How Can Trust Increase Children′s Understanding of Privacy for 21st Century Learning Environment?

Abstract

In the digital world, privacy is one of the most important factors in establishing and building trust. Children involvement in digital media and internet is increasing particularly in embracing the 21st century learning environment. Concerns related to the intermediated role of trust can increase children’s understanding of privacy served as a critical research area to be investigated. Therefore, this study presents the findings from interview (26 pupils) and focus group session (10 focus group sessions involving 57 pupils) with children aged 9 to 11 years in Edinburgh, Scotland, and with eight volunteering parents to investigate their perceptions of trust in the online environment. The findings have shown how trust helped children to be ready to embrace the 21st century learning environment. Trust to children helped in increasing children’s autonomy, help in understanding the parental internet mediation styles, reducing parents’ worries and increase children’s privacy awareness.

1. Introduction

The global economy, with its rising businesses and occupations, offers enormous opportunity to everyone who possesses the necessary abilities. The information, knowledge, and innovation-driven service economy has overtaken the industrial economy and transformed enterprises and workplaces. Advanced economies, innovative industries and firms, and high-growth jobs increasingly reward individuals who can adapt to and contribute to organisations, products, and processes with the communications, problem-solving, and critical-thinking skills that allow them to personalise their work and respond to organisational expectations. People who possess 21st-century skills are able to continue learning and adapt to change. Skills of the 21st century are the key to climbing the economic ladder. People without 21st-century abilities are forced to low-skill, low-paying jobs [1].

This changes the way children learn, where it requires a new set of abilities to navigate the challenging and ever-changing world as 21st centuries demand the use of technologies to advance. 21st centuries learning encourages the growth of digital literacy skills while also promoting inclusion. Learning in 21st century introduces students and teachers to new online communities located all over the world. To face all this, it has been argued that children need to be well versed with the critical attributes of 21st century education, which are the 6Cs: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, citizenship/culture and character education/connectivity [2,3].

Communication today is instantaneous with the help of, for example social media, livestream, online chat, blogs and other technologies. Digital media have many effects on how children and teens socialise, learn about other cultures, and grow up. The “digitization” of children’s lives, the term used by Supa and Trültzsch-Wijnen [4] refers to the situation where they children are born into environments penetrated with digital media. Privacy and trust are all concepts that have been shifted in significance because of this digitalization processes. For example, before 21st centuries, children’s offline privacy (a state of disconnection or real physical space, e.g., at home and at school) were not being discussed as much as their privacy on the online environment (states of connectivity or being in virtual or Internet space) today.

According to recent research by the C.S Mott Children’s Hospital [5], there is an increase of children as young as 7–9 years old on the use of social media. Many parents were worried about how well their child could use social media apps safely. Some parents worried that their child might share private information without realising it, meet sexual predators, see adult pictures or videos, or not be able to tell what was true and what was not during their online communication. With regards to this, Dias et al. [6] stressed that trust could play an important role to solve the dilemma or parents’ worries on children media use. However, in order to create that trust, children must show that they have the knowledge and skills to fulfil their parents’ expectations [7].

Therefore, one of the most important components in communication that children need to have is the knowledge on privacy protection. This means that they need to have knowledge to understand when and why information is shared, where information is shared, what the consequences of sharing private information are, how to evaluate potential privacy threats, and what to share [8]. Wissinger [9] argues that privacy literacy is a type of critical thinking, which is another critical attribute of 21st century education.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Meaning of Privacy

Solove [10] and Nissenbaum [11] contested that the classic way of conceptualizing privacy, for examples the “right to be let alone”, as suggested by Warren and Brandeis in 1890 [12], Gavison’s [13] being secluded or ‘being alone’ concepts are unable to deal with the challenges posed in the online environment. These challenges were related to the blurring in the concept of public and private during the latter half of the twentieth century, as mass media and information, communication and technologies started to play their role in humans’ life [14].

In this study, we follow Nissenbaum’s definition of privacy as “neither a right to secrecy nor a right to control, but a right to appropriate flow of personal information.” This makes the idea of privacy as relational and contextual (relationships are a specific and important part of any social context) by putting the focus on “appropriate” (as judged by whom? or negotiated how?) and “flow” (from whom to whom or what?). Nissenbaum [11] interpret the right to privacy as the right to have one’s expectations about the flow of information met. With contextual integrity (CI), privacy should be assessed contextually stressing adherence to the expected norms of information flow specific to that context.

