Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 15:29:24 -0500 From: BITNET list server at NDSUVM1 (1.7f) Subject: File: "KIDPLAN RESRCH02" To: Odd de Presno Status: R I am posting this with the kind permission of Larry Sherman. --Dan Wheeler Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 11:13:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Larry Sherman Subject: kidcafe senior project To: Dan Wheeler Dear Dan: Just thought you might be interested in this paper which Lisa Fuller accomplished during the Spring, 1993 semester. She wanted to study KIDCAFE messages in a similar way as Kathleen Michel's Master's Thesis last year. Lisa graduated last week with a B.A. majoring in Psychology in the Division of Arts and Sciences. Her paper was an Undergraduate Directed Study Project. Best Regards, Larry Sherman, 19 May, 1993 SELF PRESENTATION THROUGH COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION: A SENIOR UNDERGRADUATE DIRECTED STUDY PROJECT. Copyright (c) 1993 Lisa Fuller All Rights Reserved Lisa Fuller, Senior Undergraduate Student, Department of Psychology, under the direction of Larry Sherman, Professor, Department of Educational Psychology Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056, E-mail: LS8CEDPF @ MIAMIU.BITNET. It is interesting to look at children's writings to see what things are important to them. I have been studying children, ages ten to fifteen, to see how they express themselves to their peers through letters, on a computer-linked system called KIDCAFE (Warrick, 1992; Wheeler, 1993). I have found some intriguing things about young people throughout the world. The letters are written by children from the U.S., Germany, Italy, Thailand, Denmark, Canada, and Switzerland. They have a real interest in getting to know and understand other people all over the world. First, I wanted to know what children felt compelled to talk about or present in their letters/dialogues. After reading many letters, I chose several topics which I felt were commonly present in most of the children's letters. My sample size was 100 selected letters from a pool of several thousand [from January 20, 1993 to March 12, 1993]. The following categories are not mutually exclusive. The codes are binary in nature: the absence or presence of a category was expressed in the following descriptions: SCHOOL: A school category refers to the child's reference to his or her school, grade or level, teacher, or academic subjects. APPEARANCE: An appearance category refers to the mention of his or her physical appearance- height, weight, hair or eye color, etc. FAMILY: A family category refers to a mention of "family" or parents. HOBBIES: A hobbies category is any mention of what the child does, like sports, leisure activities, or projects. SIBLINGS: A siblings category means referring to his or her brothers or sisters in any way. MUSIC: A music category is any reference to the music groups he/she listens to, a favorite group or artist, a favorite type of music, or any specific group or song. PETS: A pet category refers to a mention of pets he/she currently or previously owned or would like to own. LIKES/DISLIKES: A likes/dislikes category is a specific mention of anything he/she "likes" or "loves" doing, etc. The child must say "I like...", "I enjoy...", or "My favorite..." PART I. For this first sample of subjects, as can be seen in Table I, it was found that 54% mentioned school; 14% of the children spoke of their appearance; 17% referred to their family; 53% mentioned hobbies; 32% spoke of their siblings; 23% mentioned music; 25% made a reference to pets; and 52% spoke of likes/dislikes. More specifically, this sample of young people portrayed themselves in terms of the important things in their lives. Through their communication with their peers they attempted to express ideas and give information that they felt was relevant and meaningful. Within the school category, the most relevant information was first, the name of their school, then grade level, then their favorite school subjects, and their teachers. _______________________________________________________________ TABLE I % OF LETTERS CONTAINING THIS CATEGORY _______________________________________________________________ 1) SCHOOL 54 2) APPEARANCE 14 3) FAMILY 17 4) HOBBIES 53 5) SIBLINGS 32 6) MUSIC 23 7) PETS 25 8) LIKES/DISLIKES 52 _________________________________________________________________ EXAMPLES: My name is (name omitted) and I am 13 years old. I go to Carver Middle School in Los Angeles, California. My favorite subject in school is music. (etc.) Hi! My name is Cori. I'm 13 years old. I live in Kingsville, TX. I'm an eighth grade at Ricardo School.(etc.) The appearance category details that were presented were hair and eye color, height, and weight. Many individuals seemed to want to describe themselves so that they were more REAL to the others reading their letters. EXAMPLES: Hi! We are two girls who live in Huntsville, Alabama. We like basketball and cheerleading and music. Our names are Alison and Kathy. Kathy is short and has 2 brothers and 3 sisters. She is on the cheerleading squad at Grace Lutheran School. She has short hair and brown eyes. Alison is tall and she's on the basketball team. (She doesn't play because she broke her foot). She has 2 sisters and no brothers. She goes to Grace also. She has long hair and it is black, brown, and red. (etc.) I'm an Italian boy and my name's Giulio but all call me ACE. I'm fourteen and I'm tall, I have the yallow hairs and the blu eyes. (etc.) Within the family category, the most relevant and important information was parents' occupation, parents' country of origin, and finally, parents' possessions. The person that he/she is, and his or her beliefs about who she/he is (self-concept) is affected by his or her family and that is portrayed in their letters. EXAMPLES: I am a 13 years old girl from Norway, and my name is (name omitted). I am in the 6th grade at Sande School. What grade are you in? My father is an engenieer, and my mother works home. (etc.) My name is (name omitted) and I am 12 yers old and I live in Norway. My mother and father come