“… They don’t really listen to people”: Young people’s concerns and recommendations for improving online experiences

© 2019, Helen Creswick, Liz Dowthwaite, Ansgar Koene, Elvira Perez Vallejos, Virginia Portillo, Monica Cano and Christopher Woodard. Purpose: The voices of children and young people have been largely neglected in discussions of the extent to which the internet takes into account their needs and concerns. This paper aims to highlight young people’s lived experiences of being online. Design/methodology/approach: Results are drawn from the UnBias project’s youth led discussions, “Youth Juries” with young people predominantly aged between 13 and 17 years. Findings: Whilst the young people are able to use their agency online in some circumstances, many often experience feelings of disempowerment and resignation, particularly in relation to the terms and conditions and user agreements that are ubiquitous to digital technologies, social media platforms and other websites. Practical implications: Although changes are afoot as part of the General Data Protection Regulation (herein the GDPR) to simplify the terms and conditions of online platforms (European Union, 2016), it offers little practical guidance on how it should be implemented to children. The voices and opinions of children and young people are put forward as suggestions for how the “clear communication to data subjects” required by Article 12 of the GDPR in particular should be implemented, for example, recommendations about how terms and conditions can be made more accessible. Originality/value: Children and young people are an often overlooked demographic of online users. This paper argues for the importance of this group being involved in any changes that may affect them, by putting forward recommendations from the children and young people themselves

The Right To Privacy (Article 8) and the Digital Revolution: Written evidence from Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute, University of Nottingham (RTP0004)

Horizon1 is a Research Institute at The University of Nottingham and a Research Hub within the RCUK Digital Economy programme2. Horizon brings together researchers from a broad range of disciplines to investigate the opportunities and challenges arising from the increased use of digital technology in our everyday lives. Prof. McAuley is Director of Horizon and was principal investigator on the ESRC funded CaSMa3 project (Citizen-centric approaches to Social Media analysis) to promote ways for individuals to control their data and online privacy, the EPSRC funded UnBias4 (Emancipating Users Against Algorithmic Biases for a Trusted Digital Economy) project for raising user awareness and agency when using algorithmic services and the EPSRC funded Defence Against Dark Artefacts project on the legal and technical security of Internet of Things. Dr Koene was a lead researcher of the CaSMa and UnBias projects, is Research co-Investigator on the EPSRC funded ReEnTrust5 (Rebuilding and Enhancing Trust in Algorithms) project and chairs the working group for developing the IEEE P7003 Standard for Algorithm Bias Considerations. Dr Jiahong Chen is a Researcher Fellow of Horizon, working on the Defence Against Dark Artefacts project

A comparison of presentation methods for conducting youth juries

The 5Rights Youth Juries are an educational intervention to promote digital literacy by engaging participants (i.e. jurors) in a deliberative discussion around their digital rights. The main objective of these jury-styled focus groups is to encourage children and young people to identify online concerns and solutions with a view to developing recommendations for government policy-makers and industry chiefs. The methodology included a series of dramatized scenarios that encourage jurors to deliberate about their digital rights. This paper compares two formats for these scenarios: live actors and professionally recorded and edited videos of the same actors. Results failed to show any major differences between formats indicating the cost-effectiveness of the video-recorded format and the possibility for others to run the 5Rights Youth Juries with the support of an online open educational resource

The impact of algorithmic decision-making processes on young people’s well-being

This study aims to capture the online experiences of young people when interacting with algorithm mediated systems and their impact on their well-being. We draw on qualitative (focus groups) and quantitative (survey) data from a total of 260 young people to bring their opinions to the forefront while eliciting discussions. The results of the study revealed the young people’s positive as well as negative experiences of using online platforms. Benefits such as convenience, entertainment and personalised search results were identified. However, the data also reveals participants’ concerns for their privacy, safety and trust when online, which can have a significant impact on their well-being. We conclude by recommending that online platforms acknowledge and enact on their responsibility to protect the privacy of their young users, recognising the significant developmental milestones that this group experience during these early years, and the impact that algorithm-mediated systems may have on them. We argue that governments need to incorporate policies that require technologists and others to embed the safeguarding of users’ well-being within the core of the design of Internet products and services to improve the user experiences and psychological well-being of all, but especially those of children and young people