchers. The panel presentations will close by inviting the audience to discuss the implications of current trends for various sectors of the community (e.g., policy makers, parents, teachers, AND designers) that will have an impact on the future of children. 

Theresa Anderson and Alllison Druin