Digital
Kids: The New On-line Children’s Consumer Culture
by: Kathryn C. Montgomery
In the well written article, “Digital Kids”, by
Kathryn Montgomery, she
goes on to explain the up hill battles with the ever so expanding World
Wide Web (WWW) and our children. She touches upon several different
aspects of how the internet is and will affect our present and future
youth. Granted, Montgomery gives excellent reasons for how bad the
internet can be, but she also gives some good points on how the
internet can also be good for our children.
In most of the article, Montgomery is connecting how the internet and
advertising is defining a “new children’s digital media culture.” She
believes that this is taking place because of three reasons a. more
technologies available in American homes, 2. the increase in youth
population, and 3. youth being considered a target marketing arena. She
also believes that TV shows are working to produce more interactive
websites to invite children to explore and entertain themselves with
their engaging and fun activities only available through the internet.
Montgomery goes on to develop sub-categories that “outline the key
features” of the children’s digital media era.
Montgomery’s first sub-category discusses issues about the Digital
Revolution and how the growth of new technologies are “not only
tranforming the media system but also the entire economy.” In this
sub-category, she compares how TV and newpapers convey “communication,
marketing, retailing, and cultural medium” to how the WWW will soon
will convey the same message.
“Digital Kids”, the second sub-category, talks about our computer savvy
generation is spending more time in front of computer screens and how
advertisers are taking advantage this opportunity. With kids and teens
spending more time in front of computer screens, advertisers are making
ads more kid-friendly to entice them to surf their website and spend
money. According to Montgomery, kids and teens “are now responsible for
shopping decisions that used to be strictly the domain of parents.” She
used this statistic in the article, “In 1998, teens spent $141 billion
of their own money in the retain market” (Anderson, 1999). With all
that money being spent, children and teen concentrated businesses are
seeking out companies to study the “youth market”. Most of these
companies that are studying the “youth market” are cashing in as well,
on “offering seminars, conferences, and trade shows” because of the
high demand and the possible high profit of marketing to youth.
In the next sub-category, The Digital Marketing Paradigm, Montgomery
outlines five “basic principles of digital marketing” with main
concentration on marketing to children. First is, “One to One” which
explains how advertisers are trying to make marketing to children a
more personal and “intimate” experience. They have several techniques
to grab kid’s attention to supply their information, such as “games,
surveys, discounts, and prizes” or they can track how many times kids
access an advertisment site, with “cookies”. Eventually, Congress
passes the Children’s On-line Privacy Protection Act in 1998, to
protect kids from supplying personal information without parental
consent. Montgomery goes on to explain that advertisers have found loop
holes, to where kids can subcribe to “newsletters” without supplying
personal information, and she believes advertisers will continue to
find other means to market to kids. Integration of Advertising and
Content, is concerned with the “blending” of content with advertising.
Advertisers are incorporating more content driven information into
these websites. Branded Environments discusses the impact of brand-name
products being more readily available on the internet for kids. Where
kids will have more of a preference to buy brand-name items, rather
than no name products. On-line Selling/E-commerce concentrates on the
fact that kids and teens are having more of a responsiblity over their
spending on the internet. Montgomery has stated that many new companies
are popping up to encourage youth on-line spending by allowing parents
to fill their “digital wallets”. Also these companies are also offering
some educational counseling in money responsibility if they choose
them. Interactive Product Placement introduces the idea of using old
advertising methods combined with new product advertisment methods.
Before old ads would “pitch” products and now advertisers try to “make
them think they found it on their own”.
Promise and Peril in the Digital Marketplace, is another sub-category,
suggests that commerical websites are dominating the kids time on the
WWW and taking away from the non-commerical sites, which will
eventually make it harder to find. Also the idea of pay a fee for
ad-free surfing and montoring is introduced, but also debated because
if the price increases only “rich” families will only be able to afford
such luxury for their kids.
Need for Safeguards talks about developing a secure safety net for
kids, so that they are “treated fairly by marketers and advertisers.”
These safety nets must be established now, “before the most abusive
practices become not only firmly entrenched but also profitable and
therefore very difficult to change.”
