Digital Media Tag

01 Aug

Posted at 14:07h in Children, Content, Wellbeing

As a researcher specializing in media, technology and children, my work is informed by my interest in, and knowledge of, child development. At Fluent Research, we have collaborated with numerous media companies to provide insights into the evolving experiences of children and parents with digital media.

One recurring theme in our research is the desire of both parents and children to limit their screentime, but their inability to do so consistently. This discrepancy in knowledge and practice often stems from parents feeling overwhelmed by the plethora of media choices, and their fear that if they limit screens, their children might feel left out. For kids, the compelling nature of digital content, peer influences, the omnipresence of screens in their daily lives, and the algorithms that feed them more and more content make it extremely challenging to limit their use of digital media.

With the passage of the new Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act in the U.S. Senate this week, we are on our way to implementing some new protections for kids. It’s about time!

This new bill marries two different acts, The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) 2.0. Both represent significant legislative efforts aimed at enhancing online safety and privacy for children. As this bill moves closer to passage, it is important to consider its implications.

• Kids Online Safety Act:

– KOSA aims to update and expand protections for children under 17.

– KOSA also provides guardians with more control over platforms, prevents features such as autoplay, and provides for stronger default privacy settings.

• Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule 2.0

– COPPA 2.0, which is an extension of the original COPPA, was enacted in 1998 to regulate the collection of personal information from children under 13.

– This new version of COPPA 2.o would also expand protections for teens.

– The proposed updates in COPPA 2.0 also address targeted advertising, data retention practices, and the need for verifiable parental consent.

– COPPA 2.0 aims to provide stronger safeguards in this new era of media saturation.

The passage of KOSA in the Senate and future passage in the U.S. House of Representatives could mark a significant step forward in protecting children’s digital wellbeing. As someone working every day at the intersection of media, technology, and child development, I believe these legislative measures are long overdue. They not only aim to safeguard privacy but also to foster healthier digital habits among children. By creating a more regulated and child-friendly digital landscape, we can help kids and parents alike navigate the complexities of technology while minimizing potential risks. In this ever-polarized political landscape, we can all come together and agree that our kids are worth protecting!

By Allison Caplovitz, Director, Content Research and Evaluation

21 Jun

Posted at 23:48h in Documentary Films, Media

At Fluent Research, we capture, distill and communicate authentic insights to help our clients make data-driven decisions and develop successful business strategies. In recent years, we’ve also been implementing a uniquely powerful way to explore and express these insights: bespoke, broadcast-quality documentary films.

The documentaries we create seek to foster understanding, cultivate empathy, and spark a profound connection with the lives and values of the individuals our clients serve.

We use a wide range of documentary styles, but one approach, in particular, is a perennial favorite. We call it the Deep Dive.

In a typical Deep Dive, we select diverse candidates within a specific demographic (e.g., users of Product X, ages 13-18) and make a series of character-based short films that place audiences within their worlds. Like with home-visit ethnographies, the aim is to capture subjects’ lives in a holistic way. We travel with a small, minimally-invasive crew across the US, and sometimes across the globe, capturing each subject’s lives and the people in their lives.

But how do products and services come into play? What about Product X?

The answer lies in the hero’s journey, the narrative structure identified by Joseph Campbell that drives classical storytelling. In the hero’s journey, an individual strives to reach a goal (Defeat the tyrant! Find true love! Win the spelling bee!) but must first face challenges along the way (Rally the forces! Prove one’s worth! Memorize the dictionary!)

Our approach to storytelling mirrors this journey. Each subject is guided by some goal, care, or concern. The question we seek to answer is: what role does our client’s product or service play in the journey? Is it the sword that empowers them, or is it, perhaps, a double-edged blade?

This is, of course, a simplification. Human lives are messy, and there might be multiple goals, sometimes in conflict with each other. Unintended consequences may arise, and so on. In our documentary Deep Dives, we strike a balance that honors life’s complexity, yet preserves narrative clarity. As a result, the stories that we produce are nuanced, sometimes bittersweet, and always compelling.

For example, one series of short documentaries that we produced was about entertainment and technology usage within a certain demographic. One of those films features an older woman, living alone. Having recently lost her husband, she uses her entertainment tech to remember him, motivate her fitness routine, and to stay socially and spiritually engaged. When her daughter pays a visit, she cautions her mother against “overdoing it.” A gentle disagreement ensues. As her daughter leaves, our heroine reveals her reluctance to burden her children. Her media and tech usage helps her maintain physical and mental health — and her independence.

• Goal: self-reliance

• Challenge: aging

• Product role: serving her goal

In the same series, we meet a father who delights in digital entertainment in all its forms. He castigates himself for watching movies and listening to podcasts instead of working–especially in front of his two sons, who he’s trying to keep on the digital straight-and-narrow.  He announces plans for a phone-monitoring app to monitor their screen time and is met with loud protestations. Our hero feels conflicted, modeling behavior that he doesn’t condone. But later, when the family joins Dad to watch a nostalgic concert film, the boys enjoy it with him, and communication flows. Despite Dad’s concerns, watching TV together becomes a positive experience for all.

• Goal: being a good dad

• Challenges: self-sabotage/ self-doubt

• Product role: it’s complicated

When we create Deep Dives, we take a collaborative approach with the subjects who guide and suggest directions to explore. Of course, while their voices are valued, there’s a directorial guiding hand to maintain balance in the narrative.

