We need a solution... any takers?

After completing the readings for this week, it is apparent to me that the topic of children and the future of media is an important one that needs serious updating. I thoroughly enjoyed all of the readings because the topics were varying and interesting. However, I did notice that a lot of the data seemed almost irrelevant by today’s standards.

For example, there are two qualitative studies identifying themes that occur in children who have grown up with the internet. The first was written in 2006 by McMillan and Morrison. They talk about some things that are certainly still relevant today, but some of their identified categories were grossly outdated. For example, the category describing “real communities” versus “virtual communities” can hardly be thought of in this way anymore. The authors state: “many informants warned about the potential downside of communities that were defined by technology and interests, rather than geography and relationships” (p. 85).

As a result of social networking sites (which more than likely hadn’t permeated the online world at the time of this study), the majority of online relationships are also “real world” or even geographical relationships. As I read the updated article on this topic (Hundley and Sheyes, 2010), I expected this to be addressed. It did to some extent as the authors discussed how most teenagers didn’t add friends to their MySpaces that they didn’t know in real life. “Evidently most of the students we spoke with disclosed that everyone on their MySpace ‘friends’ list were people they already knew. Therefore, it seems clear that the friends and relatives with whom they are familiar with or have face-to-face contact with are the same people as their online friends” (p. 428). Still, the authors reported that more than half of their subjects had never heard of Facebook and did not even know about smart phones that could access email and the internet. These two inventions alone (not to mention Twitter and apps) have literally transformed the way kids use the Internet and without including them, the discussion automatically becomes incredibly dated.

That being said, I realize how difficult it is to conduct time consuming qualitative studies of this nature in a changing technological environment. Still, the fact that an article published in 2010 (Hundley and Shyles, 2010) can feel so outdated is a finding in itself. The real question is: how can we study these things methodologically when they are constantly in flux? We are once again presented with the methodological impossibilities that studying new media presents to us. The only solution is to use the technology as a means to the end. In a world where data can be transmitted instantaneously, there has to be a quicker way to get and analyze this type of important, contextual information. I’m going to go all academic and not offer any real solutions as I’m not a techie and have no idea how we can do this. I am, however, very good at identifying the problem.