Kids & the Web

what are they doing?

[2_much]

I'm taking a Media Studies class and we had a bit of a discussion about children and how much they watch TV and surf the web now.

So I was wondering - what do kids do online? What kinds of websites do they surf? How do they surf?

I don't have children and have never watched a kid on the web, so I have no idea.

However, from what I heard, kids seem to be really web savvy now and this obviously represents a huge market, especially as they grow a bit older.

[mivox]

My baby sister uses the screen name "suicidal_devilchild" and visits a lot of depressing goth sites and crap like that. Man... I thought I was bad when I was 12.

Jeremy's kids don't get online. At 8 years old and under, I don't think they need to yet.

[msr986]

Instant Messaging, big time with kids.

[EliteWeb]

when i was ummm a young kid ;) i was surfing hack sites, security sites, and adult sites. chatted on servers. never had cybersex though, i called lots of internet people and ran up phone bills too.

[mivox]

My sister says the suicidal_devilchild nick keeps "annoying preps" from bothering her on IM... much the same way that the black trenchcoat and fingernail polish work at school

I can vouch for the black coat trick, but I found disallowing anyone not on my 'friends' list from messaging me works much better online.

[vibgyor79]

My 8 year old cousin sister is a instant messenger fanatic. Her username goes something like -> koolgal_divz_2000 (I think there are more "underscores" than that)

Other than that, she checks email and downloads music from the internet, occassionally checking out her favorite music artist's websites.

Now waitaminute... that's exactly what I do on the internet too! ;)

[Ove]

My kids 9 and 11 years old are surfing on a portal with a chat on they chat alot with friends, and they are looking at snowmobilesites download music, and there must be alot of things that i dont know about :-) when i check the temporary files i see things iam pretty sure of that i dont have looked at these things, but when i was in that age i watch the magazins :-)

/Ove

[Sinner_G]

Guess it depends a lot what you define as kid, i.e. what age you are looking at. Somehow I can't believe Mivox' sister is 8 or 9 :).

[mivox]

No... Mivox's baby sister is 12 or 13. Her boyfriend's kids are 8, 6 and 5.

Hehhee. I'm not that young. (Or is it, "I'm not that old?" Now I'm confused...)