Nissenbaum’s CI has been used widely as a framework for assessing privacy, which includes understanding children’s online privacy practices. Kumar [15] used CI to assess children’s perspectives on password management in three contexts—family life, friendship, and education. They argue that strengthening children’s privacy literacy not in terms of teaching them rules but by helping them enact appropriate information flows. Kumar [16] also uses CI to explain how educational efforts can help strengthen children’s privacy literacy.

2.2. Meaning of Trust and Its Relationship to Privacy

Trust is a complicated, multi-faceted, and abstract notion, hence there is no commonly accepted definition [17,18,19]. Rousseau and colleagues [17] define trust as ‘expectations and willingness to be vulnerable’ (p. 394). Rotenberg [18] says trust “includes a defined set of ideas (expectations) about people’s reliability, emotion, and honesty” (p. 11). O’Neill [19] adds that trust entails the trustor’s desire to be vulnerable, which implies risk and uncertainty: the trustor takes a risk and relies on the trustee to fulfil his/her expectations. As mentioned earlier, Nissenbaum’s CI stresses privacy as an expectation. She argues that privacy should be assessed in context, stressing adherence to the expected norms of information flow specific to that context. Therefore, breaching those norms constitutes a violation of privacy or, in other words, a breach of expectation.

Waldman [20] asserts that ‘spheres of privacy mirror spheres of trust’ in the sense that the feeling of privacy being invaded is akin to the act of breaching trust. According to Waldman, trust exists whenever there is a social interaction, and in normal circumstances a social interaction involves exchanging personal information. Privacy is involved in these kinds of situations, as privacy concerns exist wherever personal information is used without the knowledge or consent of the owner, suggesting that privacy and trust are closely interlinked.

2.3. Trust between Parents and Children

Trust is developed, not innate [21]. Parents have a responsibility to be trustworthy role models for their children [22,23]. Trustworthiness comprises competence, positive goals, ethics, and predictability [18]. These elements help the trustor trust the trustee. The trustee is trustworthy if he/she has the expertise, skills, knowledge, and experience to fulfil the trustor’s expectations [18].

Children’s ability to navigate the Internet safely should boost their parents’ trust, influencing their Internet mediation styles [24]. Internet mediation styles can be divided into two categories: (1) the fully supportive, and (2) the less supportive. Fully supportive Internet mediation strategies include active mediation and active co-use mediation. Fully supportive involves parents’ initiatives in discussing online safety with children (how and what to do in any worrying situation that might happen), while restrictive, monitoring, and technical limits are less helpful. This is because less supportive strategies involve for example, parents set rules in terms of time, access, or type of online activities their children can engage in. Parents also conduct a close surveillance of what online activities their children undertake, such as checking children’s social networking accounts or emails.

Children are more likely to use the opportunity to actively engage in various activities, benefitting them in terms of social skills, creativity, operational skills, and information navigational skills they need to use the Internet properly with trust, support, and direction from their parents [25,26]. Note these are all the skills needed in 21st century learning environment.

Less supportive Internet mediation solutions do not encourage children to communicate or self-disclose their actions to their parents voluntarily. This affects their trust [6,27]. Rooney [25] claims that parents who spy on their children’s online activity do not trust them. Trust involves the positive ‘expectation’ that the trustee (in this case children) will undertake an important action for the trustor (parents), despite the trustor’s power to supervise or monitor the trustee [28]. Trust eliminates the need for control or surveillance. Some parents monitor their children without losing trust in them. This is what Mark’oczy called ‘trustful vigilance,’ complementing Suzzane Massie’s concept of ‘trust, but verify.’ Mark’oczy [28] believes that trustful vigilance is different from distrust since the trustor still trusts the trustee and considers the risks and benefits of trusting.

Many experts feel that trust plays a vital role in child-parent relationships [21,25,29,30]. First, children’s autonomy improves. Autonomy and trust are connected and shape each other, where both can handle unexpected scenarios. Two-way information sharing is one benefit of parents trusting their children [29]. Children who trust their parents are more comfortable revealing their online activity. These children are more likely to tell their parents about their online connections, hobbies, and concerns. Children’s willingness to share online activity implies they trust their parents’ judgement and can rely on them if they experience problems [31].

