Children around the world are not just tech-savvy, but smart media users as well.

The World Summit on Media, Children and Youth began in Melbourne, Australia as an international movement. It has since been convening every three years and has already been staged in London, Thessaloniki, Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg.

At the recently concluded summit in Karlstad, Sweden, young delegates from many countries gathered to discuss what media are doing to them. Towards the event’s close on June 18, the group listed all the challenges they perceived as stumbling blocks to their development.

Challenges
The youth noted the growing disparity between the use of new media for marketing and for education, as well as the disparity between classes in their uses of media.

Worldwide, poorer children posted higher consumption levels of media usage.

The issue about privacy is also top on the list of challenges they face. Commercial marketers collect information about young users in deceptive ways and use the data for commercial purposes in total violation of their rights to privacy and safety.

It also appears that today’s youth are not only articulate and tech-savvy but are smarter media users. They have noted a sharp rise in their consumption of new media and observed that new media technologies have sprung viral marketing strategies and created strong marketing lobbying.

Many children are very actively using the internet but are not aware about what is going on behind the scenes. The internet is becoming a friend and constant companion more than their real buddies and kin.

Media contributes to the cultivation of stereotypes and the sexualization of children, citing, for instance, that there are more adult materials readily available to kids at any time and that age of consent had been lowered in many countries like the Netherlands.

New media
Media is evolving and changing at a very rapid pace and new media has changed the traditional mass communications model where one communicates to many to a model where many communicate to many.

Worldwide, children see a battle in media where contradictory positions are pitted against each other, i.e. the popular model of protecting children from media versus using media for education.

Children have noted that child protection is used as an excuse for censorship but they see a sharp rise in inappropriate content in  programs for children as gleaned from a lot of violence in cartoon offerings.

Corollary, there seems to be a waning of quantity as well as quality in children’s TV shows. This is obvious from the noted decline in in-house productions with children’s content.

A very odd but striking observation made by children is that television is not preparing them for the world properly because the medium features a lot of shows about indoor activities.

There are too many media initiatives these days, competing for funding and resources, which in turn are becoming more scarce.

Sorry misrepresentation
Misrepresentation and stereotyping of children in the media are major problems too. Kids appear as victims, little devils, little angels, or as brilliant waifs. Using children as talents in both TV programs and advertisements is a popular ploy to sell more.

Children and youth are highly represented in advertisements as they are considered important for consumption.

There is also an observed uneven gender representation in the media where boys are represented more than girls are. Over and above this is the sorry misrepresentation of girls in the media.

The most hurtful realization among kids is that, after all of the above, children and youth are not considered important in the decision making process.

The next world summit will be held in 2013 in Bali, Indonesia.