Cortesi, S., Gasser, U., Lenhart, A., & Madden, M. (2013). Teens and mobile apps
privacy. Pew Research Center, 1-20. Retrieved from: http://pewinternet.org/Reports
/2013/Teens-and-Mobile-Apps-Privacy.aspx
Today, with the ever increase use of smartphones among teenagers, there is a concern about teens downloading applications with the cost of divulging their personal information. In a survey done by the Pew Research Center, it has been found that increasing amount of teens are being wary about downloading apps that tap into their privacy.
In this research from 2013, 802 teens were surveyed between the ages of 12-17. Out of those teens, it was found that 58% of teens have downloaded an app to their cell phone or tablet computer. I find this number kind of low since I see my students constantly downloading apps on their phones. I am constantly asked if I have this game or this app downloaded on my phone. According to this survey, about 78% of teens have cell phones and 23% have computer tablets. The downloading of apps to either device does not vary.
I was not surprised to learn from this research that the apps that were downloaded the most were the free ones. According to the teenagers that were surveyed, they said that they downloaded the free apps because they wanted to try out the software first, and if it didn't work, they could just delete it. Some said that many times, they did not have the money to download the apps so they just stuck to the free ones.
"You can't be sure if it's going to be a good app but if it's free, you can just delete it." - Female (age 13)
"A lot of the times I don't have money [to download an app that costs money], so it [downloading the free one] is my only option." - Female (age 12)
Teens also download the free apps because they do not need their parents permission to download a free app, but if it costs money they do, so they just download the free ones.
One of the things that was surveyed in this research project and that put my mind a bit at ease was that teens were actually being careful about giving apps to use their personal
information. According the this research, 51% of teens opted not to install certain apps that required that they share their personal information. The younger teens between the ages of 12 to 13 were more likely not to download an app if it compromised their privacy. Also, in this research, it was found that 26% of teens would delete apps if they later found that they had to give up their personal information.
According to the research, about 46% of teens have turned off their location services settings on their phones because they are worried that other people or companies accessing their information. Unfortunately, the people that they do not want to find their
location is their parents. In another research, Pew Research Center, found that half of the parents of teens who own a cell phone monitor their child's location in some way. I, honestly, feel that if the child does not want the parent to know their location, they should not own a phone at all. The way the world today, it is important to know where your children are.
I feel that if a parent is going to allow a teen to own a cell phone, they should educate them properly as to what is available to them and how some apps require personal information in order for a person to use them, especially the free apps. I think if they are aware of the consequences of letting a company use their information, they will be able to make the right decision when downloading an app. They also need to be taught to deny a service they do not know permission to get their location information. I think when a teen is aware of what app companies can do and what the parent's position on these apps, they will be able to make the proper decisions when it comes to sharing their personal information on the internet.
20 Pages
Lenhart, Amanda. (2012). Teens, smartphones & texting. Pew Research Center, 1-34.
Retrieved from: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Teens-and-smartphones.aspx
Today, mostly every teenager owns some kind of cell phone. They use them to text, call, or go on the internet. They are no longer spending as much time talking to their friends on landlines or going to personally visit people.
In 2011, the Pew Research Center did some research to examine the tools that teens use to communicate. They focused on mobile devices and how teens choose to communicate with the people in their lives. They surveyed about 799 teens from the ages of 12-17 with their parents permission.
I found it interesting that at that time, 77% of teens owned a cell phone. I bet if they conducted this research again in the year 2014 they would probably find that percentage to be about 90%. It is rare to see a teenager that does not have a phone attached to his hands. This research also found that teens were most likely to own a phone if their parents went to college or had some college hours. If they did not have a high school diploma, it was most likely that a teen did not own a phone. They also found that when it came to ethnicity Latino teens were 18% less likely to own a phone, but the group that had the lower percentages of owning a phone were the younger teen boys. The Pew Research Center took this a step further and conducted surveys on the community types. They found out that if you lived in the suburbs teens were more likely to own a phone.
In 2011, 23% of teens had smartphones. I think since then, there has been a smartphone revolution. In our school, it is rare to see a student with a regular phone, unless they were being punished for not taking care of their smartphones. I wonder what percentage it would be now if Pew Research Center conducted this survey again? In the teens that they surveyed, the older teens ages 16-17 were most likely to have a smartphone, and of those teens ages 16-17, those with the parents who were college educated had the higher probability to own a smartphone. I think this statement makes sense since the more educated parent will most likely have the means to afford a smartphone especially in the year 2011.
When Pew Research Center conducted their survey, it was most likely that smartphone owners used their phones to go on the internet in the last 30 days. Again, these numbers astonish me because today's teens are always on the internet, and it is difficult to get them off. I just think it is so amazing how three years can make such a huge difference in technology trends. This research also showed that those teens who own smartphones were most likely to go online through desktops, Mp3 players, game consoles, or a tablet computer. I guess this would seem logical since earlier I mentioned that those kids with parents with higher education were mostly likely to own a smartphone, so they would probably be able to afford to buy them other tech devices that have the capabilities of going online.
I believe that when teens are constantly online in their private phones or computers, they are likely to go into places that they are not supposed to. Luckily, these devices have parental controls. According to this research only 34% of parents use these parental controls. I don't think that the teenager would like the restrictions, but it will help the parent feel more at ease being able to limit what their teenagers can see in the ever so unrestricted world wide web.
The Pew Research Center has found that the majority of the teens that were surveyed exchange texts daily with others, and half of those, exchange daily texts with their friends. This has not changed from the years 2009-2011. I think those numbers might be considerably different nowadays. Many teens spend many hours texting with friends even during the school day. In the 2009-2011 survey, it said that teens text about 50 messages in 2009 with an increase to 60 in 2011. The group with the higher percentages were the older girls. They had a median of 100 text messages a day. Boys of the same age only text about 50 text a day.
