Developing Digital Privacy: Children's Moral Judgments Concerning Mobile GPS Devices

New technology poses new moral problems for children to consider. We examined whether children deem object tracking with a mobile GPS device to be a property right. In three experiments, 329 children (4–10 years) and adults were asked whether it is acceptable to track the location of either one'...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Child development 2018-01, Vol.89 (1), p.17-26
Main Authors: Gelman, Susan A., Davidson, Natalie S., Martinez, Megan, Noles, Nicholaus S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adults
Child
Child development
Child Development - physiology
Child, Preschool
Children
Digital technology
Female
Humans
Judgment - physiology
Male
Moral dilemmas
Moral judgment
Morality
Morals
New technology
Owners
Privacy
Property
SPECIAL SECTION: CONTEMPORARY MOBILE TECHNOLOGY AND CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
Telecommunications - ethics
Telecommunications - trends
Tracking
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:New technology poses new moral problems for children to consider. We examined whether children deem object tracking with a mobile GPS device to be a property right. In three experiments, 329 children (4–10 years) and adults were asked whether it is acceptable to track the location of either one's own or another person's possessions using a mobile GPS device. Young children, like adults, viewed object tracking as relatively more acceptable for owners than nonowners. However, whereas adults expressed negative evaluations of someone tracking another person's possessions, young children expressed positive evaluations of this behavior. These divergent moral judgments of digital tracking at different ages have profound implications for how concepts of digital privacy develop and for the digital security of children.
ISSN:0009-3920
1467-8624
DOI:10.1111/cdev.12826