Year groups 7-12 Georgia Ng and Sweta Samanta

We chose to do this survey because our school has a laptop programme, and so the integration of technology into our schoolwork and everyday lives is relevant to us. This was supported by our data, which showed that 63% of our respondents indicated that they spend more than 3 hours online while doing activities unrelated to schoolwork. The objective of this research was to identify differences between:  Use of social networks across year groups?  Rules on the use of social networks across year groups?  Concerns about social networks across year groups? Survey Objectives and Methodology

We invited 850 people to respond to an online survey and collected data over a period of four days. There was a total of 221 respondents. The survey had 13 questions based around device usage. The variables were measured on nominal yes/no and ordinal scales ranging from most to least usage and most to least concern. Data was collected, coded and analyzed with SPSS software (Software Packages for Social Sciences). The chi- square ( χ 2 ) statistic was used to test the statistical significance, test the differences at 95% confidence level in a cross-tabulation. Hours spent online apart from schoolwork: Data collection

Findings: Usage Significant associations were found across year groups when comparing usage of social networks Facebook and Snapchat. When asked to rank how often they used social network sites on a scale from 1-4 with 1 being the most and 4 the least, the year 10s were the primary users of social networking sites followed by the year 8s, 9s and 11s. The least usage was by the year 7s and the year 12s. Facebook users were predominantly year 10s and 11s. Facebook usage was less prevalent amongst years 7s and year 8s. There was also a tapering off by the time they reached year 12s. Snapchat had a similar profile. The tapering off can probably be attributed to Year 12 students being more focused on their academic pursuits than dedicating time to social networking

Findings: Rules The year groups which had most respondents having no rules regarding Internet usage were predominantly Year 10 (32.5%), Year 11 (26.5%) and Year 12s (16.9%). These results gradually decreased as the age groups got younger, with years 8 and 9 both having only 12% of the respondents with no Internet rules and Year 7s having0.0% of people with no Internet rules. It was also surprising to note that this trend did not continue in the two upper years, as the trend then started to decrease in Year 11 and further decreased in Year 12. These results are probably due to parental limitations and concerns decreasing as their children grow older and gain more independence.

Findings: Concerns When asked to rank the strength of their concern at seeing disturbing images online on a 7- point scale, the year 7s and 8s were most concerned and the percentage of people who responded that they strongly agreed across year groups decreased from there. (Chart 1) Chart 1

This box and whisker plot shows concern for being harassed by strangers online ranked on a 7-point scale, with 1 being most concerned and 7, least. The results, show that the year 7s and 8s were most concerned, with more than 75% of respondents ranking it between 1-3. In contrast, the means are higher for all the other year groups, suggesting that it is of less concern to them. Years 9 & 10 have a fairly equal distribution 25% above and below the mean, whereas in years 11 & 12 the respondents below the mean are more widespread. (Chart 2) These conditions are probably due to inexperience with social networking applications and websites, and lack of exposure. Findings: Concerns Chart 2

Recommendations Older year groups are more active on popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Snapchat and are more susceptible to cyber dangers and traps and need to be reminded, and so we recommend that these students be informed instead on issues arising from these, such as problems with study-social life balance and issues with privacy settings. Balance between parental rules and independence is crucial. We recommend that the older students mentor the younger students about potential online dangers and this could provide them with reminders whilst they also retain their independence and are good role models for the younger students.

Based on the results of our survey, we can conclude that in general, younger year groups are most concerned with harassment from strangers online, demonstrating that they already have an awareness of potential dangers online, which sets a good foundation to build on – to teach them how to be able to protect themselves from dangers in the cyber world. To further promote the safety of these younger students, we would implement a education programme to teach them about ‘stranger danger’ and show them methods to keep themselves safer online, such as using Google’s SafeSearch. Recommendations

& Improvements Due to time constraints our recommendations are limited to this set of data. We only sampled girls in one school, and so there may be a lack of variety in our sample. If we were to further our research, we would seek data from a wider range of sources, and in future could obtain even richer results by altering our questionnaire to include a wider scale and more questions that produced ranked answers. Our findings generally showed that: Limitations