The process often begins with an in-depth on-camera interview, during which we work together to identify the key elements of the story. Before wrapping up the interview, subjects have the opportunity to add information or set the record straight, should they feel the emerging narrative is inaccurate. Together, we then make a rough plan to establish what organic scenes we can capture that best tell the story.

When filming these scenes, we go with the flow, capturing whatever authentic, fresh moments might unfold. Unplanned scenes are also captured, and diversions from the plan are welcomed. While this approach may take a little longer to bear fruit, the end result is a richer, more genuine portrayal of our participants’ hopes, battles, and victories. As a rule, we schedule two days per finished minute for editing, which is then followed by post-production tasks like audio mastering and color-grading.

The Deep Dive is but one tool in our kit. But whether the format is more emotive, essayistic, or expository, every documentary we produce is built upon a foundation of trust. We’re deeply grateful to our subjects and clients for entrusting us on our quest to tell these rich, authentic human stories, through film.

By Heath Cozens, Director of Productions, Fluent Productions

07 Apr

Posted at 17:31h in Children, Content, Kids, Media, Research, Technology

A wise and dear professor once told me, “The medium is not the message. The message is the message.” And when television was the medium, that was certainly true. But is that still the case with the proliferation of interactive media for children taking hold? Does the interactivity of the medium outweigh the content being delivered on it?

In the podcast series, Chasing Life, Dr. Sanjay Gupta delves into the science behind the impact of technology on our brains. This particular episode, Inside a Lab Studying Toddlers and Touchscreens,” explores the impact of interactive touchscreen technologies on very young children. Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician and director of Seattle Children’s Research Institute, explains how his research is finding that children between the ages of 18 and 24 months struggle to disengage from an app in comparison to a traditional toy. This knowledge triggers questions for both parents of young children as well as the technology companies that create these apps. What can parents and tech companies do to prevent adverse effects on children’s young brains from this relatively new technology?

As a parent myself, I see in my teenagers how the interactivity and stimulation of technology keeps them fully engaged and immersed. And in my role as Director of Content Research and Evaluation at Fluent Research, I help technology and media companies understand how children and parents experience apps, games, and other products so designers and producers who create digital content for kids do so with their wellbeing in mind. This is more important than ever as technology continues to evolve and draw in the attention of a generation. As Dr. Christakis says, “Every program is educational. The question is, ‘What is it teaching?’” We need to do better for our children.

By Allison Caplovitz, PhD

21 Jul

Posted at 23:49h in Children, Kids, Media, Methodology, Qualitative Research, Research

Digital contexts are becoming more prevalent in children’s lives than ever before, fueled in part by the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to move various aspects of children’s lives online*. Since human development is a holistic and dynamic process between the developing person and his or her context* and children develop in positive and healthy ways when their strengths are combined with the strengths of their contexts, we have an opportunity as researchers to bring this framework to the changing landscape of children’s lives.

What has become apparent in our company’s recent requests for proposals, is that there is a lack of fit between the knowledge and experience of many designers and the developmental needs and abilities of children. This lack of fit signals a fundamental problem, and an opportunity, given the growing presence of digital technology as a context for children’s development. The virtual world is a new frontier and there has been a land rush of companies looking to stake their claim flag.  This rapid growth has seemed to create holes in the capabilities of these frontier companies. More precisely, the talent needed to design for adults does not adequately translate to designing for kids. In the absence of comprehensive knowledge about child development, current designers may err in using themselves or those close to them as the markers of success and/or “normality”.

“We all have a blind spot and it’s shaped exactly like us.” – Junto Diaz, Author

Short of extensive training in child development, designers can utilize a few central rules of thumb when designing for kids. Keeping these in mind will go a long way to minimizing, or at least acknowledging, our biases:

1) All humans are whole. Sometimes by necessity, we need to zoom in and focus on a specific part of children’s development, such as their literacy level or their ability to swipe on a tablet. But it is important to understand those parts within the context of the whole developing person. We then need to further adjust our lens to view that person as situated within a dynamic relationship with his or her context.

2) There is no ‘typical’ child. Much of what we know and have studied about children is approximations that are gathered from information that has been averaged over large groups from mostly Westernized societies. Expectations about children should be considered approximations that can get you close to understanding.

3) All households are different. A common mistake is to view children’s development as unfolding in a vacuum. Rules and expectations differ greatly by household and are driven by cultural, situational, and practical factors. Just because a child is developmentally capable of something does not mean that they will do it.

4) Child development is less linear than it appears. Because development is an iterative process, there are often regressions that ebb and flow with progressions. Development of a skill or competency may occur steadily over time or rapidly in spurts. While many abilities get better over time, it is not always the case.  Some abilities, like attention span increase gradually over time during childhood while other capacities, like learning a new language, decrease over time. Other aspects of development, like identity development, are latent during younger years and then rapidly develop.

If there is one mantra that we could recommend to all designers and those thinking about how to best support kids, we would strongly offer this:

“Every [child] is like all other [children], some other [children], and no other [child].” – Kluckhohn & Murray, Anthropologist & Psychologist

By Dan and Amy Warren.

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1*Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children. UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti, Florence, 2022.

*Lerner, R. M., Lerner, J. V., Almerigi, J., Theokas, C., Phelps, E., Gestsdóttir, S. Naudeau, S., Jelicic, H., Alberts, A. E., Ma, L., Smith, L. M., Bobek, D. L., Richman-Raphael, D., Simpson, I., Christiansen, E. D., & von Eye, A. (2005). Positive youth development, participation in community youth development programs, and community contributions of fifth-grade adolescents: Findings from the first wave of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development. Journal of Early Adolescence, 25(1), 17-71.