Online Relationships and Privacy Issue Among Young Generations in Japan

Akiko ORITA, Ph.DAssociate Professor, Kanto Gakuin University

JAPAN

1

Contents

• Overview: Access to the Internet by Young Generation

• Relationships and Risk of Cyberbullying

• Privacy and Sexual Risk

• Education and Intervention

• Conclusion

2

Access to the Internet by Young Generation in Japan

Access to the Internet by generation

Device usage (2017)

73.3% 71.6%74.8%

82.6%

73.6%

97.9% 97.8% 98.2% 98.4% 96.9%98.5%99.2% 99.0% 99.2% 98.7%

82.8% 82.8% 83.0% 83.5%80.9%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

6y-12y 13-19y 20-29y All

Source: MIC “WHITE PAPER Information and Communications in Japan”

30.3%

75.2%

90.0%

59.7%

6.4% 5.6% 5.1%9.9%

27.5%

51.5%

68.6%

52.5%

32.7%

24.2%21.5% 20.9%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

6y-12y 13-19y 20-29y All

SmartPhone FeaturePhone PC Tablet

Most students start using smartphone from middle school to access to the Internet 3

Spend Time and Communicate online : Students and Parents

Time Spent Online Use Smartphone for communication with others

Both parents of teenagers are now generations who are familiar with

online communication and smartphone use

Source: Report by Cabinet Office (2017)

Teenagers spend 73min (Weekday) and

122min (Weekend) on Social Media

c.f. All generations 31min(Weekday) and

41min(Weekend)

4

97.3

144.3 148.7131.1

213.8

135.9

33.4%45.4% 56.7%42.4% 74.2% 43.5%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

0

50

100

150

200

250

Avarage Ratio of 2h+

46.9%

84.5%91.1%93.5%

92.4%92.4%

Elementary Mid-School High-School

Student Parents

Popular online services for male and female students

Female students are more likely to use Instagram and Twitter than

Male students in high school

Source: Report by DigitalArts,2018

5

71.8%

63.1%

81.6%86.4%

96.1% 95.1%

59.2%

49.5% 52.4% 52.4%

83.5%87.4%

26.2%

14.6%9.7% 12.6%

7.8% 6.8%

18.4%12.6%

23.3%21.4%

73.8%

87.4%

17.5%11.7%

4.9%

15.5%

28.2%

73.8%

3.9% 3.9% 1.0% 2.9% 1.0%7.8%

2.9% 1.0% 0.0% 0.0%2.9%

8.7%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

M-Elementary

F-Elementary M-MiddleSchool

F-MiddleSchool

M-Highschool

F-Highschool

LINE YouTube Facebook Twitter Instagram Snapchat Twitcasting

Relationships with friends• They spend time both online and offline with their friends

• Using IM for personal chat and group chat• With classmates, club activities etc.

• When they want to talk about their problems, most of them prefer face-to-face communication, while certain ratio of them have experience consulting with their friends by IM (Orita et al, 2016)

53.4%

19.4%

29.1%

4.9%5.8%

20.4%5.8%

49.5%

21.4%29.1%

3.9%

1.9%

22.3%

4.9%

70.9%

26.2%

14.6%6.8% 3.9%

11.7%3.9%

81.6%

19.4% 17.5%11.7%

7.8%1.7%

5.8%

84.5%

29.1%

16.5%

45.6%

9.7%1.9% 2.9%

85.4%

37.9%

20.4%

49.5%

30.1%

4.9%

1.0%0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

LINE Face-to-Face Telephone Twitter Instagram Email Facebook

Means for communicating with friends (MA)

M-Elementary F-Elementary M-MidSchool F-MidSchool M-Highschool F-Highschool

Source: Report by DigitalArts,2018 6

Relationships with friends

• They foster community rules by themselves• Teenagers have their own thoughts and priority(Takeuchi,2014)

• As they grow up they learn how to manage online human relationship• E.g. How to deal with “ leave on seen”

7

Risks: Cyberbullying

• Cyberbullying• 10,779 recognized cases in schools (2016)

• MEXT declares “The basic policy for bullying prevention”(2013)• “cyberbullying “ was stated

• Free telephone counselling (SNS-Hotline) was provided 24hrs/7d (2016)

Elementary Middle School High-SchoolSpecial Nedes

School

Natioal 0.1% 0.6% 0.2% 0.0% 1.0%

Public 24.5% 49.7% 16.1% 1.3% 91.6%

Private 0.2% 2.8% 4.5% 0.0% 7.5%

Total 24.9% 53.1% 20.8% 0.2% 100.0%

(Source: the report by MEXT, 2018)8

Teenagers want privacy• Every teenager wants their privacy!

