A guide to the eight virtual spaces most used by young people

Among the consequences of this pandemic, there is a greater time spent in front of screens and on the internet for everyone, also children and kids. During the long lockdown in spring, also the youngest people found in modern technologies a way, often the only one, to maintain connections and relationships, educational and instructional, but friendships too.

Then social life, with new rules and limitations, sometimes very strict and sometimes less rigorous, but however significant. Has the habit of communicate through the screens decreased? We can’t say, not always, surely not for the kids forced again to use distance learning, but neither for the children. So, which are, aside from E-learning, the virtual spaces most used by young people?

The answer is given by the doctors of the paediatric hospital Bambino Gesù, in Rome. They talked in the last issue of the magazine A scuola di Salute about how technology has changed children’s life in the recent months. Among the information, there is also a list with the 8 social networks and video games most used by children and kids: a guide with the goal to make parents and teachers more informed about rules and characteristics of the virtual environment attended by their sons.

Here the information most significant for each social: from the most known Instagram, TikTok and Fortnite to the least known (at least to the adults) Discord and Tellonym.

INSTAGRAM

It’s one of the most loved social networks, by adults and also young people. It allows the publication of photos, videos and stories of maximum 15 seconds. Interaction with photos and videos happens through likes and comments, while stories are visible for 24 hours, to which you can answer with private messages. Chats can be private or in group.

TIKTOK

It is currently the most popular social network among the teenagers.

It not allows posting, but also creating short videos, editing them, cutting them, inserting effects or soundtracks.

Likes and reactions to the videos help to create a “following” for each account.

Tiktok automatically proposes to every user the most popular videos or the most similar to the ones already watched and interacted before.

REELS

It is a new Instagram feature that allows to create original videos (15-30 seconds) with music or effects similar to the Tiktok ones.

FORTNITE

Online videogame in which you can play together – or against – other people, individually or in team, on a virtual island. The player, or the team, that stays alive, wins.

The game has three modes: “Save The World,” “Creative” and “Battle Royale.”

The chat allows players to communicate between themselves.

Every player can customize their character buying new cosmetics and skins.

The game’s “parental control” allows parents to manage and control communications, privacy and game times.

TELLONYM

Extremely popular social network among the youngest people, here you can send messages, also in an anonymous way, with the declared aim to encourage questions that would not have been ask otherwise.

The answers can also be anonymous.

TWITCH

It is a livestream platform accessible with a desktop App or console and it is especially used to show our own game session in live coverage. Other than posting and watching the livestreams, users can participate in communities.

Streamers (that post the livestreams) entertain the users, who can choose to became followers, chatting between them or even subscribing or supporting streamers with donations.

DISCORD

It is a communication platform, which is used to create or manage online communities, creating virtual rooms where you can communicate live, by writing or activating your own video camera.

YOUTUBE KIDS

This is a YouTube app with content suitable for children, much of it educational and divided into age groups.

Parental control in the settings allows parents to set a time limit.

 

Translated by Bocse Adriana, Guarneri Sarah, Perinelli Giorgia and Villa Michela

Reviewed by Prof. Robert Clarke