Second, children who earn their parents’ trust can obtain more life experience. Parental trust encourages exploration. Parental trust affects how much liberty parents give their kids. Children will benefit from greater internet encounters depending on parental direction and abilities.

2.4. Previous Studies on Children’s Online Privacy and Trust

Majority of studies on children’s online privacy involve adolescents and the social aspects or interpersonal dimensions of privacy and less focus on young children [32]. While many children over the age of 10 reported to be familiar with how to adjust their accounts’ privacy settings, they show much less comprehension of how dataflows can affect their privacy [33]. Children do not receive a lot of training in matters pertaining to privacy because educators are either unsure of what it should encompass [34] or believe that younger children do not require it [15]. Despite this, children are aware of certain aspects of how the privacy of their interactions online is affected, and able to identify and articulate certain privacy well [35,36]. When it comes to learning online privacy, families rely on a variety of non-academic sources of information, such as informal learning experiences, the guidance of family and friends, and information from credible sources [37], which shows the need to include privacy protection to be included in the academic syllabus.

Not much has been discussed, however, about how trust play a role in relation to children’s Internet engagement. In view of this, the present study intends to find out the extent of trust help to increase children’s privacy protection awareness in the implementation of 21st century education.

Discussing the connection between trust and privacy protection will be the focus of this paper, with reference to the following research question:

(1)

How can trust increase children’s understanding on privacy protection?

(2)

What is the outcome(s) of parental trust on children in relation to 21st learning skills?

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Sampling Approach

Children aged 9 to 11 years old from Primary 6 (P6) and Primary 7 (P7) were selected as the main participants in this study. This age range was selected since the exposure of this age group to online social networking is higher than that of children aged 9 years or less [38]. Having participants who were actively engaged in online social networking was important in the context of this study, owing to the focus on views of privacy protection awareness.

The selection of school as the research data collection venue and gaining access to child participats started after the University of Edinburgh’s School of Social and Political Science (SSPS)’s Research and Ethics Committee accepted the ethics proposal. Realizing the limitations and intricacies of fieldwork, the study opted to focus on one school. The school was an access site rather than a case, and as the site did allow the researcher to involve a considerable number of children.

In total there were 57 pupils who voluntarily participated in the 10 focus group sessions and out of 57 pupils, 26 pupils agreed to be interviewed. The study also interviewed eight (8) parents who their child is also participants in this study. The aim for having parents as participants is related to the aim to answer the first research question of this study.

3.2. Research Design

This study employed qualitative method. The face-to-face focus groups and individual semi-structured interview were used as the research approach in this study. There were two objectives to using focus groups with children in this study. The first objective was to enable child participants to discuss their current practices related to the online privacy protection. The focus group sought to generate a range of views and insights concerning the topic, such as understanding how children define privacy, whether or not privacy is important to them, and why it is. The second objective of using focus group with children: to develop a rapport with them to assist during the subsequent one-to-one semi-structured interviews. The individual interviews would seek to elicit a more in-depth picture. The focus group session was conducted between an hour and an hour and a half, thus increasing the likelihood that in—depth data were obtained. Meanwhile the individual interviews did not take more than one hour as it was conducted during school time. The use of the tablet during individual interview with children assisted in prolonging the conversation and giving them ideas about what to say. All the interviews and focus group sessions were recorded with the permission from all the participants.

Open-ended questions were used to further probe children about their experiences of online activities and their views of their parents’ Internet parenting style, both of which were not covered during the focus group. While the interview with parents seek to understand their level engagement on the Internet, their views on privacy, their Internet parenting style, and their children engagement on the Internet.

