Desk Research

in the United States, 92% of children aged two or younger have an online presence

because of “sharenting”—millennial parents sharing pictures on social media—leading to complexities when it comes to children’s right to privacy

Lawmakers are attempting to get a handle on this changing state of digital connectivity by revisiting the 20-year-old Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

data is increasingly acknowledged as a deeply personal pillar of digital identities.

extend the age of those protected

let parents erase the data that companies have on their kids

Kids’ information will live on for longer than we know and could impact education and employment opportunities, healthcare access and exposure to identity theft.

TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance, along with Google and YouTube, was fined for violating COPPA by selling young users’ data to third-party advertisers

Amazon’s answer has been to create a “safe space in a walled garden” across the kid-friendly versions of its smart devices

YouTube alternative Free Time is a curated subscription service with ad-free child-focused content

Amazon added new privacy features to its Echo Dot Kids Edition after it faced two lawsuits

Facebook’s Messenger Kids

updated its privacy policy to include more kid-friendly language and illustrations

“the policy leaves plenty of room for Facebook to collect private information and share it. If you have a Facebook account, you’ve already agreed to this sort of ‘deal with the devil’ for yourself in order to benefit from Facebook’s free service. But parents need to strongly consider if they’re comfortable making the same decision for their children.

London-based Yoto recently teamed up with design studio Pentagram to release an audio player that promises to put “kids in control” by foregoing the camera, microphone and ads altogether, instead running on tactile NFC-enabled cards.

children “lag behind adults in conceptualizing privacy, comprehending online data ecosystems, understanding terms of service and recognizing ads,

up to parents to demand that brands create a privacy safety net for generation alpha

experiences with avatars

can change our view of reality and the way we act in the real world.

If you saw a digital image of yourself running on a virtual treadmill, would you feel like going to the gym? Probably so

more likely to imitate the behavior of an avatar in real life if it looks like you

Female avatars change participants' view of women

Both male and female participants exposed to the suggestive avatar showed higher rape myth acceptance when answering a questionnaire afterward. This is the view that women deserve to be raped if, for example, they wear suggestive clothing or are out alone at night. These participants were also more likely to agree with statements such as "women seek to gain power by getting control over men" and "women are too easily offended." Even when Fox ran a similar test with women whose own faces appeared on the sexualized avatars, participants still showed higher rape myth acceptance.

the influences of body image in the virtual world may also help women. For example, an anorexic woman with a poor self-image might embody a healthy-looking avatar.

Adolescents reported that avatars are an important aspect of gameplay,5 and there is evidence that players develop parasocial relationships with their avatars.11–13 Neural imaging studies have confirmed that players identify with their avatars, experience meaningful emotions, and form authentic attachments with them.

Appearance may play a role in the strength of this relationship

players are more motivated by an avatar that represents their ideal vs. actual self.

when an avatar highly resembles an individual, exercise behavior is modified based on how it affects the avatar's weight

not observed when the avatar's appearance is dissimilar

An environment, whether real or virtual, that provides choices, creates opportunities to experience mastery, and fosters a sense of belonging or connection facilitates internalization and integration of the behavior into one's sense of self

choose to act because the activity is perceived as enjoyable, important, and self-endorsed, as opposed to because someone is telling them they should engage in the behavior

increasing the likelihood the behavior is autonomously motivated

behaviors are more likely to be sustained.

have been shown to engage in avatar-protective behaviors, particularly when they perceive the avatar as similar to themselves,16 it is possible that a highly self-representational avatar could result in a greater connection (i.e., relatedness) and a greater desire to protect it (i.e., self) from danger in the virtual world.

a higher frequency of gameplay

in an online virtual world enables a wealth of nonverbal expressions under anonymity

can compensate for a lack of social resources in real life because people can self-disclose

behavior depends on how players reflect themselves, namely, their appearances, personalities, and ideal self, in their avatars

people can reinforce avatar identification through an avatar design process

Having a higher avatar identification facilitates social interactions

appearance similarity between players and avatars facilitates their self-disclosure via self-awareness and self-presence

players who design avatars that are more attractive than themselves become more sociable

avatar identification affects players in various forms, such as satisfaction, motivation, and playtime in games

establish their identities in a virtual world by designing their original characters, that is, avatars’ appearances and personalities.

customization reinforces avatar identification

character names

personal interest settings

players tend to reflect their ideal selves in their avatars

retaining their core identity elements

gender and race

Similarity identification is the degree to which a player perceives that their avatar resembles them.

Embodied identification is the degree to which a player perceives as if they are inside their characters when playing

Wishful identification is the degree to which a player reflects their ideal self to their avatar

anonymity of the Internet promotes self-disclosure regarding negative experiences

disclosing serious problems is often difficult owing to the fear of rejection by listeners without anonymity

in a virtual world, if realistic avatar appearances facilitate the identification of players themselves, then they hesitate to disclose themselves

Regarding self-disclosure and social support in communities, members prefer nonverbal communication

These features of avatar communication have been observed to provide experiences similar to face-to-face communication in real life

avatar communication is effective for the construction of close relationships and communities

communication can be improved by promoting avatar customization in avatar communication applications

The Pigg Party avatar art style is fancy and not realistic

can represent their individuality by designing their avatar faces, clothes, and accessories from an array of parts

The Pigg Party offers three types of communication spaces: private, temporary, and public rooms

avatar actions: laugh (left), sad (center), and angry (right)

excluded the most rapid 3% of participants who completed their questionnaires in less than 1.98 min. Consequently, we analyzed players (N = 9, 145) who answered the questionnaire completely.

