Adolescent gender differences in internet safety education

ABSTRACT

The vast literature about adolescents’ online uses mentions a variety of gender differences regarding online habits, activities, and risks. But often these differences are not consistent, and result in contradicting trends in reported gender differences. This study adopts an information flux approach for distinguishing between perceptions of gender differences in uses and risks for adolescents online, and in emphasis of educational messages delivered by parents and teachers to adolescents. Based on a survey of adolescents, followed by interviews with Israeli adolescents, parents and teachers, the results indicate that indeed, boys are perceived as more vulnerable to risks resulting from exposure to (harmful) information, a perception consistent with a general perception of active masculinity attributing agency for boys, who actively and purposefully search and consume information from the network. Girls are perceived as vulnerable to risks resulting from exposure of (personal) information, a perception consistent with an image of femininity as giving, providing information to the network, and consequently being passively exposed to risk of predators. Consequently, educational messages and restrictions on boys and girls emphasize these differences and result in some aspects of risks, which research demonstrates both gefnders are vulnerable to, being neglected in parental mediation.

KEYWORDS:

• Internet safety
• education
• gender
• information flux
• mixed methods
• adolescents
• internet risks
• privacy

Acknowledgments

The study was supported by the Pedagogical Research Fund at Ariel University. The author thanks Shiraz Meir, Bat-Sheva Yanir, Rivka Schloss and Itay Karkason for their assistance in conducting the research and preparing the manuscript, and Rina Fish and Liel Jackson for their help in transcribing the interviews.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In a similar trend, sex education at schools still integrates traditional gender constraints, emphasizes achievements for boys and the responsibility and care for the relationship for girls (Jennifer S. Hendricks and Dawn Marie Howerton 2010), construct a male view of sexuality and emphasizes women’s role in satisfying male needs (Tricia Szirom 2017).

2. Respondents’ demographics were collected and delivered by the panel service. With respect to gender, the service used a binary Male-Female item. Therefore, it is not known whether any of the respondents identifies as non-binary with respect to gender.

3. According to the World Health Organization, adolescence begins at age 10 (https://www.who.int/health-topics/adolescent-health/#tab=tab_1). Considering that children begin independent use of the Internet at this age and even before, it was decided to include interviewees of age 10 and above.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nili Steinfeld

Nili Steinfeld is the head of the Digital Communication track at the School of Communication, Ariel University. Her research interests include e-participation, e-government, and e-politics. She studies privacy and surveillance online, use of social networks as public spheres, citizens–politicians’ online engagement, virtual contact, immersive storytelling, and online political discourse. She combines various methodological approaches, among them online experiments, surveys, eye tracking, and digital methods for scraping and analyzing digital objects.