Studies involving children necessitate that the researcher emphasise complicated ethical considerations, such as information consent, access, inequality of power, confidentiality, and protection [39]. In ensuring the study is ethically conducted, the UNICEF’s Ethical and Research Involving Children was referred as it highlight researchers’ responsibilities to participants, colleagues, and self [40]. Regarding the issue of power inequality, it is necessary to consider the most suitable data collection strategies to implement on the ground [41,42,43]. It is crucial for the researcher to balance this power difference in order to foster an environment that supports the participation of young participants [39]. To do this, the researcher made an effort to arrive early at the after-school club room in time to set up chairs and tables, hang the Welcome Poster and blank sheet for the group agreement activity. Prior to the focus groups and interviews, it is imperative that child participants are made aware that their participation is voluntary and that they comprehend the goal of the study. The researcher informed participants briefly about the nature of the study, what would occur, how long it would last, what was expected of them, the potential risks and repercussions of their involvement, and how the data would be utilised [42]. In addition, the researcher briefed them on ethical considerations, such as their right to refuse to answer any questions and withdraw at any moment during the interview or focus groups, as well as confidentiality and anonymity concerns. It is recommended by Alderson and Morrow [41], and Powell and Smith [43] that participants are made aware that their consent might be renegotiated. To ensure that children were aware of consent problems, the researcher described and reviewed the consent form with them, and then requested that they complete it if they wished to continue participating in the focus group or individual interview session. Active consent was necessary not only from child participants, but also from their parents in this study.

When analysing the data acquired through focus groups and interviews, thematic analysis was utilised. This research included interviews, audio from focus groups, and thought maps. Transcribing interview audio assisted with data analysis. In addition to the analytic software Quirkos, data from the vignettes (Emily’s situation) were transferred into Microsoft Excel sheets for a more precise frequency analysis. Child participants’ data from focus groups and individual interviews, child-parent dyad interview data, and parent participants with various Internet parental mediation strategies were compared.

3.3. Vignette

A vignette, or a short story was used in the focus group as a stimulating material to foster discussion between participants. In addition, vignette allow actions in context to be explored, clarify children’s perception through less personal issues and therefore less threatening way of exploring sensitive topics [44]. The vignette is about Emily, a nine-year-old, wants her own Facebook account. The vignette also asked child participants whether Emily should accept her mother’s request to be her Facebook friend and how she should react because her mother is quite curious about what Emily writes on Facebook. The vignette story was printed on paper in accordance with the various scenarios of how participants should react to Emily’s situation.

4. Findings and Discussion

Table 1. Emerging findings based on analysis.

Theme	Subtheme
Enhanced child-parent relationships	Increase children’s autonomy Reduced parents’worries
Factors influencing trust	Internet mediation style Increase children’s privacy awareness

summarises the key themes and subthemes that were identified during analysis of the data. The findings will be presented based on the two (2) themes:

4.1. Theme 1: Enhanced Child-Parent Relationships

4.1.1. Subtheme 1: Increase Children’s Autonomy

The discussion about Emily indicated that most of the child participants were of the view that the people they were closest to in their lives were the individuals that they referred to the most when it came to their activities on the Internet. Similar answers were given by Ellie, Aza, and Sarah (P7) when they were asked about who they thought should know about their activities online:

Researcher: “OK, who do you think should know what you’re doing on the Internet?”

Ellie: “Parents and people in the family.”

Sarah: “Friends and family.”

Aza: “Your parents.”

Researcher: “How do you think they know?”

Sarah: “Cause I let them. They are free to look at whatever I wrote on the Internet.”

Researcher: “Are you OK with your parents knowing what you do?”

Sarah: “Yes.”

The preceding excerpt shows children’s trust in their parents by letting them know what they do online. Sarah said she did not worry if her parents saw what she posted online. Sarah informed that her mum was one of her Facebook ‘friends’. According to Sarah:

“Well, my mother has Facebook, and she is friends with me. I wouldn’t lie because she would know. It’s good to have somebody who I trust on it [Facebook].”

Sarah’s except intrigued as she explicitly mentioned that having her mother as her friend on Facebook was a good thing, and she also mentioned trust. Her phrase ‘it’s good to have somebody who I trust on it’ suggests Sarah has an expectation that her mother would help should she face any problems on the Internet.

Sarah was asked what she would do if she encountered Internet problems. Sarah said she’d tell her mother or sister about anything. This shows she relies on her mother and sister for help with her online activities. Here, Nissenbaum’s CI theory was used to assess whether Sarah’s privacy had been breached. Although Sarah’s willingness to share her online activities and Facebook password with her mother is not an act of maintaining privacy, as there is still the possibility that her mother might disclose that information to others. According to Nissenbaum’s CI [11], there is no breach of Sarah’s privacy if her parents do not use the information disclosed by Sarah for anything other than that expected by Sarah. However, there will be a breach of Sarah’s privacy if her mother shared Sarah’s Facebook password with the other family members without Sarah’s knowledge. Sarah also mentioned her positive feelings. Sarah also highlighted her pleasant sensations; Selbst [45] observes that people’s indignation, worry, fear, and wrath over a private invasion are signs of a ruptured informational norm (p. 650). By saying she was ‘happy’ with Facebook, Sarah implied that sharing information with her mother and others she trusts did not violate her privacy.

