Ethics and children's information systems

Abstract

As information technologies become increasingly prevalent in children's lives, designers must make difficult design decisions regarding both the developmental constraints of the user population (e.g., cognitive capacity, literacy, attention span, etc.) and implications for fundamental human values (e.g., information access, privacy, autonomy, informed consent, psychological welfare, etc.). Whether interacting with digital reference systems (Silverstein, 2005), robotic pets (Kahn, Friedman, Perez-Granados, & Freier, in press), or educational games to teach young girls programming (Flanagan, Howe, & Nissenbaum, 2005), children are continuously constructing knowledge about these information systems and utilizing that knowledge to reflect upon larger domains of life such as the personal-psychological, social-conventional, and moral. Designers may not recognize that specific affordances of the technology they design, such as a voice interface, can have value implications, such as reifying existing gender stereotypes (Nass, Moon, & Green, 1997). This is particularly true for children, whose concepts of social norms and moral principles are still in dynamic and formative stages of development. This difficult problem of accounting for human values in the design of information technologies has not gone unnoticed. Specific methodologies have been developed that attempt to comprehensively and systematically account for values of ethical import in the design process (e.g., Friedman & Freier, 2005; Friedman, Kahn, & Borning, in press). Is information science situated to speak to particular values of ethical import in children's interactions with information technologies? If so, which values and how? What methods are available to help researchers and information systems designers engage the design problem while comprehensively accounting for potential ethical value implications? What specific research and design projects have resulted in theoretical, empirical, and technological outcomes which address value implications in children's information interactions? How do the research areas of information behavior, information literacy, information policy, and others speak to the particular problem presented by this panel? What other contexts of information interaction have significant ethical value implications for children, and how can design reduce the potential harms? Research has shown that children often use formal, online information systems for informal learning (Silverstein, 2005). Fifteen percent of most children's digital reference services are non-curriculum-related, e.g., “Are leprechauns real?” and “How long can I live with diabetes?” Although one may wonder what would motivate a child to ask highly personal, and out-of-scope questions of a digital reference service that was designed to support formal science education, s/he must consider that the system needs to be changed to accommodate such use. It may be that queries like these signal opportunities for useful educational interventions, such as counseling, referral to other kinds of experts, or mentoring. But we must first decide whether to use these opportunities for online information systems to support informal learning, and to offer interventions at crucial times in children's development. Digital librarians would argue that the provision of advice and other subjective information is unquestionably outside the bailiwick of their profession, that their bias would unduly influence the children information seekers. But children get answers from many online resources, and not always the best answers, at that. Systems created by software designers and engineers interact directly with children. Games, band sites, sport sites, pop culture sites - all influence how children share information with others, how they collaborate with peers and even what they learn. Years ago, when we perceived technology as neutral, it was easy to ignore the implications of the above circumstances. More