Online Environments in Children's Everyday Life: Children's, Parents' and Teachers' Points of View

Online environments, which cover broadly all websites, are a pervasive part of many children's lives today. More than 90 percent of children and young people in America and Europe use the online environments (Madden et al. 2013; Livingstone et al. 2011). This has led to a public debate about the role of online environments in children's everyday life and about the ways childhood is being transformed by virtual worlds (Plowman et al. 2010). On the one hand, children are seen as experts of the online environments. On the other hand, the online environments are often regarded as a threat for children, because the opportunity to act anonymously causes misbehavior (Livingstone et al. 2011).

The paper explores the role of online environments in children's everyday life. By analyzing 27 interviews with Finnish children aged 11-13, parents and teachers, we examine and compare the viewpoints of both children and adults. We analyse the self-perceived effect of online environments on children's everyday life and particularly focus on the opportunities and risks of the online environments. As a result of our study, we found five types of perceived effects that represent opportunities and risks: learning and socialization, sense of community and empowerment, antisocial behavior, overuse and threat to security.

To our informants, the online environments represent a new form of community and friendship, which helps children to maintain their social relationships. There are positive effects of the online environments, such as enhancing the users' sense of community, social capital and learning (e.g. Wellman et al. 2001). On the other hand, the online environments may decrease social interaction between people in the ”real” life. Another reverse side of this “online communality” is social pressure: in order to avoid being bullied, some children used Facebook before they were old enough.