A trustworthy parent-child relationship helps children reveal their online activity. This helps parents protect their children while giving them opportunities to develop autonomy [46]. Sarah’s admission that her mother let her start an Instagram account at age 9 confirms this:

“My mother knew when I tried it [creating Instagram account] the first time and then I thought ‘it’s not the right time to have it’ [she was 9 at that time] and I deleted it. I told her after a couple of days and she said that’s fine, as long as I don’t do anything silly.”

Sarah demonstrated autonomy by creating her own Instagram account without notifying her mother. According to Kamii [47], autonomy allows children to make their own decisions (p. 411). He emphasizes that ‘autonomy involves taking relevant considerations into account in selecting the optimal course of action for all concerned’ (p. 411). Sarah’s case is a good illustration of how the child participants expected their parents to know about their online activity. Children in this study allowed their parents to examine their online information so they could aid them if they had any problems.

Sarah’s case showed trust and privacy bring benefits to children, who through the trust accorded by their parents, possessed autonomy and confidence. Sarah’s situation shows that there is a perception of the existence of risk is necessary for the issue of trust to arise. The importance of giving children autonomy while they engage with the Internet is highlighted by Howe and Strauss [48], as it encourages children to develop the intrinsic motivation to develop critical thinking skills and take ownership of their life skills and learning, which are the critical attributes in the 21st century learning. The approach that the 21st learning environment used, which is through the self-directed learning also emphasis in giving autonomy to children to be responsible and take control of their learning [49].

4.1.2. Subtheme 2: Reduced Parents’ Worries

The following discussion focused on parents’ perspectives on trust and privacy. Spy Guy’s mother’s relationship with him demonstrates trust as a positive expectation and confidence in the trustee:

Spy Guy’s mother: “I know my son is responsible. I think it’s a good way; he speaks to his friends, shows what he has done to their friends, as long as there’s no abuse. So long as it doesn’t get used in a bad way. That’s fine. I trust him. You know, not to be silly.”

Researcher: “OK, how would you describe yourself in terms of the Internet parenting style?”

Spy Guy’s mother: “Relaxed, but not that I don’t care. I’m relaxed because I can trust him.”

Spy Guy’s mother trusts him and is convinced he’ll behave online as she expects, so she’s less worried about letting him go online alone. Trusting her son has given her a relaxed but engaged mindset, as seen in her last statement.

Trust can be created through a strong relationship between parents and children, as evidenced in Spy Guy’s mother’s bond with him:

“I don’t know if it is because it’s only him and me that we’ve got such a bond. I trust him and the minute the trust is broken, then it’s a different story. Up until now he has been fine. I think because we have always been together. It’s probably that we are more like pals rather than mother and son in a way.”

Spy Guy’s mother said they’re more like pals,’ indicating a decreased hierarchical relationship that fosters trust. Spy Guy’s mother says, “I trust him, but the minute that trust is broken, it’s a different situation.” This circumstance involves risk and ambiguity when addressing trust, namely betrayal, or ‘the dark side of trust’ [50]. Spy Guy’s mother saying “it’s a different story” shows her trust in him would change if he disappointed her. I asked Spy Guy’s mother what she’d do if he broke her trust:

“I bought my son games that are older than his age, but that is just the mutual trust between him and me. If I found him upstairs swearing or shouting, the game would be taken from him.”

Spy Guy’s mother expects him not to abuse her? confidence and to behave when playing games; if he does not, she will take them away. Despite Spy Guy’s mother’s claim that she trusted him and did not monitor his internet activity, Rooney [25] and Shmueli and Blecher-Prigat [51] believe that her actions suggest otherwise:

Researcher: “When he is on the Internet, who decides on the content of what he sees? Is it you or your son?”

