Mom thinks, Technology is my Enemy: A Teen Perspective
Anuva’s Perspective (Teen Perspective)
How did I end up interviewing twelve of my peers about their internet usage? Easy: my mom asked me to. She told me and my sister that she needed us to collect data from teens because they were more likely to be honest with people their own age.
As an introvert, this was quite out of my comfort zone. But I was excited anyway; I had watched my mother engaged in various research projects throughout my life, and it had always seemed like fun.
Observation, and workshops on research methods, had taught me the process. Take the participants’ consent, let them know it’s anonymous, take note of all their answers. I didn’t expect many people to agree to participate, but I was pleasantly surprised. People were responsive and open, and I enjoyed finding out how the people around me used the internet and how their parents reacted. Some of the answers were expected; some were more of a shock. Either way, it was interesting to analyze the results from a researcher’s point of view.
All in all, it was a fulfilling experience. It was my first real step into the world of research and I hope to go much further.
Arisha’s Perspective (Pre-Teen Perspective)
My mom is a researcher, so of course there were some expectations for me and my sister to live up to, but I did not see this coming –‘Girls, I want you to interview your friends at school for a research paper.’ At first I thought it would be weird to do this, but I then heard it would be anonymous and asked them about it. They didn’t seem to mind. The questions were about their internet usage and their parents’ views on how long they use it. The people from my grade said some very interesting things, which I knew I had to quote from the moment I heard them! The things they said were not particularly shocking to me. Most people seemed to use it quite a lot. Although their parents had a rough idea about their child’s using of media, they surely didn’t know about the hours spent online. I was very amused to hear things like –‘I use it when my mother is sleeping.’ or ‘My mom keeps hiding my phone away, but I always find it again.’ These made it very hard for serious interviews –I could hardly hide my laughter! A couple of people kept asking whether it was actually anonymous; I assume they did not want their parents to find out!
Nova’s Perspective (Parent Perspective)
The questions:How teens use technology?What do their parents think about it? How does it impact teen-parent relationship?
The process:I was doing a research with my research team, studying young ones going to 6thgrades to 8thgrade. On a dinner table discussion, I asked my daughters about the same thing. Interestingly (?), one is going to 6th grade and one is going to 8th grade. They constantly tell me (specially the younger one), how liberal the other parents are. How other children of their age own personal laptops, tablets and mobile phone (unlike them). And of course, those parents are way friendlier (and less strict) than myself.
Over this context, we started this research work. We had trainings, research plans and serious research meetings over singed consent forms.
The result: Well, I’m not the only strict mom of the world! Huh!
Our paper is here (accepted in HCI Across Border Workshop, CHI 2020):
Our collaboration
