Proceedings of the 23rd International Academic Conference, Venice

SURVEY OF CHILDREN’S ACCESS TO INDECENT CONTENT VIA NEW MEDIA: A CASE STUDY FROM THAILAND

MONWIPA WONGRUJIRA

Abstract:

The research aims to study the new media usage of Thai children and youth, between 6-22 years old. A mixed research method was applied including: survey of 633 children and youth around Bangkok, selected by multi-stage sampling, and three focus groups of parents selected by purposive sampling. The results showed that smart phone was the most popular new media among children and youth. Their average time spending on new media was more than 4 hours per day, while a large portion of kids spent up to 10 hours per day. You Tube was the most popular social media among children and youth in every age. Online game was the most popular among small children, whereas Facebook was the most popular among youth. The main purposes of utilizing new media were entertainment, followed by chatting with friends and searching information. Most of the kids reported while going online they can easily and accidentally access to indecent contents, especially sexual content. Also, focus groups of the parents revealed that it became more difficult to control their children’s usage of new media while they grew up. Some children severely addicted to new media. Another main problem was less media and information literacy of parents. International study would be a lesson learned for policy makers in order to protecting children. Media and information literacy should be taken seriously for both parents and kids.

Keywords: children, new media, media literacy, indecent content, Thailand

DOI: 10.20472/IAC.2016.023.096

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