Spy Guy’s mother: “He is free to do whatever he wants. I haven’t put any rules on it. I spoke to him and I told him obviously that I trusted him, not to be silly that I can check the user history and look at what he is looking at and, if ever I found something that he shouldn’t be looking at, then I’ll be taking it off him.”

Researcher: “So the mutual trust is there?”

Spy Guy’s mother: “Yeah and I’ve always trusted him like that. I don’t to put any restriction on him because he never needs them.”

Spy Guy’s mother said that trust permits the trustee (Spy Guy) to do whatever he wants as long as it’s in line with the trustor’s expectations [52]. “I told him I trusted him, not to be silly” is a positive expression of confidence in a child’s ability [23]. Despite Spy Guy’s mother’s assertion that she refused to place any limitations on him and had not installed any filtering software on the computer, her real practice indicates that he is not free from observation. In the excerpt, she discusses checking user history. Spy Guy is still under his mother’s observation because she knows his Facebook login, is one of his Facebook ‘friends,’ and checks his Xbox messages regularly. Spy Guy’s mother monitors in the next excerpt.

“I play Xbox now, so I always have a wee [small] look. He looks at my stuff; I look at his. He doesn’t mind me checking because he doesn’t have anything to hide.”

As noted, trust requires vulnerability. Spy Guy’s readiness to let his mother hold his Facebook password and check his Xbox messages means he’s risking his privacy. Spy Guy’s mother allows him to play online games, but she still monitors him by checking his Xbox communications. Spy Guy’s mother’s actions show ‘trustful vigilance’ Spy Guy’s mother may be categorised as a ‘prudent trustor’, someone who trusts but is vigilant about what she trusts.

Spy Guy’s mother used the monitoring mediation style, as her actions entailed surveillance and confidentiality [21,24,51]. Spy Guy’s actions ‘breach’ his privacy, therefore does he trust her? Spy Guy was asked in a focus group about adding his mother as a Facebook friend. His reply:

“I think Emily should [add her mother as a Facebook friend] because her mother would see her Facebook if a stranger commented and said stuff.”

Spy Guy thought Emily’s mother should know about her online activities so she could check for stranger Facebook comments. Spy Guy’s response may be based on his mother’s constant monitoring:

“He (Spy Guy) understands that I’m not just looking because I want to be nosy. He knows that I’m looking for safety reasons.”

Spy Guy’s mother was sure he understood her actions benefited him. Spy Guy seems to understand that his mother’s ‘nosiness’ is for his safety.

In answer to the earlier question of whether Spy Guy thinks his mother’s acts are a ‘breach’ of his privacy, and thus a breach of his trust towards his mother. According to Nissenbaum CI, the feeling of discomfort signifies that privacy has been breached, in this case affecting the trust that Spy Guy originally had in his mother. However, a sense of trust is felt between Spy Guy and his mother. It is possible that Spy Guy is accustomed to the way his mother treats him, and as a result he does not feel an absence of privacy even though he is closely monitored by his mother. Spy Guy’s mother’s trusting relationship with her son is an illustration of the concept of trustful vigilance.

4.2. Theme 2: Factors Influencing Trust

4.2.1. Subtheme 1: Internet Mediation Style

Internet parenting style affects children’s and parents’ confidence in each other. This subsection discusses trust-level differences in the child-parent dyad, as well as factors affecting parents’ trust of their children. Children’s levels of trust for their parents is compared to parents’ levels of trust for their children based on the Internet parenting style used. In addition, a comparison was made among the parents, to investigate what influenced their levels of trust in their children.

Lion’s father employed Internet mediation to deal with their children, according to an interview. Lion’s father warned of the dangers of limiting his children’s Internet use. He pushed Lion to use the Internet to communicate and research his interests, especially animation. Lion’s father trusts him by letting him explore the Internet and not monitoring his online activity. Lion’s father was asked about online parenting:

Researcher: “Do you have any say in what he wants to see on the Internet?”

Lion’s father: “I let him decide”

Researcher: “Any particular reason for you to do that?”

Lion’s father: “I think it’s all right. He needs to find whatever information he needs”

Lion’s father trusts his son to make his own decisions when online. However, does Lion trust his father as much as his father trusts him?

Researcher: “What are the things you normally share with your father?”

Lion: “Like what I’ve done, what is happening. Like say I found out something and I can print like a document and then show it.”

