Datafied Childhood: How Children Perceive Datafication Risks Around Them

Abstract

It is clear that the world of digital is here to stay. Online technologies are increasingly important for children, providing access to vital education, socialisation, participation, well-being, and entertainment resources. This rapid adoption and increasing reliance on the online world has raised corresponding concerns about the long-term effects of data/ication, in which children’s actions are pervasively recorded, tracked, aggregated, analysed, and exploited by online services in multiple ways that include behavioural engineering, and monetisation.

Publication
KOALA Project Report
Ge Wang
Ge Wang
DPhil (Ph.D.) student

I’m a Dphil student in the Department of Computer Science at University of Oxford. My research investigates the algorithmic impact on families and children, and what that means for their long-term development. I’m keen to explore the potential for designing more age-appropriate AI for families, as well as building more ethical web and data architecture for them. My research takes a human-centric approach, and focuses on understanding users' needs in order to design technological prototypes that are of real impact on today’s society.