form Icland. (etc.) It was interesting to read all of the different hobbies individuals engaged in and chose to write about. Obviously, what these young people do and enjoy doing was important enough to be chosen and is a strong influence on personality and self-concept. The most popular details about hobbies were: recreational activities like dancing, reading, and fishing, sports, listening to music, and watching TV. Some individuals mentioned jobs, studying, and collecting things, like stamps. EXAMPLES: Hi (names omitted), we are two girls of thirteen. Our hobbies are: listening to music, playing volleyball and swimming. (etc.) Hi (name omitted)! I got your letter, Thanks! My hobbies are soccer and stamps. (etc.) Siblings were spoken about mostly in terms of number- how many brothers and/or sisters each had, the age of siblings, and other basic references to siblings. EXAMPLE: Hello, my name is (name omitted) and I'm 13 years old I'm kinda just getting into the new system. I live in Niceville, Florida and I go to Ruckel Middle School. I have three cats and two brothers. (etc.) Music was another key element in individuals' self- presentation. The person he/she is is shaped by preferences: favorite music groups or artists, followed by favorite songs. EXAMPLE: We are two girls from Norway! We are 13 and 12 years old, and our names are (names omitted). Our hobbies are horses, riding, animals, dancing, gymnastic, ballet, piano and music. Our idoles are Michael Jackson and Guns n Roses. (etc.) Pets were also mentioned quite a bit. The most relevant and important information was what pets they have (or don't have) and the name of their pets. EXAMPLE: Hello, my name is (name omitted), and I am almost 13 years old. I go in 6th grade at Sande school. I live in a small place in Norway. I have a cat and her name is Henrikke. (etc.) Likes and dislikes were expressed in terms of recreational activities: reading, listening to music or the radio, playing musical instruments, watching TV, movies, dancing, or traveling. The next most popular likes/dislikes were sports, music groups or artists, school subjects or studying, and animals. EXAMPLES: My name is (name omitted) and I live in China, Texas. My favorite colors are red and black. I like to collect shells and antigue heirlooms. (etc.) Hi! my name is (name omitted). I live in Atascadero, California. My English class is doing a project called e-mail, where we wright to other people. California is not like people say it is. It isn't sunny all the time, and it can get really cold sometimes. It doesn't rain as much as it should, so now we have to take little five minute showers. I like to listen to music, go to the mall , to to the movies, and bowl, I also like to ride horses. (etc.) PART II The second set of 95 subjects was divided into two groups: male (n= 33) and female (n=62). Their letters were studied to see if there existed any differences between the categories: school, appearance, family, hobbies, siblings, music, pets, and likes/dislikes. It was determined that some differences did exist. Table II shows the percentages of letters containing the various categories for females and males. In terms of more specific relevant and important information, there were differences between males and females. Within the school category, females spoke of their grade level (this was the most popular response), then the name of their school or school subjects, and then teachers (the least popular response). Males chose the name of the school and then the grade level as most important. In the appearance category, females spoke of their hair and/or eye color, the next popular response was height, and finally, weight. Males spoke of height, then hair/eye color, and lastly, weight. In terms of family, both females and males spoke of parents' occupations more often, then family in general. In terms of hobbies, females mentioned recreational hobbies, then sports, and finally music. Males chose sports most often, then recreation, and then music. TABLE II. PERCENTAGE OF CATEGORIES REPRESENTED IN CHILDREN'S (n=95) MESSAGES. (male n=33; female n=62) _________________________________________________________________ CATEGORIES FEMALES MALES X2(1)a P< _________________________________________________________________ SCHOOL 48 36 1.26 .27 APPEARANCE 32 30 .038 .84 FAMILY 21 24 .134 .71 HOBBIES 50 67 2.43 .12 SIBLINGS 21 18 .104 .74 MUSIC 21 33 1.74 .19 PETS 16 12 .275 .60 LIKES/DISLIKES 56 45 1.04 .31 _________________________________________________________________ aThis was a binary - presence/absence by gender contrast. Males and females both chose the number of siblings most often in the siblings category; the age of the siblings was the next important information. Males and females both chose the group or artist as the most relevant musical information and in the pets category, they both spoke mostly of what pets they have with the pets' names second. Interestingly, likes/dislikes was similar, too. Both males and females chose activities, then sports, and finally, animals as the most meaningful information to mention. There were some interesting differences between what males and females said they wanted to do as an occupation when they are adults: out of the larger sample, eight males responded: four wanted to be either a professional baseball, basketball, or football player. The other four wanted to be: a programmer, an animator for Disney, a sax player, and a policeman. Out of the larger sample, fourteen females responded to the question about occupation: eight females wanted to work in the medical field- either as a nurse, pediatrician, "doctor", dentist, or veterinarian. The others expressed an interest in pursuing careers as: an accountant, a teacher, an architect, an interpreter, a worker in the department of technology or math, and a detective. These young people also expressed concern for the world and ideas for how they would improve their environment, community, or the world in general. The most popular response from females was the pollution. They also wanted to stop animal abuse, wars, and crime. Males mentioned similar concerns about the