Harmonizing freedom and protection: Adolescents' voices on automatic monitoring of social networking sites

Kathleen Van Royen, Karolien Poels and Heidi Vandebosch

Children and Youth Services Review, 2016, vol. 64, issue C, 35-41

Abstract: Automatic monitoring of user-generated content on social networking sites (SNSs) aims at detecting potential harm for adolescents by means of text and image mining techniques and subsequent actions by the providers (e.g. blocking users, legal action). Evidently, current research is primarily focused on its technological development. However, involving adolescents' voices regarding the desirability of this monitoring is important; particularly because automatic monitoring might invade adolescents' privacy and freedom, and consequently evoke reactance. In this study, fourteen focus groups were conducted with adolescents (N=66) between 12 and 18years old. The goal was to obtain insights into adolescents' opinions on desirability and priorities for automatically detecting harmful content on SNSs. Opinions reflect the contention between a need for protection online versus the preservation of freedom. Most adolescents in this study are in favour of automatic monitoring for situations they perceive as uncontrollable or that they cannot solve themselves. Clear priorities for detection must be set in order to ensure the privacy and autonomy of adolescents. Moreover, monitoring actions aiming at the prevention of harm are required.

Keywords: Social networking sites; Adolescents; Automatic monitoring; Online protection; Qualitative research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740916300585
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:64:y:2016:i:c:p:35-41

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2016.02.024

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().