Children, teenagers, and the Web

Abstract

IntroductionThe rapid penetration of the Web into schools, libraries, and homes since the mid-1990s has opened many opportunities for children and teenagers to enrich their educational, leisure, and social activities. It has also raised issues concerning young people's access to the Web; its educational efficacy; and its potential to foster social isolation, undermine moral well-being, and threaten personal safety. These developments have encouraged research in a number of disciplines to answer such questions as who is using the Web, for which purposes is it being used, what educational role can it play, how can it most effectively be exploited as an information resource, and how can its potentially negative aspects be countered. To date, however, little has been done to synthesize such research, although a good start has been made by Abbas (2003) in her article published in the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. Such a synthesis is complicated by the very broad scope of the topic, the multidisciplinary nature of the research literature, and the uneven international distribution of research data.This chapter is organized into seven parts. The first part establishes the scope of the chapter, indicating exactly what aspects from this very broad research area are included and excluded. Part two considers largescale national surveys of access to and use of the Web by children and teenagers. The third part deals with research on the information-seeking behavior of this user community. Part four looks at design criteria for Web sites intended to be used by children and teenagers. Part five focuses on the three main Web applications: education, leisure, and social interaction. The sixth part looks at issues relating to Web content, especially pornographic material, and the personal safety of young Web users in a networked and uncontrolled environment. The final part considers future research agendas in this rapidly developing area. ScopeIn order to make a review of the literature relating to young people and the Web manageable within the limitations of a single ARIST chapter, 347348 Annual Review of Information Science and Technology certain constraints have been imposed. First, we must consider the Web itself. In this review, attention is focused on that part of the Web that is freely accessible via general-purpose search engines and subject directories; other areas of undoubted importance are omitted. Research studies of digital libraries accessible through the Web are not considered here, even though these libraries may be intended specifically for young people, as in the case, for example, of the International Children's Digital Library (Druin, Bederson, Weeks, Farber, Grosjean, Guha, et al., 2003) or the ARTEMIS Digital Library project (Abbas, Norris, & Soloway, 2002). Web-based reference services have also been excluded (a good overview can be found in Lankes, 2003). A considerable research literature can also be found on educational software products that are delivered via the Web (see, for example,...

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