La moral y las normas de trato social

1. Our findings show that the majority of Russian children under 8 years old are familiar with different devices, and are pretty confident and active online users. The average age for start- ing to use devices is 3 years old (it varies from 1.5 to 5 years old). As a rule, children begin using devices inspired by their parents or elder siblings. At 5 years old most of them have experience of using different devices - smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc. Smartphones and tablets are the most popular devices, because of their multi-functionality and portability. 2. About a half of the interviewed children, have their personal tablets already, bought special-

ly for them, or the ones they ‘inherited’ from parents or elder siblings. Most parents agree that special tablets for children without access to the internet are the most suitable devices. They often buy a tablet for pragmatic reasons - it does not contain any advanced functions, and is therefore not very expensive. Therefore, it would be better if a child broke a cheap tablet rather than his or her father’s main PC.

3. Almost all children use devices for entertainment - gaming and watching cartoons. Children attending primary school also use digital technologies for learning and studying, particularly for doing their homework. Both children and parents say that the quality of educational ap- plications and games is quite poor.

4. The majority of parents and children note that most children learn to use devices autono- mously. Almost none of parents specifically taught their child to use a tablet or a smart- phone. Most children practice the trial and error method. What also plays a great role is la- tent learning - little children observe adults and step by step try to repeat what they’re doing with devices. Parents often have the wrong impression about their children, underestimating their actual knowledge and digital skills. Most children are able to turn on the device, search for games and find them and use browsers when they need to find a cartoon; some of them can also take photos and record videos, and install and delete programs downloaded online. First grade pupils obtain some knowledge and skills in their informatics lessons. As a rule, it is harder for them to work with PC and laptops - partly because they lack the experience, and partly because of the specifics of these devices themselves.

5. The digital literacy of children under 8 years old is rather fragmented and one-sided. Little children are confident with apps they use frequently - games and video hosting - whereas all the other opportunities of online technologies are outside of their knowledge. Possibly this is connected with inconsistent process of digital learning. The idea that modern children are able to learn about digital technologies without help of adults is a myth, which is, neverthe- less, widespread among Russian parents.

6. On average, interviewed children use tablets and other devices for no longer than an hour daily. At weekends and in special circumstances (long journeys) the time period may in- crease significantly - up to 3-4 hours. In addition, many parents observe that time spent with devices increases if the weather outside is bad (usually in autumn or winter) and the

children do not know what to do at home.

7. Most parents say that without limits their children would spend much more time with devic- es. The majority of them are also afraid of the consequences of overuse of digital technolo- gies, and in particular vision problems, and so they do their best to control strictly the time their children spend with tablets. However, there was only 1 family out of the 10 where the kid actually had problems concerning overuse of a tablet. In all other families, interviewed children had no problems with self-control while gaming or watching cartoons. It can be concluded, therefore, that parents tend to exert extra control over their children, and prevent them from using devices by setting very tough time limits.

8. Most parents are active digital users - they use technologies for work, entertainment and communication. The results show some correlation between the intensiveness of device us- age by children and adults, but it is rather mixed. On the one hand, children from families where members are active online users have access to many more devices and have an example of adults using them very intensively. As a result, these children start to learn about the devices earlier and more actively. On the other hand, parents who frequently use online technologies are much more aware of their benefits and deficiencies. Because of this, they are more responsible and limit the time their children are allowed to spend with devices. 9. The majority of interviewed children perceive devices positively, with interest and enthusi-

asm. They demonstrate their digital skills with pleasure, and enjoy talking about them with researchers. Still, their attitudes to devices are rather diffuse and common, based on their personal experience only. As previously mentioned, children usually use devices for gaming and to watch cartoons so the loss of an internet connection is the most serious problem they have ever faced. Possibly, as a result, they have no idea about online risks and threats. 10. We can make some conclusions about children’s attitudes to devices indirectly, by observ- ing the way they behave when a device is absent. Most kids stay quite calm if their parents remove a device; some of them totally forget about digital devices when they have other interesting activities, like playing with friends or family members. Still, there are several children who become very upset and fractious, and may begin to behave badly if the device is taken away.

11. The majority of adult respondents admit that digital technologies are an integral part of modern life, and therefore children must learn to use them from an early childhood. Never- theless, parental attitudes are quite contradictory and ambiguous. On the one hand, parents claim that digital devices have a great educational potential. On the other hand, it can be clearly seen that actually most of them use tablets and other devices as a digital nanny - in situations when they need to keep their child busy. Possibly, however, modern parents are quite well aware of online threats, and only give a device in extreme cases (e.g. on board a plane), when the child does not have an opportunity to do anything else.

12. Parents are mostly concerned about the overuse of devices, negative content and danger- ous connections through social networks. In addition, we have found that the younger the parents are, the more positive their attitude towards online technologies, and the greater their awareness about online threats and risks. Older parents seem to be more conservative. 13. The majority of parents control their children’s’ device usage, primarily through time limits

and programs installed on the device. They use traditional parenting methods to determine what their children do online, and many of them try to organise their kid’s timetable so that he/she has as little free time for devices as possible. None of the parents has any special technical tools for control. Usually mothers just look through the games and cartoons, which her child likes or plays with, and makes a decision about whether to install them, or not. 14. The rules concerning device usage exist only in some families. In several families where

rules have been implemented directly by parents, children may not even know about them. In addition, as some parents notice, there is no need to set rules if a child is busy at school and extra classes. One of the most common rules we were told about refers to devices that a child is or not allowed to use - in many families a child has his/her personal device, usually a tablet, and is not allowed to use parental devices. Parents often strictly prohibit children from using parental devices because of safety issues and fears that their child might break the device. The other common rule is a time limit, which depends on the family and situation. In addition, most parents forbid using devices at school (or pre-school). Among the most unusual rules we met was the ‘clean hands’ one - a child should wash his/her hands before using any device. Still, most adults understand that there is a great sense in implementing rules, and plan to do that in future, when their children become older. Several parents con- template using technical tools, especially those allowing content filtering.

15. In general, our findings show that their parents determine the role that digital technologies play in small children’s life is reduced to entertainment- gaming and watching cartoons- and in most cases it. Almost all adults said they bought their kid a tablet for education and learn- ing but in fact, these devices are only used for entertainment, when it is hard to occupy the children with anything else.

16. Even very advanced and up-to-date parents appear to have a certain unconscious bias about digital technologies, and one that they do not even fully realise. According to their words, tablets, smartphones and other devices are essential in a modern media world. However, in fact parents use traditional methods of upbringing that were in use when they themselves were small. This approach is particularly apparent when it comes to choice of cartoons when family members get together - modern animation is perceived as ‘bad and mind-numbing’ whereas old cartoons from the mother or father’s early childhood are ‘good and educative’. 17. Because devices often serve as digital nannies, parents do not find it necessary to teach their

children to use tablets and smartphones. As a result, children must obtain digital skills au- tonomously and the outcomes are rather fragmented and one-sided, as are rules concerning their usage. It seems that parents perceive of tablets as malum necessarium (an ‘inevitable evil’) and tend to restrict children over their usage. That is why mediation strategies are most- ly passive and interdictory. Even those parents, who pay lots of attention to general issues of upbringing, think firstly about the minimisation of harm when it comes to online technologies. 18. We have to admit that modern parents do not believe in the educational potential of on- line technologies, and therefore fail to incorporate them in the upbringing process. In their opinion, digital technologies’ presence in children’s lives is unnecessary and must be strictly controlled by adults in a unilateral way (so that a child’s agreement is not necessary). Whilst we have such a situation, digital technologies will remain no more than an expensive toy, and the digital literacy level among children will stay very low.