The 2008 report of the Digital Future Project has identified several sobering trends in views about going online -- in particular in adults’ opinions about Internet use by children.
“In general, opinions about the Internet remain overwhelmingly positive,” said Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. “But after seven years of tracking the impact of the Internet, we are also seeing evolving trends which show that adults view some aspects of going online by children to be as troubling as their use of other media -- or even potentially dangerous.”
The Digital Future Project surveys more than 2,000 individuals across the United States, each year contacting the same households to explore how online technology affects the lives of Internet users and non-users. It also examines how changing technology, such as the shift from Internet access by modem to broadband, affects behavior.
The 2008 report found that:
- The percentage of adults who said that the children in their households spend too much time using the Internet reached 25 percent of respondents -- an increase for the third year in a row and the highest percentage yet reported in the seven years of Digital Future Project studies.
- A small percentage of adults (13 percent) said that the children in their households spend less time with friends, but that percentage increased for the third year in a row -- another new high for the Digital Future Project.
- The number of adults who said that the grades of the children in their household has declined since the household started to use the Internet has grown for the second year in a row.
- More than half of adults (53 percent) said that online predators are a threat to the children in their households. Only 24 percent of adults with children in their household disagreed with that statement.
- Almost two-thirds of adults (63 percent) are uncomfortable with the children in their households participating in online communities. Only 15 percent of adults are comfortable with children participating in online communities.
The findings about adult views of children’s online behavior and more than 100 other issues are published by the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the comprehensive annual examination conducted since 2000 on the impact of online technology on America.
