Young online ethics

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• Young online ethics
• Ragnar Olsson Lotta Eek-Karlsson
• Högskolan i Kalmar

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Web 2.0 - the social web

• From an arena for passive content consumption
• to a place for social networking, collaboration
  and participatory creation
• (Dunkels et.al, 2008)

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Ethics morality in the digital arena

• Does the new way of interaction affect the young
  peoples view upon ethical and moral issues?
• Is there a difference between young peoples
  ethical and moral thoughts concerning the way
  they interact online and offline?

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Focus in the investigation

• 1700 pupils have answered a digital questionnaire
  (year 5 and 8 in compulsary school and year 2 in
  upper secondary school), which provided both
  qualitative and quantitative data.
• The investigation highlights both positive
  aspects (encouragement/support)
• and negative aspects (harassment) of online
  interactions

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Access to Internet
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Young people communicate by
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• Adults seem to think that Internet and mobile
  phones are negative things, but this is a
  absolutely new way of living.It takes away a lot
  of physical contacts but also gives you a lot of
  freedom, and it also makes it a lot easier to
  parents to supervise their children.You can keep
  in touch with your parents if you stay out for a
  night, you can call the police if theres a crime
  being committed, and so on. Beyond that, you can
  have a much closer contact with your friends and
  if you need to talk to them theyre not so far
  away, thats a positive thing in my eyes

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Harassment
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• XX called me bitch because I spent some time
  with her friend. But she has no life and
  everybody is on my side, so its cool.

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Encouragement/support
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• If you feel bad, theres access to mobile
  phones or Internet so you can get hold of the
  closest mates.
• People ask all the time how I feel and care
  very much and then they tell me how much they
  like me and so on
• A great deal of the communication between me
  and my friends takes place by telephone or
  Internet and we mostly discuss our problems and
  support each other by these media

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Two discourses
The Supporters
The Harassers
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Its more ok to harass somebody online than
offline
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Its easier to encourage/harass online than
offline
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• Why should it be more ok to harass someone by
  Internet/mobile phone? Still its human beings we
  talk about!
• People have easier to harass when they not are
  standing face to face I think, because of that
  people can be punched in communities,
  textmessages and so on. But I dont think its
  ok.
• Its never ok to harass anyone, but if you do
  it by mobile phone or textmessages its easier to
  catch the guilty person, since you have proof.

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• Its hard to say when you have harassed
  someone or not. Its the person you send the
  messages to, who decides. Sometimes people dont
  understand that things they write can be
  interpreted in another way and harass people
  deeply, I think. Its easier to harass on
  Internet both in an intentional and in an
  unintentional way, though you cant see their
  reactions and cant hurry to change formulations
  before the damage has become too serious

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Who is going to supervise the online schoolyard?
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I would love to get a hug when Im sad or
confused, hugs works as we all know better when
you are in the same place!
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liselotte.eek_at_hik.se ragnar.olsson_at_hik.se

• www.ungkommunikation.se