environment, but they wanted to reduce the number of people smoking, as well as, stop gangs and drugs. Their concern for the problem of drugs was the most popular response. Some interesting research exists on communication between young people which was similar to my reseach on KIDCAFE dialogues. Tchudi (1987) did a study on children's writing as communication, writing for an audience. She gave the children a range of topics to choose from to write about: from personal experiences to more public issues. Interestingly, she found that both males' and females' writings were primarily about immediate experiences and feelings. This is similar to the individuals' dialogues in KIDCAFE. Every letter I studied included at least one- typically three or four references to, descriptions about, or expressions about personal, immediate experiences and activities. This is evidenced by the categories of subjects young people wrote about: school, appearance, family, hobbies, etc. This research about adolescents/young people's computer- mediated communication also supports the work of Camarena, Sarigiani, and Petersen (1990). They found that another way for boys to develop intimate friendships, other than self-disclosure, was through shared experiences and activities. Males' KIDCAFE dialogues are dominated by shared information about likes and dislikes, hobbies, and interests. They seek information from other adolescents about things they've done and the things they've experienced. Other research on computer-mediated communication found that social cues play a role in computer-mediated communications (Matheson, 1991). Matheson (1991) goes on to assert that gender cues are particularly important in computer-mediated communications, usually because names are exchanged between individuals. Thus, individuals may make decisions about and have expectations about individuals based on this information. My research supports this finding in that many of the subjects gave some information about gender (25% explicitly stated that they were boys or girls or female or male) and all of the subjects stated their names. Recent research by Michel (In Press) looked at boys' and girls' styles of communication based on theories by Tannen. The theories assert that girls use "rapport" type of communicating while boys use "report" style of communicating. "Rapport" talk is referring to friends, family, and attraction. "Report" talk is referring to activities, boasts, and object-oriented talk. She found that girls mentioned boyfriends, friends, appearance, and family more often than did boys. For example, she found that girls mentioned friends in 14% of letters, while boys did so in only 6% of the letters. She also found that the differences for "report" talk were not as large: 60% of boys mentioned activities, but 56% of girls did so as well. Interestingly, eight boys mentioned ownership of objects, but no girls did. This is some support for boys' use of "report" talk. Michel's reseach also revealed that girls talk to other girls and boys equally about relationships, but when talking to only boys, they discuss relationships 40% less. I also looked at the dialogues in terms of similarities and/or differences between letters of same sex individuals versus opposite sex dialogues. I looked at dialogues between two males (out of the larger sample, n= 5) and males and females (n= 7). I studied communication between two females (n= 16) and between females and males (n= 9). I specifically wanted to see if the content, tone, or questions changed significantly when an individual was communicating with another person of the same or opposite gender. The only significant difference I noted between two males versus a male communicating with a female was that two male dialogues contained information about government or the individual's country. The two male dialogues contained language about possessions more so than it seemed the two female dialogues did and the male-female dialogues. The two male dialogues also contained sentences containing boasts about things in the adolescent's life. The two female communications mentioned personal characteristics and feelings more so than did the other dialogues. All of the dialogues contained similar questions- about school, favorite music groups, and the weather. The dialogues I studied were similar for the most part. A larger sample taken at a different stage in the relationship formations might provide different information. Many of the dialogues I looked at were directed to anyone in general and gender specifics were not available. It was interesting to study young people's computer-mediated dialogues to see what they felt compelled to share with their peers. I believe that it is significant that adolescents and preadolescents choose certain topics to communicate about and the way they do this. I believe that a larger sample over a longer span of time would provide much more information about similarities as well as differences in age, gender, country of origin, and personality of the communicators in KIDCAFE. It is particularly interesting to see how KIDCAFE affects young people's conversation and written communication skills and techniques. I believe that young people have a great deal to say to their peers in other countries and they seem to have a great desire to learn from and read about other young people world- wide. It will be neat to see what develops. REFERENCES Camarena, P.M., Sarigiani, P.A., & Petersen, A.C. (1990). Gender- Specific pathways to intimacy in early adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 19 (1), 19-30. Matheson, K. (1991). Social cues in computer-mediated negotiations: Gender makes a difference. Computers in Human Behavior, 7, 137-145. Michel, K. (In Press). Conversation on-line: Girls' rapport talk and boys' report talk. (Spring, 1994). Tchudi, S. (1987). Writer to reader to self: The personal uses of writing. Language Arts, 64 (5), 489-495. Warrick, C. (1992). Computer is kid's ticket to global village. The Cincinnati Enquirer. January 5, 1992. Wheeler, D. (1993). KIDS-93, LISTSERV @ NDSUVM1 (BITNET). or LISTSERV @ VM1. NODAK.EDU (INTERNET).