High-trust trustors are more comfortable exposing their online activity willingly [30]. Lion trusts his father enough to share his online activity with him. Lion’s case shows that Internet mediation permits balanced trust between parents and their child, encouraging personal family bonds.

At the other end of spectrum, Minion’s father admitted to being restrictive. Does Minion’s father not trust her? The following excerpt explains.

“The only danger we don’t want is someone taking a picture of my children and posting it online on Facebook and all that stuff. I am not worried about my children, but we worried about their friend, taking pictures and putting them on social networking, because lots of them have smartphones nowadays.”

Minions’ father is not worried about what she does online, indicating he trusts her. He’s scared that others, especially his daughter’s friends, would take photos and post them online. His view could be related to his professional knowledge, as he holds a degree in Information Technology. He noted the following:

“If you go on the Internet, anybody can look at you. They say that the Internet is a window into the world, but actually it’s the opposite of it. Yeah, there is no privacy over there.”

Minion’s father was of the view that once someone’s information is shared on the Internet, it will be accessible to everyone. He also rejected the idea that the Internet makes it possible to see and learn about what is happening in other parts of the world. For him, of greater concern is the fact that stranger can see how you yourself use the Internet. Minion’s father’s statement suggests that he has issues of trust not with his daughter, but with strangers on the Internet and with the online service providers. Minion’s situation suggests that although her father was restrictive about her online engagement, which deprives her of online autonomy, it does not mean she is not entitled to full trust from her father. It is her father’s lack of trust towards online strangers and the Internet itself that causes him to be restrictive about his daughter’s online participation.

Knowing that Minion’s father applied a restrictive mediation strategy, does this affects Minion’s trust to her father? During the interview, Minion was asked about her view of her parents’ Internet parenting style; she expressed herself in a positive tone.

Researcher: “Are you OK with that approach?”

Minion: “I’m OK. I think it is really good that they [her parents] tell us what we should and shouldn’t do because lots of things can go wrong with the Internet. […] my dad is very good about the Internet.”

Minion’s explanation suggests that she is comfortable with her parents’ online practices and rules. In addition, she explained that their style of parenting made her feel good, as she trusts the knowledge that her father has about the Internet. Minion believes the Internet is not a safe place, and so guidance from her parents is welcome; this attitude might have been influenced by her parents:

Researcher: “You were worried about other people, your children’s friends took pictures of them and put them on the Internet?”

Minion’s father: “Yeah, but now, my daughter is very aware. When other people take her picture, she will ask them what they are going to do with her picture.”

Researcher: “That’s good. So, how do you think she knows about all that?”

Minion’s father: “It is mainly from school. We also told her that the Internet is not safe at all.” Researcher: “Meaning that you guide her as well?”

Minion’s father: “Yeah, we do.”

The above excerpt is further evidence that Minion’s father is confident that his daughter is aware of the issues of Internet safety, and it is possible that Minion’s opinion of the Internet as an unsafe place is the result of parental influence. Minion’s father’s trust in his daughter is evident in that he is more worried about what Minion’s friends could do with her information (in this case, photographs), than about Minion herself disclosing personal information on SNSs.

Findings of this study demonstrated that parents’ less supportive Internet mediation strategies do not necessarily affect their trust in their children. In this study, parents monitored, controlled, or checked their children’s online activity, but this did not indicate they did not trust them. Two-way communication appears to increase child-parent trust, as shown.

How does trust support children to be excel in 21st learning environment? As mentioned earlier, children are more likely to acquire the necessary Internet experience, skills, and knowledge if their parents provide them with trust, support, and direction, despite of the Internet parenting style applied.

4.2.2. Subtheme 2: Increase Children’s Privacy Awareness

Trust has a varied multifaceted in today’s digitalized society from media discussion [53] to trust to technology [54]. During focus groups and individual interviews session, children were asked if they trust Facebook, Instagram, and online gaming providers to keep their information safe. Almost all child participants were confident that their information wouldn’t be shared with others. They were of the view that once they set the privacy settings to ‘On’, the applications would function as intended and their information would only be accessible by their ‘friends’ on the applications. Nearly all the children in this research said they relied on privacy settings to secure their information, yet some of them were unsure how to access the privacy setting page:

Researcher: “Do you have any idea about the function of the privacy setting [on Facebook?]”

Specs: “So that random who is bit dodgy can’t look into your account.”

