Digital Literacy

Children are spending increasing amounts of time online and at younger and younger ages. This group of projects studies how young children think about the digital world. Most of our current projects focus on children's reasoning about their digital rights. We are interested in understanding how their thinking about the physical world and physical rights might shape their representations of their rights online. We also have work looking at the value of digital assets (e.g., items created in Minecraft) to young children.

Current Projects

Information Ownership and Digital Rights

While online, children often share their information with apps and games. This group of project examines whether children think they own the information they share with apps and what rights they think they hold over this information after they share it. For example, one project asks whether children think that people own their personal information (e.g., name, address) as compared to general information (e.g., people have names).

The Value of Digital Possessions

Not all possessions are equally meaningful to children: Some possessions are special. This group of projects examines the value of possessions that children create while online. For example, in one project we ask whether children view possessions created in Minecraft with a friend as more special than those created alone. The goal of this line of work is to better understand the role of digital possessions, and related media, in children’s social lives and relationships. Keiana Price our graduate student is leading this line of work.

Learn more

Want to read more about digital ownership? Check out these recent papers and presentations:

Price, K., DeJesus, J. M., & Nancekivell, S. E. (2024). She made it with her friend: How social object history influences children’s thinking about the value of digital objects. Child Development. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14093

Nancekivell, S.E. & Fahey, J. (2022). Who owns your information? Young children’s judgments of who owns the general and personal information users share with apps. In J. Culberston, A. Perfors, H. Rabagliati, & V. Ramenzoni (Eds.), Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.