Research Agenda is concerned about how the impact of the WWW and
advertisments have yet to be studied, they are more focused on “ the
effectiveness of advertising rather than assessing its social and
behavorial impact.”
Finally, the last sub-category, The Future of Digital Media: Need for
Debate touches upon how WWW can “doubtlessly continue to be the primary
sources of a child’s civic education.” Montgomery also states what is
needed to be done to create a better Internet environment.
Critique
1. In Montgomery’s article she talks about five Digital Marketing
Paradigms. The one that I find the most interesting is the Branded
Enviornments paradigm. I feel that this particular paradigm has “been
woven into the fabric of children’s online culture” in an extreme way.
Today, kids are surfing the internet, not only for games and chatting
with their friends, but they are researching the trendy clothes or the
article of clothing their icon wore to the MTV Music Awards. Kids today
have to have the trendiest clothing to, despite the enormus price, to
feel good about themselves and look good to their friends. I feel brand
name clothing is overrated and way too expensive for my taste, you can
still find similar trendy clothing in Wal-mart, but no one wants to say
they bought it from that store. I feel that is has impacted our youth
of today because they are more concerned with the outfit they are going
to wear the next day instead of finishing their school work. It is also
evident with more and more school adopting a school uniform policy, due
to the fact that kids are fighting over the most cherished clothes. Not
to mention that the trendy clothing for females are following the trend
of getting tighter and shorter, hence another reason for instating
uniforms or dress code policies.
Another paradigm I can closely relate to is the On-line Selling/
E-commerce. I find that I am buying alot more products on-line rather
than in store. First is it faster, so I do not have to search around
for a particular thing and second, it is sometimes cheaper. I also find
that I tend not to carry as much cash on me as I did when I was
younger. Although I was never preliedged as some kids today that have
their own credit cards at the age of 14. At that age I was still
shopping with my mother and she made most of the purchasing decisions.
I feel that kids today do tend to conduct much more on-line product
researching and buying. More and more kids are wanting to buy specific
items that cannot be found in stores, so they need to purchase it
on-line and have it shipped, such as a customized skateboard. I think
buying products on-line will increase the the probablity of “binge”
buying if they do have free reign of personal credit cards. Students
that have this luxury will buy the more expensive items where as
students that cannot, will “stick out like a sore thumb” or will not be
in that group of friends.
2. I think the key elements Montgomery adresses in her article are
advertisers and companies targeting our children. Advertisers are
trying to market to kids for three reasons 1. “kids are increasing
their spending power” 2. the population of kids and teens has increased
3. the increased amount of technologies in the home that kids have
access to. Of course marketers will try to display specific
advertisments geared to kids. These marketers are cashing in on our
kids, they are making money not only from their products, but also
teaching how they advertise to kids today through conferences and trade
shows.
Montgomery feels the need for safeguards and the research impact on
kids. She finds that safeguards are needed to protect our kids from
websites that ask kids to supply their personal information. I think
she is absoutly correct, we do need to protect them from advertisers,
otherwise our economy will drastically change. I think with the COPPA
Law being passed in 1998, has put a decent damper on marketers, but
they will and have found loop holes. I think that if we work together
and recognize that it is a problem we can lobby for more rules and
regulations to be put in place. Montgomery also feels that if we try to
have an ad-ware program in place it can also prevent those nasty
“pop-ups” from displaying on the screen.
Montgomery also feels that research needs to be done to assess the
“social and behavioral impact” on our kids. She believes that experts
should be researching this to develop and idea on how much the “digital
media culture” has impacted our youth and also develop more ideas on
how to combat it.
3. I think we first need to research the impact of how much the new
marketing culture has affected our youth. I then think will the
research we can then begin to develop and foster the idea of healthy
citizens. I also think that our selves as educators need to learn about
this possibly problem at hand, but today most school district have
acquired blocks for their servers, so advertisments do not show up or
at least minimalized. I also think that we need to educate our students
that there is much more out on the internet than just buying clothes
and products. We need to use the internet for research and other
various school projects, to show the students. As stated in the
article, “learning skills are at their peak” and why not take advantage
and educate them