Researcher: “Do you know where is privacy settings located?”

Specs: “I’m not too sure.”

Specs’ situation is contradictory: he is aware of the consequences of not establishing the privacy settings on Facebook, but he’s confused whether his account is private. Yet, Specs remained cool regarding his Facebook privacy settings, possibly due to his trust in Facebook:

Researcher: “So, do you trust the Facebook [to keep your information safe]?”

Specs: “Some websites yes, but not all of them.”

Researcher: Ok. Which social media that you can trust?”

Specs: Facebook and Youtube. These are two sites that I usually go on.”

Specs did not imply why he trusted Facebook and YouTube, but the ability of these two applications to perform as intended and not give him problems could be why.

Children were also asked if they thought Google, Instagram, or Facebook would store personal information entered in online. Almaaz (P7B) displayed a confidence similar to Specs towards the applications:

“I don’t mind if they do it [store personal information]. I think I don’t mind because I don’t tell anyone where I live, how old I am. My friends already know. I use Direct Message in Instagram to send pictures so only people that I am interacting with can see it.”

Almaaz said she used Instagram’s ‘Direct Message’ tool to prevent information availability. This shows she trusts online providers not to divulge her friend discussions. Children in this study commonly use Instagram’s ‘Direct Message’ or Facebook’s ‘Private Message’ to regulate information. Some child participants may use private texting to reduce data. This may be due to children’s resignation that once knowledge is shared, it may be spread without their control.

Some parents raised the concern of online service providers using their data for marketing, however no child participants mentioned this. Most children trust the online provider to protect their information, as evidenced in Almaaz’s excerpts. Overall, the child participants displayed relatively high expectations toward the providers of the online platforms, particularly in relation to functionality of privacy settings.

5. Conclusions

The findings have shown how trust helped children to be ready to embrace the 21st century learning environment. As witnessed with Sarah, Lion, and Minion, trust gives children autonomy and confidence or as highlighted by Supa and colleagues [4] that trust important in children’s well-being.

Despite Internet mediation styles, most children trust their parents, according to the study. Parents with negative views of the Internet will have trouble trusting the Internet and online strangers, causing them to monitor their children’s online activity. This will affect their children’s view and trust of Internet actors based on what their parents told them. Parents who distrusted the Internet and online strangers used less autonomy-supporting mediation. Our finding substantiates the significance of parents’ overall perspective on digital media [26,55,56,57]. Applying these mediation tactics would not help children establish trust on the Internet and online strangers, restricting their autonomy, online participation, and provision. Monitoring will compromise children’s understanding to privacy protection knowledge thus affecting their online safety skills. This may have long term societal implications. As mentioned earlier, 21st-century requires someone well versed about how to navigate and at the same time protecting and valued information, and this may jeopardise their job opportunities. Mastering digital safety may increase someone’s confidence to use technology for work, learning and daily life.

This study shows that trust reduces parents’ worries about their children’s online activity. Parents’ trust would increase if they had confidence on their children’s online protection skills and knowledge. This shows that there is a need to increase both children and parents’ awareness and education on privacy dan digital literacy, especially at the end of primary education. This is because at this age, children started to explore online as ‘personal space’ for expression, socialising [58,59]. According to Livingstone and Olafsson [59], children at the age between 12 and 17 concerned more about parental monitoring yet broad trust in parental and school restrictions. If parents unable to understand and unaware of the drawbacks of monitoring, then it will influence the children’s trust in their parents, as mentioned earlier.

At the same time, parents should be aware of social media, online games, and other technologies that children use, as well as the importance of trust and other parenting components that promote children’s online participation. This will build child-parent connections and teach parents about the significance of educating their children about trusting other actors on the Internet.

This study contributes to the topic in the context of privacy and children’s online involvement, trust and child-parent interactions, and privacy, trust, and child-online service provider relationships, which are scarce. In terms of limitation, the data did reveal limited information about online strangers and online service providers (commercial data collection). The lack of studies in terms of children’s understanding on privacy and trust to commercial data related to how children understand the complicated processes of data mining, data profiling and identity theft was also highlighted by the previous authors [58,60]. The importance of trust in the online environment was highlighted by the Pew Research Centre about the fate of online trust in the next decade and whether it will continue to be strengthened or will start to diminish [61].