Ulrike Uhlig: How do kids conceive the internet? - part 4
The boy and the aliens
(I ll be mostly transribing the interview, which was short, and which I
find difficult to sum up because some of the questions are written
in a way to encourage the kids to tell a story, and this particular kid
had a thing going on with aliens.)
He s a 13 year old boy living in the US. He has his own computer, which
technically belongs to his school but can be used by him freely and he
can also take it home.
He s the first kid saying he s reading the news on the internet; he does
not actually use social media, besides sometimes watching TikTok.
When asked: Imagine that aliens land and come to you and say: We ve
heard about this internet thing you all talk about, what is it? What do
you tell them? he replied:
Well, I mean they re aliens, so I don t know if I wanna tell them
much.
(Parents laughing in the background.)
Let s assume they re friendly aliens.
Well, I would say you can look anything up and play different games.
And there are alien games. But mostly the enemies are aliens which you
might be a little offended by. And you can get work done, if you
needed to spy on humans. There s cameras, you can film yourself, yeah.
And you can text people and call people who are far away
And what would be in a drawing that would explain the internet?
And here s what he explains about his drawing:
First, I would draw what I see when you open a new tab, Google.
On the right side of the drawing we see something like Twitch.
I don t wanna offend the aliens, but you can film yourself playing a
game, so here is the alien and he s playing a game.
And then you can ask questions like: How did aliens come to the Earth? And
the answer will be here (below). And there ll be different websites
that you can click on.
And you can also look up Who won the alien contest? And that would
be Usmushgagu, and that guy won the alien contest.
Do you think the information about alien intergalactic football is
already on the internet?
Yeah! That s how fast the internet is.
On the bottom of the drawing we see an iPhone and an instant messaging software.
There s also a device called an iPhone and with it you can text your
friends. So here s the alien asking: How was ur day? and the friend
might answer IDK [I don t know].
Imagine that a wise and friendly dragon could teach you one thing about
the internet that you ve always wanted to know. What would you ask the
dragon to teach you about?
Is there a way you don t have to pay for any channels or subscriptions
and you can get through any firewall?
Imagine you could make the internet better for everyone. What would you do first?
Well you wouldn t have to pay for it [paywalls].
Can you describe what happens between your device and a website when you
visit a website?
Well, it takes 0.025 seconds. [ ] It s connecting.
Wow, that s indeed fast! We were not able to obtain more details about
what is that fast thing that s happening exactly
The software engineer s kid
This kid identifies as neither boy nor girl, is 10 years old and lives
in Germany. Their father works as a software engineer, or in the words
of the child:
My dad knows everything.
The kid has a laptop and a mobile phone, both with parental
control they don t think that the controlling is fair.
This kid uses the internet foremostly for listening to music and
watching prank channels on Youtube but also to work with Purple Mash (a
teaching platform for the computing curriculum used at their school),
finding 3d printing models (that they ask their father to print with
them because they did not manage to use the printer by themselves yet).
Interestingly, and very differently from the non-tech-parent kids, this
kid insists on using Firefox and Signal - the latter is not only used by
their dad to tell them to come downstairs for dinner, but also to call
their grandmother. This kid also shops online, with the help of the
father who does the actual shopping for them using money that the kid
earned by reading books.
If you would need to explain to an alien who has landed on Earth what
the internet is, what would you tell them?
The internet is something where you search, for example, you can look
for music. You can also watch videos from around the world, and you
can program stuff.
Like most of the kids interviewed, this kid uses the internet mostly for
media consumption, but with the difference that they also engage with
technology by way of programming using Purple Mash.
In their drawing we see a Youtube prank channel on a screen, an external
trackpad on the right (likely it s not a touch screen), and headphones.
Notice how there is no keyboard, or maybe it s folded away.
If you could ask a nice and friendly dragon anything you d like to
learn about the internet, what would it be?
How do I shutdown my dad s computer forever?
And what is it that he would do to improve the internet for
everyone?
Contrary to the kid living in the US, they think that
It takes too much time to load stuff!
I wonder if this kid experiences the internet as being slow because they use
the mobile network or because their connection somehow gets throttled as a
way to control media consumption, or if the German internet
infrastructure is just so much worse in certain regions
If you could improve the internet for everyone, what would you do
first?
I d make a new Firefox app that loads the internet much faster.