• The myth “ teenagers do not care about privacy “• Evidence that suggests little variation between adults and young people

(Hoofnagle et al., 2010; Madden et al., 2013)

• They create tactics to regulate who could access their information online (Marwick & boyd,2014)• Social steganography “read between the lines”

• Original jargon

• Concerned about Privacy in children ways• Conceal or obscure their information from their parents, teachers and

online patrol

Difficulty in intervention by parents9

Usage of Multiple Accounts by Context

• Major reasons why they use multiple accounts are:• To make friends common

interest

• To disclose themselves

• To obscure hobbies from real-life friends

• They represent their online identities via context and network

Based on data by DigitalArts,2018 10

31.1% 29.1% 31.1% 29.1%

48.5%

68.9%

Ratio of having multiple accounts of Social Media

(Male and Female students)

Risks: Luring, Sexual Abuse and Suicide

• Luring• Sexual Trouble (Cybergrooming)

• Details of victims (2017)• Paid Dating 38.7% • “He was kind to me” 26.8%

• “Runaway Girl”

• Suicide• Suicidal online postings

• E.g. Zama Suicide Pact Slayings in 2017

• The government announced measures to help suicidal postings on SNS (2017.12)

Council for youth network use environment improvement was founded by 6 companies (2017.7)

• including GREE, CyberAgent, DeNA, Facebook Japan , mixi and LINE

Source: the National Police Agency in Japan (2018)

1278

1085 10611153 1100

724

453

254 282218

159 15293 42

7921136

1239

1085 1076

12931421

16521736

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Number of Victim children

Dating website Community website

11

Measures by Parents for online safety

Source: Report by Cabinet Office (2017)

As teenagers grow up,

it becomes more difficult

for parents to intervene in

children’s online life.

12

96.4%

74.9%

41.5%

10.3%

33.3%27.2%

4.6%

89.7%

41.4%39.6%

13.5%

42.9%47.4%

6.3%

78.7%

16.0% 18.5%

11.3%

32.5%

45.8%

3.5%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Control byParents(TOTAL)

parentalsupervisoin

Decide therules

Kid'sCellphone

UnderstandInternetusage

InformationFiltering

others

Elementary Middle-School High-School

Education and intervention respecting autonomy of the young generation

13

Online literacy education at schools

• Two approaches for Internet safety and literacy• “Information” subject in school curriculum

• Learn about technology, safety and social relationship

• However, 27.6% of teachers do not have appropriate subject qualifications (MEXT, 2018)

• As a part of school life guidance• Some schools have a regulation which prohibits bringing or

using smartphones

• Some schools ask for online patrol to detect cyber bullying, information leaking etc.

14

Educational Material available online

• Educational material about Internet Literacy are provided online by organizations• Ministries (e,g, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Ministry of

Justice, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, NISC etc.)

• Local governments / Universities / Associations (e.g. IPA, IAJ etc.)

• Private companies(LINE, Yahoo! Japan, Kaspersky, Bennese, Disney etc.)

• About 100 websites are easy to be found online in various format (as for 2018.7)

• Texts and pictures/comics describing online risk and literacy • Video, Game

• Most of them are out-of-date, not catching up latest situations

15

Effective education for the young generation

• Foster resilience of online life• Not only learn case studies, but also train

decision making are necessary

• Extract students’ real intention from discussion• Opportunity to know young generations’

reality (Orita et al , 2016)• Clue to intervene possible online risks

16

Intervention via the Internet

• Counseling by IM/SNS via smartphone• More than 2,600 students accessed LINE counseling services and 547 cases were

dealt with in 10 days in Nagano Prefecture (2017)

• C.f. 259 cases of telephone counseling in a year (2016)

• MEXT started supporting SNS counseling (2018)

• The health ministry(MHLW) provided trial SNS suicide hotlines (2018)

• Protecting Applications• Filtering and parental control application are provided by mobile companies and other

service providers

• Not only the surveillance but also “sharing” applications based upon agreement of children and parents are used

17

Conclusion

• It is necessary to design a strategy how to protect children respecting their autonomy and privacy of them

• It is necessary to seek how to intervene teenagers’ online life before they are at risk

• Future Work• Access to children of Low-SES

• Design and diffusion of effective educational materials and supporting technologies

18