Scott Bruno
New Media New Literacy’s
Week 10 Adolescent Interview assignment
Professor Susan Forbes
My Adolescent interview results are below. The interviewees consisted of a handful of teenage girls from my daughter gymnastics team. Their ages ranged from the ages 13 to 16. All of them were asked the below questions in a group at the same time. I conducted the interview this way in an effort to make sure I was receiving truthful information from them, and nothing hidden. I was amazed how quickly they answered and how they all were on the same page with most of the answers the questions and the answers are below for everyone to review. These questions are questions that I asked other family members and friends. The reason I asked friends and family is I wanted to use questions that parents would ask or want to know. In addition to those I added questions that I have used in the Information Security
After the survey, I put together a brief summary of what I learned about the interview process. Again I was very surprised of the results and how willing the girls where to give the answers to the questions.
General Usage of Technology:
What is your favorite website?
Instagram, Twitter, and swap chat
What do you do on these sites?
Post things such as “selfies” or gymnastics related things.
What websites are your friends into these days?
The same ones that I use
Are you ever contacted by someone online that you don’t
know?
Yes
If yes, what did they want? What did you do? How
did you respond?
They didn’t want much they were mostly other younger gymnasts from other teams trying to get along with our gym and team. I was nice about it, and more than likely did not respond to a question or comment.
Have you ever received a text message from someone that
made you upset?
No
How did you respond?
How do you keep yourself safe online?
We make sure We don’t give out too much personal info and make sure all of our posts/ messages are private and block people who look scary or stalker-like.
Do you get concerned that people will read what others
have written about you online that is not true but think it's
true?
Yes
Do you ever talk to anyone online that isn’t in your school?
No
Cyberbullying:
Do you ever argue or post hurtful updates on your Instagram,
Facebook, Twitter or other social media site?
No, because we know better than to get involved in something we don’t need to.
Have you ever had to delete a post or comment on your
Page that was written by someone else?
No
Does cyberbullying happen a lot? Would you feel comfortable
telling me if you were being cyberbullied?
It does happen a lot and yes I would tell you or another adult right away if something was to pop up.
Do you think your school takes cyberbullying seriously?
Yes, because most schools have multiple assemblies and discussions on cyberbullying
Have you ever had to contact a teacher or someone else at
school because of a cyber-threat? If so, did they do something
about it and did it help?
No I did not need to contact a teacher about a cyberbullying problem
Have rumors ever started about you in school, based on
something said online?
No
Have you ever blocked somebody online because you felt
harassed? If so, did that make it stop?
Yes, we have blocked an old teammate that we never really got along with and when she left the gym we really wanted nothing to do with her and her nasty attitude towards us and to attack my our friends.
Pictures and Images:
Do you send pictures through text? Do you receive pictures?
If so, from who?
Yes. Friends or teammates. It would just be the homework that I missed at school that day or pictures of the team that was on someone's phone that I wanted the pictures
Are kids in school taking a lot of pictures with their cell
phone cameras? What do they do with them?
Yes, but not bad pictures. It would be just a normal picture at school with friends wearing the same clothes or something similar to that. They just post them.
Do you ever Skype or Facetime with friends?
Yes.
Do you use Snapchat? Can you explain to me how it
works?
Yes. You basically take a picture, and you can type only a certain about of words and you can add emoji or turn the text to a different color and you send that to a specific person or groups of people and they see it once and it is never to be seen again. Or you can even post it on your story that will last 24 hour and once the time is up it is gone forever.
Do you think pictures are really completely gone?
No, because somewhere deleted pictures go have to be saved whether it be a hacker or something involving the government.
Have you ever had anyone do or say anything inappropriate
on Skype or Snapchat?
No
Social Networking:
What social networking site do you use most frequently?
How many friends or followers do you have?
It’s a tie between Instagram and Snap chat. On Instagram, I have 512 followers and on Snapchat I have about 70 friends. (This was my daughters answer as I did not feel I should post the other kids answers)
What kind of people are you meeting on Instagram and
Facebook?
I mostly meet people from my school that I don’t talk to in school or other gymnasts from other gyms.
Are you connecting with people that you know?
Yes
Or are you meeting people around the world?
No
Do you get a lot of friends or follow requests from
strangers? Yes
If so, how are you handling that?
We ignore their request, and if they look scary we block them.
Do you use Twitter? What for? Who do you follow and
who follows you?
Yes. Mostly to look up gymnastics related things and just what people are saying about the latest trends going around. I follow school friends, teammates, and college gymnastics to look up stats about the team. The same people mostly follow back.
Do you know how to use the privacy settings on Instagram,
Facebook and Twitter?
Yes
Do you have them set so that only those you accept as
friends can see what you post? How do you know who can
see your information?
Yes. It clearly states it in the process of changing your account to private.
Do you feel like social networking sites should be used to
vent your frustrations?
No. because that is what starts rumors and cyberbullying
Do your friends vent on social media?
Yes mostly on Twitter.
Do people comment? What do they say?
Yes. They usually comment on a “selfie” saying how pretty that person is and stuff like that.
What kind of videos are you watching on YouTube?
Do you post videos? Music videos or gymnastics videos.
I post videos of my gymnastics to get colleges to look into me.
Have you ever reported inappropriate videos that you
have seen on YouTube? Or any other website?
No.
Does anyone else know your password or passcode for any
site or social media app? What about for your laptop, or
Cell Phone?
No one but my parents know my passwords to social media apps. Only my parents and very close friends know my password to my cell phone.
Conclusion:
I have learned a great deal conducting this survey with the girls and learned a lot from them answering the questions above.
The first thing that stuck in my mind during the interview process was the amount of knowledge the kids had about what was going on in society. The girls were very aware of how to use the basic technology. They knew what it was, and the had a very good idea of how to use it properly and in a safe manner. What I could not figure out are they learning this from each other or are they learning it in schools are just hearing it all the time from their parents.
They were very up to date on cyber bullying. I asked theses questions for a specific reason. That reason was how do you find out if your kid or any of her friends were having issues with being bullied at school or even online. When I asked the questions, they all answered with confidence and not one of them seemed to have any issues with any bullying.
The girls are very knowledgeable about safe Internet practice, and overall knew what to do and why they should.
As a student, this was a fun exercise because we did share a lot of laughs while they girls were answering the questions. Even thought it was fun it was a very important survey in my opinion as a parent. I feel comfortable my daughter and her friends can use the technology available to them and more importantly they are using it safely