It was also found in this research that those teens who were the heavy texters were more likely to to talk more frequently on their phones, 69%. The heavy texters were not only using their phones to call people, they were also using landlines. It was also found that these group of teens were also more likely to spend time with people outside of the school environment. They were also more likely to use social network sites. I guess they are saying that teens who are constantly texting are very social in network sites and in face-to-face conversations. It was also found that teens that are heavy texters are most likely to own a smartphone and are the least likely to have a computer at home. I think that explains why they are always texting and are constanly online on their phones.
Today, teens are still calling using their phones to call their friends, but the use of regular landlines is on a decline. It was found in 2009-2011 by the Pew Research center that 5% of teens use landlines to call their friends and 20% of the teens surveyed said they do not use landlines at all or unable to do so. I think the way technology is going, there is little use for landlines anymore. Many people just opt to do away with them since they have their cell phones. A landline is no longer a requirement to connect to the internet so more and more people are staying away from them. I have asked my students if they have a phone at the house. It is unbelievable but many students have said they do not have a home phone or ask what that is!
About 1 in 20 teens use location based services. They let their friends and family know where they are by using services such as Foursquare or Gowalla. Other sites where you can give out your location is Twitter and Facebook, and since 2011, I am sure there are hundreds more apps or sites that have the capability of telling everyone where you are if you allow them. Teens with smartphones were most likely to use the location services than those with a regular phone. This is scary. I think with so many predators out there, parents should not allow their teens to indicate to anyone or the public what their location is. I wonder if parental controls can shut off that part of Facebook or Twitter?
The Pew Research Center's research has determined that the most popular form of communication amongst teen is texting. They will text with their friends and all kinds of
people including their families. Many teens are no longer instant messaging or emailing. Those two modes of communication are on a rapid decline. I think this is because texting has instant results, and you don't have to go on any app to text. Teens are still using social medias to communicate but they do not use it as often as texting. This research also said that teens still like to get together with their friends outside of school to socialize.
Today's teenagers are using their phones more and more often. They use them to text, go online, and talk. Teens are choosing text messaging as their form of communicating with their friends, family, and other people in their lives. The Pew Research Center research found that those teens with higher educated parents will most likely have smartphones and use them for texting and going online. I believe that with cell phones evolving constantly more and more people will be using them more and more for communicating and probably most likely the laptop will soon become absolute.
34 Pages
When I first started the course, Internet Library, I felt the tasks being assigned were so daunting. As I was getting used to working with different internet programs or applications, things started to become routine and were not as difficult. I decided to experiment with my classes since many of the applications were just right for the assignments that I was giving them. I felt they would I would have a highter percentage completing their assignments, and they would have fun doing them.
Every six week marking period, I give my students a book assignment. They need to read at least one book on their own and look for the Literary Devices and Literary Elements of the book. I found that with Lino they were more creative with their projects and were not as boring to read. The following six weeks, I decided to add to their creativity by asking the students to add a book trailer to their
Lino assignment. I had just learned how to create an Animoto, so I explained it to the students and they were able to create their trailer and add it on a sticky to Lino. Some of the students saved their Animoto unto YouTube, so they were able to embed it into the Lino. I felt that if I had fund making creations with these two programs, they would also find joy and be more motivated to read their books so that they could use Lino and Animoto.
The assignment that gave me the most problems was the one on Screencasts. For several of the programs that I used, I had to have certain programs running in the background. Since that is my weakest pont in computer literacy, I had to figure out what I needed downloaded and
how to give permission for my computer to accept it. My favorite screencast program was Screencast o Matic. I did not have to do anything but label the area that I wanted to be recorded and and start explaining. It was simple and extremely resourceful. I had less questions asked from students by having them look at the screencast first and then have them tryout the assignment.
I also found creating QR Codes very useful. QR Codes can get you directly to the web page you want by using your tablet or phone. Since our school is very fortunate to have a class set of I Pads, I am able to use QR Codes to send my students directly to the website I want. Normally,
even if I had the URL adress typed out or said it aloud to them, I still had a few that had difficulty finding the page. I find that with QR codes there is no time wasted. The program that I liked most for QR codes was I-nigma. This program had no problem reading QR codes, and it goes directly to the webpage. It made working with computers in the classroom less of a hassle.
I think that I had the most fun learning how to use Flliboard for the Information Curation assignment.. I like to keep up with current events and keep up with my social media apps. Flipboard is able to combine all these things into one app and in such a colorful and creative way. Whenever I open up the app, I find myself getting lost in the news events or reading my Tweets. I feel that my Tweets are easier to read because it is in a different format. I also like to see my Facebook account on Flipboard. It almost feels as if I am looking at a magazine as I go through my news feed. I also liked how you are able to just flip to the next page. It emphasizes the eye catching part of Flipboard.
The program that I will also be using with my students is Easel.ly. I feel that if the students are able to create an infographic using the given information, they will be able to synthesize the information a bit better, and they would have a graphic to remind them the facts that they have put together. When I was learning how to use it, I found I enjoyed using this internet program and was able to create something colorful and useful.
All in all, I feel that I have learned from all the technologies that I was exposed to. I do not feel that there was one program that I did not like or that I could not find any use for in the classroom. Since my school district is trying to implement technology in the classroom, I felt that this class allowed me the opportunity to experiment with technologies that I could use with my students and meet my schools goals. I also feel that this course has prepared me to be up-to-date with what the kids are doing online and what I have learned will help me promote books or events when I have my own library.