The software engineer s daughter
This girl is only 8 years old, she hates unicorns, and her dad is also a
software engineer. She uses a smartphone, controlled by her parents. My
impression of the interview is that at this age, kids slightly mix up
the internet with the devices that they use to access the internet.
In her drawing, we see again Google - it s clearly everywhere - and also
the interfaces for calling and texting someone.
To explain what the internet is, besides the fact that one
can use it for calling and listening to music, she says:
[The internet] is something that you can [use to] see someone who is
far away, so that you don t need to take time to get to them.
Now, that s a great explanation, the internet providing the possibility
for communication over a distance :)
If she could ask a friendly dragon something she always wanted to know,
she d ask how to make her phone come alive:
that it can talk to you, that it can see you, that it can smile and
has eyes. It s like a new family member, you can talk to it.
Sounds a bit like Siri, Alexa, or Furby, doesn t it?
If you could improve the internet for everyone, what would you do
first?
She d have the phone be able to decide over her free time, her phone
time. That would make the world better, not for the kids, but certainly
for the parents.
The antifascist kid
This German boy s dad has a background in electrotechnical engineering.
He s 10 years old and he told me he s using the internet a lot for
searching things for example about his passion: the firefighters. For
him, the internet is:
An invisible world. A virtual world. But there s also the darknet.
He told me he always watches that German show on public TV for kids that
explains stuff: Checker Tobi. (In 2014, Checker Tobi actually produced an episode about the
internet, which I d criticize for having only male characters,
except for one female character: a secretary Google, a nice and
friendly woman guiding the way through the huge library that s the
internet )
This kid was the only one interviewed who managed to actually explain
something about the internet, or rather about the hypertextual structure
of the web. When I asked him to draw the internet, he made a drawing of
a pin board. He explained:
Many items are attached to the pin board, and on the top left corner
there s a computer, for example with Youtube and one can navigate like
that between all the items, and start again from the beginning when
done.
When I asked if he knew what actually happens between the device and a
website he visits, he put forth the hypothesis of the existence of some
kind of
Waves, internet waves - all this stuff somehow needs to be transmitted.
What he d like to learn:
How to get into the darknet? How do you become a Whitehat? I ve heard
these words on the internet, the internet makes me clever.
And what would he change on the internet if he could?
I want that right wing extreme stuff is not accessible anymore, or
at least, that it rains turds ( Kackw rste ) whenever people watch
such stuff. Or that people are always told: This video is scum.
I suspect that his father has been talking with him about these things,
and maybe these are also subjects he heard about when listening to punk
music (he told me he does), or browsing Youtube.
Future projects
To me this has been pretty insightful. I might share some more internet
drawings by adults in the future, which I think are also really
interesting, as they show very different things depending on the age of
the person.
I ve been using the information gathered to work on a children s
book which I hope to be able to share with you next year.
My dad knows everything.The kid has a laptop and a mobile phone, both with parental control they don t think that the controlling is fair. This kid uses the internet foremostly for listening to music and watching prank channels on Youtube but also to work with Purple Mash (a teaching platform for the computing curriculum used at their school), finding 3d printing models (that they ask their father to print with them because they did not manage to use the printer by themselves yet). Interestingly, and very differently from the non-tech-parent kids, this kid insists on using Firefox and Signal - the latter is not only used by their dad to tell them to come downstairs for dinner, but also to call their grandmother. This kid also shops online, with the help of the father who does the actual shopping for them using money that the kid earned by reading books. If you would need to explain to an alien who has landed on Earth what the internet is, what would you tell them?
The internet is something where you search, for example, you can look for music. You can also watch videos from around the world, and you can program stuff.Like most of the kids interviewed, this kid uses the internet mostly for media consumption, but with the difference that they also engage with technology by way of programming using Purple Mash. In their drawing we see a Youtube prank channel on a screen, an external trackpad on the right (likely it s not a touch screen), and headphones. Notice how there is no keyboard, or maybe it s folded away. If you could ask a nice and friendly dragon anything you d like to learn about the internet, what would it be?
How do I shutdown my dad s computer forever?And what is it that he would do to improve the internet for everyone? Contrary to the kid living in the US, they think that
It takes too much time to load stuff!I wonder if this kid experiences the internet as being slow because they use the mobile network or because their connection somehow gets throttled as a way to control media consumption, or if the German internet infrastructure is just so much worse in certain regions If you could improve the internet for everyone, what would you do first? I d make a new Firefox app that loads the internet much faster.