confirmatory factor analysis

maximum likelihood estimation

Cronbach's α of similarity

The questionnaire items were designed based on which we ask Pigg Party staff why they think that the players customize their avatars. They understand the game's design and players' psyche well, in part through user interviews

In these items, it was assumed that players customized their avatar based on friends, new parts, events (e.g., seasons and Christmas Day), and habits

exploratory factor analysis

Promax rotation

Bayesian information criterion (BIC; comparative fit index (CFI)

changes in facial parts, such as face part position, face outline, shapes of face parts, and eyebrows, tended to be negatively associated with avatar identification. These parts were difficult to change in real life

hair parts, which are often changed in real life, were positively associated with all identification

changes in clothes were negatively associated with all identifications in the Pigg Party, although people routinely change their clothes in real life

if players treat their avatars as dress-up dolls instead of themselves, then all types of avatar identifications might be low

Profile editing indicated positive associations with the embodied and wishful identifications,

Older players tended to exhibit higher similarity identification

younger players tended to exhibit higher embodied and wishful identifications

Male players exhibited higher identifications, particularly in similarity identification

Self-presentation and self-disclosure indicated positive associations with group belonging and relation expansion, particularly in self-disclosure

Embodied identification indicated direct positive effects on self-presentation, self-disclosure, group belonging, and relation expansion.

direct effects of embodied identification were more significant than those of similarity and wishful identifications, excluding the case of self-presentation.

wishful identification indicated positive effects on self-presentation, self-disclosure, group belonging, and relation expansion

similarity identification indicated negative effects on self-expression and social relationships. Furthermore, it indicated direct and indirect negative effects on group belonging and relation expansion

embodied identification indicated total positive effects on communication in both room types

wishful identification indicated direct negative effects on communication in private rooms, although its total effect did not indicate a significant effect

similarity identification indicated a total negative effect on communication only in temporary rooms

Group belonging only indicated a total positive effect on communication in private rooms

Interestingly, the customization reason for acquiring the new parts indicated was a negative association with similarity identification and a positive association with wishful identification

studies show for this youngest generation the real social scene lives inside video games.

Games such as Roblox and Fortnite aren’t just entertainment for Gen Alpha; they’re where friendships are built and identities are expressed. These digital worlds have replaced group chats and casual hangouts, with avatars serving as extensions of personality and style.

Limited-edition skins, viral emotes and in-game gear are how kids signal status, creativity and community. When the pandemic put real-life reach-outs on pause, these games became the primary space for connection.

critical misstep: assuming that because Gen Alpha looks up to their Gen Z siblings and Millennial parents, they’ll follow in their digital footsteps.

Gen Z and Millennials were the guinea pigs of growing up online

Gen Alpha, on the other hand, has taken notes. Rather than using social media to connect with friends, they treat it more like a cultural mood board.

sense of humor thrives on randomness, absurdity and potential for virality.

learning the hard way what it means to etch a digital footprint.

only a measly 1 percent of people actually read through what they’re agreeing to when they sign up for a service or site.

Plenty of services operate only on data monetization: you trade details about yourself and your habits to carry on along your merry buying, posting, and gaming way. That’s an agreement that doesn’t seem to bother Gen Z

we’re the most likely to allow apps or sites to collect our data without knowing how that data would be used

over 40 percent of Gen Zers said they had OK’d access to personal info in exchange for something like a discount code or free use of a service.

risky online behaviors, at odds with younger respondents’ high confidence that they’re being safe online and the high premium they put on trust

Gen Z and millennials are the most likely to perform digitally protective behaviors, such as paying for better security or trying to delete user data when they stop using a service

90 percent of execs surveyed believe their companies are at least somewhat effective at mitigating data risks … but 57 percent of them say their organization had suffered at least one major data breach in the past three years.

Asia’s Generation Z

Generation Z, those born after 1997,

no experience

of a life lived outside

ide of

vast extraction of personal data

implicitly accepted that personal data is a currency that can be created, protected and traded.

don’t cling to the notion of social media as a source of good (or of evil), but an inseparable reality of life

managed and exploited for personal gain

channelled this power into a source of expression, creativity, intimacy and belonging.

Conscious that they’re not painting an entirely accurate portrait

aware that it won’t be critiqued for accuracy, but authenticity.

share with open eyes

Seven in ten young people state that social media shows an authentic representation of who they are

kaleidoscope of personality and originality across digital platforms.

youth say their friends are more creative than professional artists

rather look at pictures of their friends than celebrities.

Authenticity also, unlike accuracy, has many faces. Your authentic self on TikTok, is very different to your authentic self on Telegram which is very different to your authentic self on Twitch.

Which is why, in large part, the Faustian bargain in which Millennials reluctantly surrender data for access or privacy for convenience, is felt less painfully for Gen Z

living multiple lives across multiple platforms there’s no one complete portrait

not to say they don’t worry about online privacy. On the contrary, nine in ten are concerned about their privacy on social media sites.

erecting Chinese walls between their separate lives

Gen Z interpretation of privacy is more considered and more complex

Millennials like myself think in binary terms about privacy; public or private; publish or conceal

Two-thirds (64%) worry about what future employers and parents might think of their social media posts.

combat this threat through a combination concealment and compartmentalisation

prefer to use an Avatar on social media rather than their real identity (65%).

more are seeking safe spaces with tightly a curated and controlled community