Social Networking and Youth Gambling Behaviours

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Social Networking and Youth Gambling Behaviours

• Dr Carolyn Downs

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What is SNS?

• My Space, Bebo, Facebook, Sagazone, Blubelt,
  Habbo Hotel and Club Penguin.
• Personal and personalised, online web space.
• Communicate with friends
• Email
• Instant messaging
• Message boards
• Comments and tags
• Join groups
• Add applications
• Gain status
• Uniqueness of own space
• Number of Friends (DERI)

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Young People and SNS

• 49 of children aged 8-17 with SNS profile
  (Ofcom, 2008)
• 27 of children aged 8-11 and aware of sites have
  profiles. (Ofcom, 2008)
• 63 of children with SNS presence using Bebo
  (Ofcom, 2008)

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Risks

• Privacy
• Inappropriate contact
• Byron Review, (2008) Livingstone, (2007), Ofcom
  (2008)
• Content-generated risks
• Digital Enterprise Research Institute (University
  of Ireland)
• Lack of research
• Byron Review
• Assessed video games
• Did not consider content available via SNS

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Adult Oversight

• Socially Responsible SNS hosts
• Age limits13 (14 for My Space)
• Two-thirds of parents say they set rules about
  their childs use of social networking sites,
  although only 53 of children said that their
  parents set such rules (Ofcom, 2008)
• How many stick to the rules?
• Teachers use Smartfilter
• Smartfilter works by restricting access to sites
  that have been identified as inappropriate (red
  list approach) (LgFL Policy Documents 2008)

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Benefits

• Developing skills in ICT
• Smarter than the filter Proxy servers
• Use of WYSIWYG software
• Uploading sound files, images, video
• Literacy (blogging)
• Touch-typing
• Easy contact with friends
• New ways of accessing
• Developing new interests
• Political activism

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Impetus for Investigation

• 12 year old chasing virtual losses
• Previous research on adolescent gambling
• Mark Griffiths
• Boys
• Habituation
• Higher prevalence of problems
• Susan Fisher (1999) Crawford Moodie and Frances
  Finnigan (2005)
• Youth prevalence
• Moodie and Finnigan
• 9 problem gambling prevalence
• 15 at risk of developing problems
• 12 had tried Internet gambling over previous year

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Preliminary Work

• Sample of nine through snowballing
• Five girls aged 9-18
• Four boys aged 12-14
• Discussions
• Observations of use
• Monitoring of
• Patterns of Access
• Threads
• Tags and Comments
• Group Membership

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Preliminary Work (2)

• Number and Types of Gambling-related Groups
• Membership of Gambling-related groups
• Number and Types of Gambling-related
  applications
• Application use statistics
• Non-gambling applications with gambling features

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Applications (Gambling)

• 25 Poker applications on Bebo
• 5.5m users on most popular (no information on
  individual visits)
• 100 poker applications on Facebook
• Most popular 4m individual plays per month
• Some with real prizes
• Some with cash-play options
• On both SNS these are
• Downloadable by under 18s
• Sidebar advertising of commercial sites
• Highlighting availability of free-trial games

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Win icons for your page
Hyperlink sidebar adverts
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Groups (Gambling)

• 1000 poker groups on Facebook
• 500 poker groups on Bebo
• Largest groups with several thousand members
• Surveyed one group
• 15 of those declaring age were under 18
• Casino
• Bingo
• Slots
• All 500 groups

13
Virtual or real cash option
Sidebar advert with hyperlink
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Applications (Other)

• Fluff Friends (100,000 active users per month)
• Need to personalise
• Create Fluff Art
• Limited edition greater status
• Earning munny
• Petting
• Betting munny
• Betting points
• 1 point per race
• Limited edition race prizes
• Up to 4000 points

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Habitat 275 Earnings 5 per pet per day
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Odds and potential payout
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Uses of SNS

• Girls aged 9-11accessing at weekend only
• Most other girls accessing at least once a day
• Boys accessing less frequently
• No boys had adopted a pet. All the girls had a
  pet
• only one had not bet.
• Both genders aged over 13 were in groups
• Mean groups joined 8
• Often recommended or established by a friend
• Browsed applications sometimes and usually
  downloaded and tried those recommended by friends
• Not a solitary pursuit

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Future Research Questions

• 1. Does gambling with virtual money encourage
  positive attitudes towards gambling in young
  people?
• 2. Does gambling with virtual money lead to an
  increased prevalence of actual gambling?
• 3. To what extent are gambling-related groups on
  SNSs being used by under-18s and does membership
  of such a group facilitate access to commercial
  gambling sites?