This SIG will provide child-computer interaction researchers and practitioners, as well as other interested CSCW attendees, an opportunity to discuss topics related to the ethics of emerging communication and collaboration technologies for children. The child-computer interaction community has conducted many discussions on ethical issues, including a recent SIG at CHI 2023. However, the angle of communication and collaboration has not been a focus, even though emerging technologies could affect these aspects in significant ways. Hence, there is a need to consider emerging technologies, such as extended reality, and how they may impact the way children communicate and collaborate in face-to-face, remote, and hybrid (mixed-presence) contexts. This SIG will be an opportunity to discuss methods to consider these ethical concerns, properties of emerging technologies that may affect communication and collaboration, considerations for deployment of these emerging technologies, and future scenarios to ponder

Bonsignore, Elizabeth

Clegg, Tamara

Currin, Flannery

Fails, Jerry A.

Hourcade, Juan Pablo

Jin, Georgie Qiao

Schmuecker, Summer R.

Yarosh, Lana

English

Boise State University - ScholarWorks

Boise State University ScholarWorks Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations Department of Computer Science 2023 Ethics of Emerging Communication and Collaboration Technologies for Children Juan Pablo Hourcade University of Iowa Elizabeth Bonsignore University of Maryland Tamara Clegg University of Maryland Flannery Currin University of Iowa Jerry A. Fails Boise State University See next page for additional authors Publication Information Hourcade, Juan Pablo; Bonsignore, Elizabeth; Clegg, Tamara; Currin, Flannery; Fails, Jerry A.; Jin, Georgie Qiao; . . . and Yarosh, Lana. (2023). "Ethics of Emerging Communication and Collaboration Technologies for Children". In C. Fiesler, L. Terveen, M. Ames, S. Fussell, E. Gilbert, V. Liao, X. Ma, X. Page, M. Rouncefield, V. Singh, and P. Wisniewski (Eds.), CSCW '23 Companion: Companion Publication of the 2023 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (pp. 560-562). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3584931.3606957 Authors Juan Pablo Hourcade, Elizabeth Bonsignore, Tamara Clegg, Flannery Currin, Jerry A. Fails, Georgie Qiao Jin, Summer R. Schmuecker, and Lana Yarosh This conference proceeding is available at ScholarWorks: https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/cs_facpubs/401 Ethics of Emerging Communication and CollaborationTechnologies for ChildrenJuan Pablo HourcadeThe University of Iowa, USAjuanpablo-hourcade@uiowa.eduElizabeth BonsignoreUniversity of Maryland, USAelizabeth.bonsignore@gmail.comTamara CleggUniversity of Maryland, USAtclegg@umd.eduFlannery CurrinThe University of Iowa, USAflannery-currin@uiowa.eduJerry A. FailsBoise State University, USAjerryfails@boisestate.eduGeorgie Qiao JinUniversity of Minnesota, USAjin00122@umn.eduSummer R. SchmueckerThe University of Iowa, USAsummer-schmuecker@uiowa.eduLana YaroshUniversity of Minnesota, USAlana@umn.eduABSTRACTThis SIG will provide child-computer interaction researchers andpractitioners, as well as other interested CSCW attendees, an op-portunity to discuss topics related to the ethics of emerging com-munication and collaboration technologies for children. The child-computer interaction community has conducted many discussionson ethical issues, including a recent SIG at CHI 2023. However,the angle of communication and collaboration has not been a fo-cus, even though emerging technologies could affect these aspectsin significant ways. Hence, there is a need to consider emergingtechnologies, such as extended reality, and how they may impactthe way children communicate and collaborate in face-to-face, re-mote, and hybrid (mixed-presence) contexts. This SIG will be anopportunity to discuss methods to consider these ethical concerns,properties of emerging technologies that may affect communicationand collaboration, considerations for deployment of these emergingtechnologies, and future scenarios to ponder.CCS CONCEPTS• ; • Human-centered computing→ Human computer interac-tion (HCI); • Social and professional topics → User characteris-tics; Age; Children;KEYWORDSchildren, ethics, emerging technologies, extended reality, participa-tory methodsACM Reference Format:Juan Pablo Hourcade, Elizabeth Bonsignore, Tamara Clegg, Flannery Currin,Jerry A. Fails, Georgie Qiao Jin, Summer R. Schmuecker, and Lana Yarosh.2023. Ethics of Emerging Communication and Collaboration Technologiesfor