In recent years, as a generation of online students, minors have entertained, socialized, studied and consumed on the Internet. Some online social products also have more minor users. QQ, wechat, Douban, play bar, Zhihu and other familiar or semi familiar social products, game social products and knowledge social products are deeply loved by minors. Among these social products, wechat, as the social app with the largest number of users in China, has covered 1.2 billion people. Young users are also one of the important user groups of wechat.
In order to better safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of minors, the research group of "the use and protection of minors' online social products" of China Youth Research Center takes wechat as an example to study the characteristics of teenagers' use of wechat and its related functions, and analyze the role of minors' use of Online social products, so as to better serve minors and protect minors' rights and interests.
This study adopts the method of multi-stage random sampling. The provincial capital city and an underdeveloped city are selected as the secondary samples in 8 provinces: Beijing, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Henan, Anhui, Shaanxi, Sichuan and Liaoning. One urban area and one suburban area are selected as the research samples in Beijing. The subjects are primary school students, junior middle school students and senior high school students from grade 4 to grade 3. A total of 7898 questionnaires and 7460 valid samples were collected. Among them, male 52.7%, female 47.3%; 26.0% of primary school students, 39.5% of junior middle school students and 34.4% of senior high school students; 59.2% of urban students and 40.8% of rural students.
What is the problem that makes the family's supervision of minors' online social networking "a mere formality"
The research group believes that as a widely used social app, wechat has deeply penetrated into the lives of minors. The survey shows that more than 60% of minors have exclusive micro signals, less than 7% have micro signals in the past but not now, and about 30% of minors have no micro signals.
The research group analyzed the reasons for not using wechat and found that the two items with the highest proportion were no mobile phone and parents not allowed to use it. According to the analysis of the research group, the main reason why minors don't use wechat comes from objective restrictions. For example, parents don't buy mobile phones and parents don't let them use them. They think subjective factors such as time-consuming and unsafe account for a relatively low proportion.
The first two reasons why minors use wechat account for the highest proportion are: the primary reason why nearly 90% of minors use wechat is to facilitate communication, and nearly 60% is to see school homework and notices. According to the analysis of the research group, this shows that the use of wechat by minors is strongly related to social networking, and wechat is also an important tool for minors to learn and complete academic arrangements. In addition, more than 20% of them are "everyone uses", "see the circle of friends" and "get information", which are also for social networking and learning. It can be seen that social networking and learning are the main reasons why minors use wechat.
Parents have an unshirkable responsibility for minors' network use and network security. Laws and regulations such as the law on the protection of minors and the law on the promotion of family education have put forward specific requirements for family supervision. The research group found that most parents mainly remind and stipulate the use of wechat for minors.
The survey shows that the top four management methods of parents are: more than 40% of parents remind their children to pay attention to information security and no strangers' wechat, and more than 40% of parents put forward the specified use time and specified use time for their children. In contrast, less than 40% of parents will use the adolescent model.
It is worth noting that more than a quarter of minors said that their parents "don't care much". Discuss what you see with your children and watch videos with your children. The content ranking is lower, less than 10%.
The research group believes that the management methods of parents are relatively single, mostly oral reminders. They tell children more about what they are not allowed to do and less about what they can do. There are fewer parents who are good at using the juvenile model as a minor protection tool, and the proportion of monitoring their children's Internet use and having fun with their children is lower.
The research group found that parents are more strict in the management of primary school students.
The big difference is that the two management methods of stipulated use time and use time decreased by 22 percentage points from primary school students to high school students. Another big difference is the youth model. Primary school students are 13 percentage points higher than junior high school students and 20 percentage points higher than senior high school students.
In the proportion of parents who "don't manage much", more than 30% of high school students said that their parents "don't manage much", which is 10 and 21 percentage points higher than junior high school students and primary school students respectively; The proportion of parents who "don't care much" about boys is also higher than that of girls by more than 6 percentage points; The proportion of urban parents who "don't manage much" is about 3 percentage points higher than that of rural parents.
What is the reason why minors are willing to "bubble" online social networking
Online social products provide people with richer social experience and more convenient social services. The healthy and rational use of online social products is not only a requirement for adults, but also a requirement for minors. What factors affect minors' use of online social products?
The research group found that the living environment of the family and the way of parents' education are closely related to the behavior of minors using wechat. For example, in life, "there are often" adults who don't respect me and their families don't communicate on the Internet. Because they quarrel with their parents on the Internet, the proportion of children using wechat many times a day is higher. Compared with "almost no" families who don't respect their children, the proportion of using wechat many times a day is about 11 percentage points lower.
