Exploring Canadian Children’s Social Media Use, Digital Literacy, and Quality of Life: Pilot Cross-sectional Survey Study

BACKGROUND: Understanding social media use and digital literacy among young Canadian children is an increasing area of concern, given the importance of digital inclusion for full and informed participation in evolving educational, civic, corporate, social, and economic spaces. OBJECTIVE: The aim of...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Donelle, Lorie, Facca, Danica, Burke, Shauna, Hiebert, Bradley, Bender, Emma, Ling, Stephen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8190642/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34037525
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/18771
_version_ 1783705727442878464
author Donelle, Lorie
Facca, Danica
Burke, Shauna
Hiebert, Bradley
Bender, Emma
Ling, Stephen
author_facet Donelle, Lorie
Facca, Danica
Burke, Shauna
Hiebert, Bradley
Bender, Emma
Ling, Stephen
author_sort Donelle, Lorie
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Understanding social media use and digital literacy among young Canadian children is an increasing area of concern, given the importance of digital inclusion for full and informed participation in evolving educational, civic, corporate, social, and economic spaces. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to explore internet and social media knowledge as well as social media use among Canadian children aged between 6 and 10 years. METHODS: We conducted interview surveys with 42 children aged between 6 and 10 years who participated in an after-school health promotion program in an urban community in Southwestern Ontario to understand their digital literacy skills and social media use. The data were analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. RESULTS: Of the 42 children who participated in this study, 24 (57%) reported that they used social media, specifically YouTube (19/24, 79% reported use), Snapchat (16/24, 67% reported use), and Facebook (8/24, 33% reported use). While using social media, children reported sharing personal information, including videos or pictures of themselves (12/24, 50%), videos or pictures of others (8/24, 33%), and their birthday (12/24, 50%), whereas only one-third (9/24, 38%) of the children believed that only close family and friends had access to the content they shared. When reporting on the quality of life in the context of using social media, most (17/24, 71%) children never felt sad, half (12/24, 50%) never had difficulty making new friends, and nearly one-third (7/24, 30%) indicated that they never had difficulty wanting to play outside. CONCLUSIONS: Owing to the rapidly evolving uptake and use of social media among young Canadians, the implementation of childhood digital health literacy education is vital to best support digital inclusion and well-being in Canada. The findings of our study highlight the need for future research to understand where children receive their digital literacy knowledge from and whether this knowledge is gained through self-directed social media use or observation from other actors, such as parents, siblings, or friends.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8190642
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher JMIR Publications
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-81906422021-06-28 Exploring Canadian Children’s Social Media Use, Digital Literacy, and Quality of Life: Pilot Cross-sectional Survey Study Donelle, Lorie Facca, Danica Burke, Shauna Hiebert, Bradley Bender, Emma Ling, Stephen JMIR Form Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: Understanding social media use and digital literacy among young Canadian children is an increasing area of concern, given the importance of digital inclusion for full and informed participation in evolving educational, civic, corporate, social, and economic spaces. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to explore internet and social media knowledge as well as social media use among Canadian children aged between 6 and 10 years. METHODS: We conducted interview surveys with 42 children aged between 6 and 10 years who participated in an after-school health promotion program in an urban community in Southwestern Ontario to understand their digital literacy skills and social media use. The data were analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. RESULTS: Of the 42 children who participated in this study, 24 (57%) reported that they used social media, specifically YouTube (19/24, 79% reported use), Snapchat (16/24, 67% reported use), and Facebook (8/24, 33% reported use). While using social media, children reported sharing personal information, including videos or pictures of themselves (12/24, 50%), videos or pictures of others (8/24, 33%), and their birthday (12/24, 50%), whereas only one-third (9/24, 38%) of the children believed that only close family and friends had access to the content they shared. When reporting on the quality of life in the context of using social media, most (17/24, 71%) children never felt sad, half (12/24, 50%) never had difficulty making new friends, and nearly one-third (7/24, 30%) indicated that they never had difficulty wanting to play outside. CONCLUSIONS: Owing to the rapidly evolving uptake and use of social media among young Canadians, the implementation of childhood digital health literacy education is vital to best support digital inclusion and well-being in Canada. The findings of our study highlight the need for future research to understand where children receive their digital literacy knowledge from and whether this knowledge is gained through self-directed social media use or observation from other actors, such as parents, siblings, or friends. JMIR Publications 2021-05-26 /pmc/articles/PMC8190642/ /pubmed/34037525 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/18771 Text en ©Lorie Donelle, Danica Facca, Shauna Burke, Bradley Hiebert, Emma Bender, Stephen Ling. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 26.05.2021. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Formative Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://formative.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Donelle, Lorie
Facca, Danica
Burke, Shauna
Hiebert, Bradley
Bender, Emma
Ling, Stephen
Exploring Canadian Children’s Social Media Use, Digital Literacy, and Quality of Life: Pilot Cross-sectional Survey Study
title Exploring Canadian Children’s Social Media Use, Digital Literacy, and Quality of Life: Pilot Cross-sectional Survey Study
title_full Exploring Canadian Children’s Social Media Use, Digital Literacy, and Quality of Life: Pilot Cross-sectional Survey Study
title_fullStr Exploring Canadian Children’s Social Media Use, Digital Literacy, and Quality of Life: Pilot Cross-sectional Survey Study
title_full_unstemmed Exploring Canadian Children’s Social Media Use, Digital Literacy, and Quality of Life: Pilot Cross-sectional Survey Study
title_short Exploring Canadian Children’s Social Media Use, Digital Literacy, and Quality of Life: Pilot Cross-sectional Survey Study
title_sort exploring canadian children’s social media use, digital literacy, and quality of life: pilot cross-sectional survey study
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8190642/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34037525
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/18771
work_keys_str_mv AT donellelorie exploringcanadianchildrenssocialmediausedigitalliteracyandqualityoflifepilotcrosssectionalsurveystudy
AT faccadanica exploringcanadianchildrenssocialmediausedigitalliteracyandqualityoflifepilotcrosssectionalsurveystudy
AT burkeshauna exploringcanadianchildrenssocialmediausedigitalliteracyandqualityoflifepilotcrosssectionalsurveystudy
AT hiebertbradley exploringcanadianchildrenssocialmediausedigitalliteracyandqualityoflifepilotcrosssectionalsurveystudy
AT benderemma exploringcanadianchildrenssocialmediausedigitalliteracyandqualityoflifepilotcrosssectionalsurveystudy
AT lingstephen exploringcanadianchildrenssocialmediausedigitalliteracyandqualityoflifepilotcrosssectionalsurveystudy