Children. In Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social ComputingThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International4.0 License.CSCW ’23 Companion, October 14–18, 2023, Minneapolis, MN, USA© 2023 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).ACM ISBN 979-8-4007-0129-0/23/10.https://doi.org/10.1145/3584931.3606957(CSCW ’23 Companion), October 14–18, 2023, Minneapolis, MN, USA. ACM,New York, NY, USA, 3 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3584931.36069571 INTRODUCTIONTechnologies play an increasingly ubiquitous role in children’s lives.This phenomenon has beenwell-documented through surveys, suchas those by common sense media [11], with the expectation thatprior trends accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic [15]. Whiledevice use by children has mostly involved mobile touchscreen de-vices [11], there are emerging technologies which are beginning tosee use, such as extended reality, smart speakers, and smartwatches[11]. These uses have come together with concerns and hopes aboutchildren’s communication and collaboration. On the one hand, tech-nologies have the potential of socially isolating children, takingtime away from communicative, collaborative activities that couldoccur face-to-face, where attention is paid to the social environmentsurrounding the child. On the other hand, technologies have longprovided ways for children to connect remotely with friends andfamily, enabling novel opportunities for communication and collab-oration. Emerging technologies have the potential of amplifyingthese hopes and concerns.Past related SIGs at other conferences have focused on otheraspects of ethics, such as the impact of big data and surveillanceof children [6, 7]. While closer to this topic, a recent SIG at CHI23 focused primarily on participatory methods to consider theethics of emerging technologies for children [4]. None of theseprior meetings focused on communication and collaboration orsought to directly involve the concerns and expertise of the CSCWcommunity.2 INFLUENCES ON ETHICAL PERSPECTIVESEthical perspectives in science are typically informed by founda-tional documents, such as the Declaration of Helsinki [1] and theBelmont Report [12], which provide basic guidance on ethics. These,however, mostly arose out of concerns with medical research andprovide high level advice, rather than specifics that could addressissues related to communication and collaboration. They also donot address the quickly changing landscape presented by emergingtechnologies, where it is difficult to predict future uses and theirconsequences.560CSCW ’23 Companion, October 14–18, 2023, Minneapolis, MN, USA Juan Pablo Hourcade et al.In terms of children’s technologies, the public discourse on ethicshas been dominated by non-profit organizations [10], professionalassociations outside of computing [3], individual academics [13],government policies [17], and international organization guidelines[8]. Again, these actors have often omitted from these discussionsissues of communication and collaboration. Despite some effortswithin the child-computer interaction community [14], its perspec-tives have largely not played a role in public debates about therole of emerging technologies in children’s lives. Voices from theCSCW community with an interest in ethics (e.g., [16]) would alsobe important to these debates. What the broader human-computerinteraction community can bring is a human-centered perspectivethat includes children and stakeholders, something that has beenlargely missing.3 THE IMPORTANCE OF CONSIDERING THEETHICS OF CHILDREN’S TECHNOLOGIESChildren are a very important population to consider with respectto ethics and technology. The reason is that development occursvery quickly during childhood (more so during early childhood) [9]and technologies are increasingly a part of children’s ecosystem,regulating in part how they interact with other people and howthey get to know the world. Hence, the wrong kinds of experienceswith technologies could negatively impact children’s development,potentially having a greater impact in their lives than the sameexperiences could have on an adult. We argue then that it is ofutmost importance to consider the ethics of emerging technologiesfor children. In addition, since impacts on communication andcollaboration affect how children interact with family, friends, andother people in their lives, we propose that this is one of the mostrelevant aspects to consider.4 THE CHALLENGEWITH EMERGINGTECHNOLOGIESEmerging technologies pose the obvious challenge that it