According to the analysis of the research group, family upbringing methods have a great impact on whether minors can use wechat rationally. If undemocratic upbringing methods often appear in the family, children are easy to use wechat more times and longer. In particular, the parenting state of parents often nagging, lack of communication between family members and quarreling because they can't communicate well on the Internet can't manage their children well, but it is easy to make their children fall into irrational use and can't extricate themselves. In addition, if parents lack authority and management methods, children will fall into unreasonable use. The growth of minors needs a loose and democratic growth environment. Some families implement autocratic management over their children. They are not allowed to do this or that. They only tell their children what they are not allowed to do and rarely tell their children what they can do. On the contrary, the family atmosphere without freedom and democratic respect is easy to make minors try to "get out of the circle".
The research group also found that the psychological state of minors is also significantly related to their frequency, duration and function of using wechat.
Taking the frequency of using wechat as an example, the proportion of minors who often feel lonely using wechat many times a day is more than 9 percentage points higher than that of minors who hardly feel lonely; There are minors who are often looked down upon. The proportion of using wechat many times a day is more than 10 percentage points higher than that of minors who are hardly looked down upon. On the contrary, minors who are hardly lonely, despised and feel great psychological pressure have a higher proportion of using wechat less times every day.
According to the analysis of the research group, when minors have high psychological pressure or poor psychological state, they are more likely to talk to friends and family through the Internet, or find psychological comfort. At this time, the use of wechat may become a communication channel they like very much, which also inspires parents, teachers and other adults to pay more attention to the mental health of minors and their emotions and psychological feelings.
What factors lead minors to choose to watch different types of videos
The survey shows that minors who often use video numbers account for more than 5%, sometimes less than 10% and occasionally more than 30%. In total, nearly half of minors have used video numbers.
From the perspective of the length of time adults have never used video numbers, nearly 70% of them are within 20 minutes each time, and nearly 20% of them are used for 20-40 minutes. According to the analysis of the research group, most minors can reasonably arrange the length of use. Minors use it for more than 40 minutes at a time. Through comparison, the research group found that the frequently used boys are more than 2 percentage points higher than girls, high school students are slightly higher than junior high school students and primary school students, and rural students are slightly higher than urban students.
The survey found that minors are most interested in humorous and funny videos, accounting for more than 70%, followed by inspirational and struggle videos, accounting for more than half. The proportion of tourism food, practical skills, game animation, news hot spots and knowledge education is more than 30%. According to the analysis of the research group, the main purpose of minors using video numbers is to reduce pressure, relax and have a good laugh, which is the main reason why the proportion of humorous and funny videos far exceeds that of other types of videos.
The research group investigated the views of minors on video numbers and found that most minors hold a positive attitude towards video numbers and believe that the greatest benefit of using video numbers is to relieve pressure. Secondly, the content attracts them and makes them increase their knowledge.
More than 70% of minors who use video numbers agree with the view that "watching video numbers can relieve pressure", accounting for the highest proportion among many views; Secondly, more than 60% agreed with the view that "video number content is fashionable and interesting" and "watching video number can increase knowledge", and more than 50% agreed with the view that "video number makes me know my friends better".
According to the analysis of the research group, more than half of these positive views show that although the main function of minors using wechat is social and learning communication, the video number also plays a role of decompression, fun, enriching knowledge and promoting communication. Emotional health, entertainment, study and making friends are essential elements in the growth of minors.
The survey also shows that more than 40% of minors are worried that using video numbers will waste time or work inefficiently, more than 30% think that the content of video numbers lacks characteristics, and more than 20% think that watching video numbers will cost more money. The research group believes that the problems that video numbers may bring deserve attention. These problems are not conducive to the growth of minors and the healthy life of adults. It is necessary to strengthen the cultivation of media literacy so that both adult users and minor users can rationally use and enjoy the benefits of Internet products.
The research group focused on comparing the relationship between minors' watching inspirational struggle videos, news hot spots, game animation videos, adventure gossip videos and knowledge education videos and the behavior of disrespect for children in the family.
The data show that there are few minors in the family who "adults don't respect me", and the proportion who like to watch inspirational struggle videos is 17 percentage points higher than that of minors who often have adults who don't respect their children at home; Similarly, the proportion of watching news hot spots and knowledge education videos is also about 4 and 17 percentage points higher respectively; On the contrary, there are often "adults do not respect me" in the family. Minors prefer to watch game animation videos, which is 20 percentage points higher than minors who rarely "adults do not respect me"; The proportion of videos that like to hunt for novelty and gossip is also 7 percentage points higher.
Similarly, if minors often feel "not free", they prefer to watch games, animation and gossip videos. In particular, game animation videos are nearly 14 percentage points higher than minors who rarely feel free at home; On the contrary, minors who feel less free at home prefer to watch videos of inspirational struggle, tourism food, news hot spots and knowledge education. In particular, inspirational struggle videos are nearly 15 percentage points higher than minors who often feel less free at home.
