Teens & ICT: risks and opportunities (TIRO) - new research by Belgian universities Is your teenager a forager, tribal blogger, ex-time blogster or Net babbler? Should you be worried if you have a free rider of the Chat, a club member, a player mercenary or a DOFUS fanatic?

New research carried out by TIRO gives a typology of teenagers and the risks and opportunities they might face in their use of the Internet.

It also goes on to  give recommendations under these headings:

• information literacy
• citizenship and internet etiquette (netiquette)
• judicial and/or repressive regulation
• parental implication, interest and inter-generation dialogue.
• ethical reflexion and reflex

About the TIRO project
In the framework of the Society & Future programme of the federal science policy, this research project is a co-operation between SMIT VUB, CITA & CRID FUNDP and OSC Universiteit Antwerpen.

The SMIT VUB and CITA FUNDP have closely followed 17 Dutch and 17 French speaking teenagers through in-depth interviews and a ‘hotline strategy’ or open line with the researchers. Apart from that the teens were asked to keep a time use diary of log in order to obtain insight in the embedding of the internet and GSM use in their every-day life.

There was also a survey carried out by the OSC Universiteit Antwerpen among 1318 adolescents aged 12 to 18 and 571 parents. In this survey teens and parents answered questions about their ICT use, about risks that teens are confronted with, but also about arrangements between the teens and their parents and about the way certain risks are dealt with. Moreover, there were 21 focus group discussions and 12 brain-storming sessions with teenagers, parents and teachers participating.

The legislation about teens and ICT was examined by the CRID FUNDP and recommendations were formulated for all the concerned stakeholders.

More information about the research sections can be found in the summaries.

You can download more information about the project here:

• Samenvatting Survey (NL) OSC UA: Cyberteens @ risk? Tieners verknocht aan internet, maar ook waakzaam voor risico's?
• Synthèse recherche qualitative (FR) CITA FUNDP: Des piplettes du net aux dofuïens… Une ‘tribu jeune’ aux profils contrastés
• Samenvatting qualitatief onderzoek (NL) SMIT VUB: Cyberteens: de betekenis van ICT in het dagelijkse leven van Belgische tieners
• Synthèse des recommendations (FR) CRID FUNDP: Les ados entre autonomie et responsabilité : vers une utilisation de qualité des TIC
• Summary Research Project