is verydifficult to predict who will use them and how, with the high likeli-hood of unintended and unexpected uses [2, 5]. A further challengeis that how emerging technologies are used can change relativelyquickly. These two challenges point at the need for different ap-proaches in assessing the ethics of emerging technologies whencompared to well-established technologies.Ethicists have already thought about these challenges and pro-vide examples of combinations of approaches to manage them. Webelieve Brey’s list of approaches are well suited for emerging tech-nologies [2]. These approaches include first, thoroughly examiningthe properties of technologies and assessing potential ethical issuesbased on these properties (e.g., the need of the technology to collectlarge amounts of data in order to function). Second, developingscenarios that anticipate a range potential future uses to enablefeedback and risk-benefit analyses (e.g., elementary school childrenasking a system using a large language model to do their home-work). Third, to think of the deployment of emerging technologiesas a social experiment that should go through an ethics board re-view (e.g., would it have been ethical for researchers to deployChatGPT as part of a social experiment?). Brey’s fourth and finalapproach is quite compatible with human-computer interactionbecause it is about using participatory methods to gain insights onethics from stakeholders. Brey is particularly positive about thisapproach because it can be combined with any of the other threeapproaches (e.g., getting feedback from stakeholders on a varietyof potential future uses of a technology).While some work has been done using some of these methods[14], much more remains to be done in order to address the manyethical concerns with respect to emerging technologies for children,including a special consideration surrounding issues related tocommunication and collaboration.4.1 Example: Extended Reality TechnologiesExtended reality technologies are an example of an emerging tech-nology for children. While virtual and augmented reality havebeen in use by adults for some time, there is no widespread use bychildren (yet), and this technology is still quickly changing. It isdifficult to predict the extent to which these technologies will beused by children (in particular pre-teens) and how they will be used.Extended reality technologies are also relevant to issues of commu-nication and collaboration. Under some uses, they could potentiallycompletely isolate children from those around them, through fullimmersion in a virtual reality experience. Other uses could augmentface-to-face communication and collaboration (through augmentedreality) or provide a much greater level of presence for remotecommunication and collaboration.An application of Brey’s methods would therefore include work-ing with stakeholders (including children!) to investigate the prop-erties of extended reality technologies (e.g., data collection, sensoryrequirements), potential future uses (e.g., augmented reality in theclassroom), and consideration of a broad release of these technolo-gies as a social experiment (e.g., would it be ethical to give everychild in elementary school an AR/VR headset?).5 GOALS OF THE SIGThe SIG will be an opportunity to discuss a variety of issues withrespect to the SIG’s topic – focusing in particular on the communi-cation and collaborative aspects of emerging technologies, such asextended reality. These include, but are not limited to:• Adapting participatory methods to address ethics (i.e., mostof us are used to using participatory methods to design tech-nologies)• Considering the broad range of stakeholders (e.g., children,parents, teachers)• The role of child development and age (e.g., preschool vs.late-elementary school children)• The role of contexts of use (e.g., physical, social)• Managing the dynamic nature of emerging technology (e.g.,how do we adapt to quick changes).REFERENCES[1] [1]World Medical Association and others. 2001. World Medical Association Dec-laration of Helsinki. Ethical principles for medical research involving humansubjects. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 79, 4: 373.[2] [2]Philip Brey. 2017. Ethics of emerging technology. The ethics of technology:Methods and approaches: 175–191.[3] [3]David Hill, Nusheen Ameenuddin, Yolanda Linda Reid Chassiakos, CorinnCross, Jeffrey Hutchinson, Alanna Levine, Rhea Boyd, Robert Mendelson, Megan561Ethics of Emerging Communication and Collaboration Technologies for Children CSCW ’23 Companion, October 14–18, 2023, Minneapolis, MN, USAMoreno, Wendy Sue Swanson, and others. 