The research group also found that minors with more negative psychological feelings and pressure prefer to watch game animation videos, and minors with few negative psychological feelings prefer to watch inspirational struggle videos or knowledge education videos. For example, minors who often feel lonely prefer to watch short videos of games and animation, which is nearly 15 percentage points higher than minors who rarely feel lonely; Few minors who are looked down upon prefer to watch knowledge education videos, which is 13 percentage points higher than minors who are often looked down upon.
According to the analysis of the research group, there is a lack of democracy, respect and loose living atmosphere in the family, and there will be great differences in the content of minors' brushing videos. If parents want their children to watch more positive video content to stimulate their progressive and learning interests, they should give their children more respect and freedom in life and pay more attention to their children's psychological state. Instead, children are more likely to choose positive content when choosing videos independently.
What makes minors willing to "run naked" on the Internet
After wechat, which focuses on social functions, launched the youth model, more than 70% of minors said they knew and nearly 30% said they didn't know.
However, among the known minors, only 40% have opened the youth mode, half have not opened the youth mode, and nearly 10% have opened it and then closed it.
The survey found that more than 70% of minors said "I am willing for parents to open the youth mode for me", and nearly 70% agreed that "all platforms should be reminded to open the youth mode". The research group reminded that as a guardian, we should have the awareness of minors' protection, fulfill the responsibility of guardianship, and open the youth mode for minor children in time.
However, the survey data also show that there are still some imperfections in the current youth model. For example, more than 40% of minors think that "the content under the youth mode is monotonous", "there are too few wechat functions under the youth mode", and more than 30% think that "it's annoying to always jump out of the prompt to open the youth mode". The research group believes that the existing youth model needs to be greatly improved in order to better meet the needs of minors and make minors more willing to take the initiative to accept and use the youth model.
The survey shows that if adults often disrespect their children, the proportion of turning on the youth model is nearly 13 percentage points lower than that of almost no disrespect for children; There is a difference of more than 10 percentage points in the proportion of minors opening the youth mode between families that often have and almost no "families do not communicate online".
According to the analysis of the research group, if the family upbringing method is not respected and free enough, and there is a lack of effective and good communication, it is not only unable to manage minors to surf the Internet, use wechat and watch videos, but also difficult to help or guide minors to actively open and use the youth model.
In the family, there are often quarrels, nagging and non communication. Minors often have nowhere to complain, or they can only talk to netizens online. The study found that the proportion of minors who don't tell anyone and only tell netizens who don't open the youth mode is higher. The survey shows that minors who often talk to their parents, teachers and grandparents are more likely to open the youth model, with about half of them; The proportion of minors who often talk to netizens or don't talk to anyone is higher, with more than 60% of both.
According to the analysis of the research group, the family is an important source of emotional support for children. If the family upbringing method is improper, parents often treat their children with simple, rough, autocratic and indulgent upbringing methods. For example, they rarely communicate with their children and often nag. Family members quarrel over the Internet. Children do not feel respected in the family and lack a free living environment. Children are more likely to seek understanding and identity in the online world outside the family. At this time, online social networking is an important way for minors to seek warmth on the Internet. Improper family upbringing will inevitably lead to the loss of family education function, so that parents have neither educational authority nor educational methods in front of their children, so it is naturally difficult to have a good educational effect. To prevent minors' Internet addiction, we need to start from improving the family rearing environment and the family rearing mode of workover.
By analyzing the psychological state of minors, it is found that minors who often feel great psychological pressure have a lower proportion of opening the youth mode, which is more than 16 percentage points lower than minors who almost have no such feeling; Minors who often feel great psychological pressure have a higher proportion of teenagers who do not turn on the youth model, which is more than 13 percentage points higher than minors who have little psychological pressure. Moreover, minors who often feel great psychological pressure have a higher proportion of turning on the youth mode and then turning it off. According to the analysis of the research group, minors with high psychological pressure prefer to escape the management and restrictions of the youth model and "run naked" online to release the pressure.
The research group believes that it is very necessary for adults to form a democratic, respectful, communicative and understanding way of getting along with aborigines in the Internet age, strengthen parent-child communication, and be more tolerant and receptive to minors. As one of thousands of online social products, wechat exists objectively. No matter what parents do, minors should use it after all. Adults can't keep minors out of wechat and other social products. Moreover, with the development of the Internet, the penetration rate of online social products among minors will be higher. Therefore, parents are called on to provide democratic and harmonious intergenerational communication and education methods for their children, and actively undertake educational responsibilities, scientifically guide and manage their children, so that their children can reasonably use all kinds of Internet products.
(author sun Hongyan is the director of the Institute of children and adolescents of China Youth Research Center)