American Public Media’s “Future Tense” program featured IEF Executive Director Tim Lordan in a segment called “Americans more comfortable when kids go online” on April 16, 2008. The segment discussed changing attitudes toward kids’ using social networking sites. An MP3 of the segment can be downloaded here. Future Tense is hosted by Jon Gordon and is aired throughout the United States and Canada.

Zogby/463 Nationwide Survey Exposes Americans’ Concern Over Kids’ Use of Technology Rapidly Evolving

Washington, DC, March 31, 2008 – A new nationwide survey shows that Americans have a growing comfort level with young people using Internet technologies such as social networking sites, chat rooms and email. The survey – conducted by Zogby International on behalf of the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee and 463 Communications – still shows large numbers of Americans concerned about the online activity of young people but those views are rapidly changing.

The survey compares results to a similar study conducted last year for the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee. In the 2008 survey, 27.7 percent of Americans said that social networking sites and chat rooms should be restricted to adults. Yet this was a dramatic decline from an identical 2007 survey in which 35.3 percent said that only adults should participate in social networking and chat sites. In contrast, seniors over age 70 still feel strongly concerned regarding social networking sites. The percentage of seniors who believed that children should wait until their adult years before chatting and social networking actually increased from 34.6 percent in 2007 to 38.3 percent in 2008.

More results from the surveys:

* The percentage of Americans who thought children should not have access to email until they were adults dropped from a sizable 14.7 percent in 2007 to an almost negligible 2.4 percent in 2008.

* The percentage of those who thought that children should wait until adulthood before surfing the Web dropped from 17.4 percent in 2007 to 4.2 percent in 2008.

“The survey results suggest that Americans are increasingly accepting greater use of new online technologies by our young people,” said Tim Lordan, executive director. “Yet the survey shows that it may take some time for many Americans to become comfortable with how kids are social networking and chatting.”

Despite an evolving comfort level with youth use of the Internet, the survey revealed significant concerns with social networking technologies. For instance, a significant majority of those surveyed, 63.2 percent, believed that children under 16 years old should not have use social networking sites and chat rooms. In contrast most of the major social networking sites today prohibit users less than 14 years old.

The 2008 Zogby poll surveyed 3,585 adults and was conducted from January 21-23. It has a margin of error of +/- 1.7 percent. The 2007 Zogby poll surveyed 1,200 adults and was conducted from January 24-26. It has a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percent. 463 Communications helped conceive and develop the survey.

About the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee: The Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee (ICAC) is a diverse group of public interest, non-profit and industry groups working to educate the Congress and the public about important Internet-related policy issues. The ICAC is a project of the Internet Education Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) charitable organization. http://www.netcaucus.org/

More about Zogby International can be found at http://www.zogby.com/

More about 463 Communications can be found at http://www.463.com/

For more information, contact: Tim Lordan, 202-638-4370 ext 323, tlordan@netcaucus.org

Today the Internet Education Foundation declined an invitation to participate in a “task force” effort resulting from the “Joint Statement on Key Principles of Social Networking Safety” announced in January 2008 by MySpace and the Attorneys General Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking.

Our reasons for deciding not to participate are two fold. First, the Internet Education Foundation, as its name suggests, is generally focused on Internet safety education and we believe our time is best spent toward that charter. Over the next year our Internet safety workload — both through the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee (CICAC) and through GetNetWise — is enormous. Our stakeholders are urging us to host Internet safety policy events in Washington and continue the educational work of GetNetWise.org.

Second, we feel very strongly the work of the task force is far too important to be hampered by task force participants that are age verification technology vendors.  From the outset we expressed our concern with financial interests of vendors clouding the sober judgment of this important work. That should be a cornerstone principle for the task force and we hope that it reconsiders that principle. We also hope that the process will be open and transparent, much like the work of the COPA Commission.

The work of this task force is important and will require significant research. We recognize that the results of the task force’s work could have serious repercussions for online safety. We sincerely hope that the task force will be able to conduct its research in a civil and sober manner, while recognizing the short timeline before the report is required.