2016. Media and Young Minds. Pedi-atrics: e20162591.[4] [4]Juan Pablo Hourcade, Meryl Alper, Alissa N. Antle, Gökçe Elif Baykal, Eliza-beth Bonsignore, Tamara Clegg, Flannery Hope Currin, Christian Dindler, EvaEriksson, Jerry Alan Fails, Franca Garzotto, Michail Giannakos, Carina S. Gonza-lez, Ole Sejer Iversen, Monica Landoni, Nuria Medina Medina, Chris Quintana,Janet Read, Maria Roussou, Elisa Rubegni, Summer Schmuecker, Suleman Shahid,Cristina Maria Sylla, Greg Walsh, Svetlana Yarosh, and Jason Yip. 2023. Develop-ing Participatory Methods to Consider the Ethics of Emerging Technologies forChildren. In Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors inComputing Systems (CHI EA ’23). https://doi.org/10.1145/3544549.3583172[5] [5]Juan Pablo Hourcade, Alissa N Antle, Lisa Anthony, Jerry Alan Fails, OleSejer Iversen, Elisa Rubegni, Mikael Skov, Petr Slovak, Greg Walsh, and AnjaZeising. 2018. Child-computer interaction, ubiquitous technologies, and big data.Interactions 25, 6: 78–81.[6] [6]Juan Pablo Hourcade, Anja Zeising, Ole Sejer Iversen, Narcis Pares, MichaelEisenberg, Chris Quintana, and Mikael B. Skov. 2017. Child-Computer Interac-tion SIG: Ethics and Values. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference ExtendedAbstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’17), 1334–1337.https://doi.org/10.1145/3027063.3049286[7] [7]Juan Pablo Hourcade, Anja Zeising, Ole Sejer Iversen, Mikael B. Skov, AlissaN. Antle, Lisa Anthony, Jerry Alan Fails, and Greg Walsh. 2018. Child-ComputerInteraction SIG: Ubiquity and Big Data – A Changing Technology Landscapefor Children. In Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factorsin Computing Systems (CHI EA ’18), SIG07:1–SIG07:4. https://doi.org/10.1145/3170427.3185368[8] [8]UNICEF Office of Research- Innocenti. Digital Engagement and Protection.UNICEF-IRC. Retrieved May 9, 2023 from https://www.unicef-irc.org/research/child-rights-in-the-digital-age/[9] [9]Robert Kail. 2000. Speed of information processing: Developmental changeand links to intelligence. Journal of School Psychology 38, 1: 51–61.[10] [10]Girard Kelly, Jeff Graham, Jill Bronfman, and Steve Garton. Pri-vacy of Virtual Reality: Our Future in the Metaverse and Beyond | Com-mon Sense Media. Common Sense Media. Retrieved December 5, 2022from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/privacy-of-virtual-reality-our-future-in-the-metaverse-and-beyond[11] [11]Victoria Rideout and Michael B. Robb. 2020. The Common Sense Census: MediaUse by Kids Age Zero to Eight. Common Sense Media, San Francisco, CA. Retrievedfrom https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2020_zero_to_eight_census_final_web.pdf[12] [12]TheNational Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedicaland Behavioral Research. The Belmont Report. Ethical Principles and Guidelines forthe Protection of Human Subjects of Research. Department of Health, Education,and Welfare. Retrieved from https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/read-the-belmont-report/index.html[13] [13]Jean M Twenge. 2017. iGen: Why today’s super-connected kids are growingup less rebellious, more tolerant, less happy–and completely unprepared foradulthood–and what that means for the rest of us. Simon and Schuster.[14] [14]Maarten Van Mechelen, Gökçe Elif Baykal, Christian Dindler, Eva Eriksson,and Ole Sejer Iversen. 2020. 18 Years of Ethics in Child-Computer InteractionResearch: A Systematic Literature Review. In Proceedings of the Interaction De-sign and Children Conference (IDC ’20), 161–183. https://doi.org/10.1145/3392063.3394407[15] [15]Raden Pasifikus Christa Wijaya, Beatriks Novianti Bunga, and Indra YohanesKiling. 2022. Socio-emotional struggles of young children during COVID-19pandemic: Social isolation and increased use of technologies. Journal of EarlyChildhood Research 20, 1: 113–127.[16] [16]Richmond Y.Wong, Karen Boyd, JakeMetcalf, and Katie Shilton. 2020. BeyondChecklist Approaches to Ethics in Design. In Conference Companion Publication ofthe 2020 on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW’20 Companion), 511–517. https://doi.org/10.1145/3406865.3418590[17] [17]The Age Appropriate Design Code | VerifyMyAge. Retrieved November 22,2022 from https://verifymyage.co.uk/age-appropriate-design-code562

Ethics of Emerging Communication and Collaboration Technologies for Children

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Ethics of Emerging Communication and Collaboration Technologies for Children

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