The software engineer s daughter
This girl is only 8 years old, she hates unicorns, and her dad is also a
software engineer. She uses a smartphone, controlled by her parents. My
impression of the interview is that at this age, kids slightly mix up
the internet with the devices that they use to access the internet.
In her drawing, we see again Google - it s clearly everywhere - and also
the interfaces for calling and texting someone.
To explain what the internet is, besides the fact that one
can use it for calling and listening to music, she says:
[The internet] is something that you can [use to] see someone who is
far away, so that you don t need to take time to get to them.
Now, that s a great explanation, the internet providing the possibility
for communication over a distance :)
If she could ask a friendly dragon something she always wanted to know,
she d ask how to make her phone come alive:
that it can talk to you, that it can see you, that it can smile and
has eyes. It s like a new family member, you can talk to it.
Sounds a bit like Siri, Alexa, or Furby, doesn t it?
If you could improve the internet for everyone, what would you do
first?
She d have the phone be able to decide over her free time, her phone
time. That would make the world better, not for the kids, but certainly
for the parents.
The antifascist kid
This German boy s dad has a background in electrotechnical engineering.
He s 10 years old and he told me he s using the internet a lot for
searching things for example about his passion: the firefighters. For
him, the internet is:
An invisible world. A virtual world. But there s also the darknet.
He told me he always watches that German show on public TV for kids that
explains stuff: Checker Tobi. (In 2014, Checker Tobi actually produced an episode about the
internet, which I d criticize for having only male characters,
except for one female character: a secretary Google, a nice and
friendly woman guiding the way through the huge library that s the
internet )
This kid was the only one interviewed who managed to actually explain
something about the internet, or rather about the hypertextual structure
of the web. When I asked him to draw the internet, he made a drawing of
a pin board. He explained:
Many items are attached to the pin board, and on the top left corner
there s a computer, for example with Youtube and one can navigate like
that between all the items, and start again from the beginning when
done.
When I asked if he knew what actually happens between the device and a
website he visits, he put forth the hypothesis of the existence of some
kind of
Waves, internet waves - all this stuff somehow needs to be transmitted.
What he d like to learn:
How to get into the darknet? How do you become a Whitehat? I ve heard
these words on the internet, the internet makes me clever.
And what would he change on the internet if he could?
I want that right wing extreme stuff is not accessible anymore, or
at least, that it rains turds ( Kackw rste ) whenever people watch
such stuff. Or that people are always told: This video is scum.
I suspect that his father has been talking with him about these things,
and maybe these are also subjects he heard about when listening to punk
music (he told me he does), or browsing Youtube.
Future projects
To me this has been pretty insightful. I might share some more internet
drawings by adults in the future, which I think are also really
interesting, as they show very different things depending on the age of
the person.
I ve been using the information gathered to work on a children s
book which I hope to be able to share with you next year.
An invisible world. A virtual world. But there s also the darknet.He told me he always watches that German show on public TV for kids that explains stuff: Checker Tobi. (In 2014, Checker Tobi actually produced an episode about the internet, which I d criticize for having only male characters, except for one female character: a secretary Google, a nice and friendly woman guiding the way through the huge library that s the internet ) This kid was the only one interviewed who managed to actually explain something about the internet, or rather about the hypertextual structure of the web. When I asked him to draw the internet, he made a drawing of a pin board. He explained:
Many items are attached to the pin board, and on the top left corner there s a computer, for example with Youtube and one can navigate like that between all the items, and start again from the beginning when done.When I asked if he knew what actually happens between the device and a website he visits, he put forth the hypothesis of the existence of some kind of
Waves, internet waves - all this stuff somehow needs to be transmitted.What he d like to learn:
How to get into the darknet? How do you become a Whitehat? I ve heard these words on the internet, the internet makes me clever.And what would he change on the internet if he could?
I want that right wing extreme stuff is not accessible anymore, or at least, that it rains turds ( Kackw rste ) whenever people watch such stuff. Or that people are always told: This video is scum.I suspect that his father has been talking with him about these things, and maybe these are also subjects he heard about when listening to punk music (he told me he does), or browsing Youtube.