Gen Z are “way more strict” with their children’s use of technology than previous generations, owing to their own negative experiences growing up, a media literacy conference has heard.
As the first ‘digital native’ generation starts to have families, experts in the media literacy industry suggest few of them are keen to allow their children to repeat their past mistakes online.
Trend Micro internet safety manager Avril Ronan made the comments at the Media Literacy Ireland annual conference on Thursday.
Ms Ronan is part of a Cyber Academy program that seeks to educate children on internet safety and critical thinking from the age of seven. Part of the program involves training 18 TY students to teach media literacy to around 1,000 primary school students during the school year.
“The teens want the younger ones not to make the same mistakes they did,” Ms Ronan said. “It’s cathartic in a way for them.
“I was in the classroom one day and a child said, ‘I want my mum to let me on [social media], and she keeps saying I’m too young.’ And a 16-year-old responded: ‘Don’t be in such a rush to go on, because once you’re there, you’re there forever and you’re on it all the time and you lose that childhood you had .’”
The conference heard collective calls for a nationwide campaign to encourage critical thinking around content online and conversations between parents and their children about sensible internet usage.
Meanwhile, new research shows that despite social media dominating political and social discourse and setting the news agenda for much of the year, most people don’t bother getting involved, preferring to email, instant message, and watch shows instead.
Findings from the European Commission’s data analysis wing Eurostat reveal that nine out of 10 citizens in the EU have used the internet in the past three months, growing rapidly in the past decade when just over two-thirds were online.
Overall, the share of EU households with internet access has risen to 93%, up from 72% in 2011. Just half had access 15 years ago.
This year, the internet was used mainly to communicate with others, sending/receiving e-mails (77%), instant messaging (72%), and telephoning or video calls (66%), Eurostat said.
Seeking out information about goods and services (70%) and watching internet streamed TV or videos (65%) were the most popular activities.
Browsing news sites (64%), watching video content from the likes of YouTube (61%), banking (60%), using social media (58%), and listening to music (54%) were the next most popular.
Perhaps surprisingly, the data show that less than 20% of people report using the internet to engage in political or civic discussions on various channels, despite the outsized influence it has on the daily political and social cycle.
The use of social media is simply to post online for friends and family in most cases.
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