ABSTRACT

Virtual technologies gained popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic for use in research, including research with children. As scholarship from the field of science, technology and society (STS) suggests, technologies are never neutral, but embedded with social values and, as such, used by people to navigate identities and relationships. Building on childhood studies research that has shown how children appropriate and use research tools, this article asks: How do child research participants use this virtual ‘window’ into their homes and their lives? Using observations from a virtual and in-person study in the United States, we show how children used virtual technologies to manage relationships, filter what researchers saw of their lives, and navigate issues of privacy and self-disclosure. We conclude that analysing children’s interactions with research technologies offers important indicators to guide researchers attending to ethical issues of power for both in-person and virtual research with children.

摘要

虚拟技术在 COVID-19 大流行期间流行起来，用于研究，包括儿童研究。正如科学、技术和社会 (STS) 领域的学术研究表明，技术从来都不是中立的，而是嵌入了社会价值观，因此被人们用来导航身份和关系。基于儿童研究表明儿童如何适当和使用研究工具，本文提出以下问题：儿童研究参与者如何使用这个虚拟“窗口”进入他们的家庭和生活？利用美国一项虚拟和现场研究的观察结果，我们展示了儿童如何使用虚拟技术来管理人际关系、过滤研究人员对他们生活的看法，以及解决隐私和自我披露问题。