About this srcd poster session

---

Panel information
Panel 13. Moral Development

Abstract

---

Privacy is a key concept guiding adult behaviour online. It includes normative beliefs that shape judgments about when to share personal information online and allow us to detect the presence of invasive technologies (Park & Jang, 2014). Qualitative data suggests that children have mental models of privacy that guide thinking about privacy of spaces (e.g., bedrooms and bathrooms; Oates et al., 2018). However, whether children understand privacy in digital contexts is unclear (see Kaiwen et al., 2021). For example, in one study 5- to 8-year-olds viewed actions, like sharing private images, to be acceptable-neutral, although they did view sharing this content less positively than sharing public content (i.e., stop signs; Gelman et al., 2021). This work relied on complex technological scenarios involving a cloud-like app. Here, we use a simplified scenario to examine children’s understanding of privacy norms using their beliefs about when an online game should (or not) take a picture. We also build on prior work by assessing how directly prompting children to consider privacy norms might influence their behaviour.

In Study 1, children (ages 5- to 8-years-old, N= 66) were presented with a vignette about a girl named Sally, who is playing a game on her iPad. They are told that Sally’s game wants to take three pictures of the cartoon Sally and the real Sally. Children are then asked to make normative judgments regarding whether Sally should let the game take her picture as well as pictures of her in-game avatar. Since privacy norms require keeping personal information private, children considering privacy in online sharing should conclude it is unacceptable for the game to take pictures of Real Sally but acceptable to take pictures of the cartoon. Study 1 results indicate that only older children might understand how privacy governs the sharing of images. Paired samples t-tests revealed that 7- and 8-year-olds (N = 26) judged it less acceptable to take pictures of real Sally as compared to cartoon Sally, t(25) = 2.58, p = .016. This pattern was not seen in younger children (N = 41), p = 0.22. Results suggest that young children do not spontaneously consider privacy norms when considering whether a game should be taking pictures.

Study 2 is an ongoing study examining how an interventional prompt which tells children that Sally’s parents told her to keep her information private, influences children’s judgements from Study 1. Notably, this prompt does not tell children what the privacy norm is but rather prompts them to consider privacy at all. This study offers an opportunity to explore whether children are capable of considering privacy norms. Thus far, children (N = 10) seem to be making judgements that reflect considerations of privacy—namely, on average they judged that the game should take pictures of Real Sally only 33% of the time, as compared to 65% for the cartoon.

Together, this ongoing investigation suggests that children's mental models of digital privacy are still developing in early childhood, with younger and older children differing in how they spontaneously consider privacy norms when judging online information sharing.

Author information

Author	Role
Ms. Sarah Margaret Petriw, University of Manitoba	Presenting author
Dr. Shaylene Nancekivell, University of Manitoba	Non-presenting author

⇦ Back to session