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Social media, a habit for youngsters
Social media, a habit for youngsters Sarah Young (sarah@khaleejtimes.com) / 30 May 2013 A revealing research by a Zayed University student shows that Instagram is the frontrunner among young Emiratis with Twitter and Facebook trying to play catch-up Shopping, celebrities and “life lessons” are the topics of conversation for Emirati children as young as seven, says a Zayed University student who has done some revealing research into the social media habits of young nationals. Hessah Ahmed Hareb, a Masters student and teaching assistant in the Integrated Strategic Communications department at Zayed University in Dubai, surveyed 115 girls, aged between seven and 12, from two Dubai-based private schools, and found social media usage was surprisingly high. Presenting the results of her undergraduate pilot research, ‘Social Media Tweens’, to a Middle East Public Relations Association (Mepra) conference in February, she showed about 80 per cent of the girls were using Instagram, 68 per cent used Twitter and 56 per cent had a Facebook account. She also analysed the content of 10 Instagram and 25 Twitter accounts, for both male and female children. Half of all Instagram posts were about shopping, she said. “There were pictures of dresses, earrings, rings (and the words) ‘are you loving my rings?’, shopping bags.” Landscapes from Dubai and further abroad made up about a quarter of pictures, followed by snaps of their younger brothers and sisters on 15 per cent, and food on eight per cent. Meanwhile on Twitter, they were tweeting about what they were doing, games they were playing, uploading photos of themselves, or chatting with friends. Others were also posting about causes, including one girl who put up a picture about a breast cancer marathon and asked: ‘who’s going to walk with me?’ “The things that interest kids are different than kids before. They’re interested in volunteer work and things like that.” Celebrities also featured highly. “They’re definitely the Justin Beiber generation, and Kim Kardashian is also pretty popular. “They know more celebrities than me. “I was really amazed with how they’re into television shows, when they’re very young. When I asked them why they used (social media), they said keeping up with celebrities, fashion, art, hairstyles and pictures…Some said to catch up on the political news, some said to put up my baby pictures or make jokes.” What was also surprising was they way they tweeted and talked like adults, she said. “It’s just the way they talk and put things together on social media makes them seem older than they are…which opens up risk, possibly.” The number of posts each child made on Instagram weekly ranged from two to 34, with an average of two to four pictures a day, “which was still quite a lot”. More than a third tweeted in English, another 35 per cent used a mix of English and Arabic, and just six per cent used only Arabic. More than half used unrealistic, or fake, names, such as “KimKardashianFan”. Most ‘liked’ an average of 52 posts weekly, although one girl gave out 134 ‘likes’ in one week. “So they’re busy…they have many distractions. It would be interesting to see the correlation between the amount of use and their grades.” Most children had about 52 followers, people who could automatically see what they were posting, she said. “And they may not know them, so I find it very risky sometimes. Some of the students say my mother doesn’t allow me to have Twitter, but I’m allowed Instagram…it’s weird to allow one but not the other. I was quite surprised by that. But there was quite some difference between parent to parent. Some children were not allowed (any social media) at all.” And when it came to how important privacy settings were, only 45 per cent said they were very important. About 20 per cent said they did not care, 11 per cent said privacy settings were not important at all and they “like(d) everyone seeing (their) profile” with the remaining percentage saying they were ‘somewhat important’. Two-thirds of all the children had mobile phones, and the majority of children used these to access their accounts, closely followed by iPads. Almost half of the girls surveyed had more than one phone — including five per cent who had three. “One girl told me it was because she needed a third one simply to go to the Wild Wadi water park, as she had to take a phone without a camera.” People had been surprised about the results, Hareb said. “When I went to a classroom and told one of the teachers what I was doing, she said ‘These kids? I don’t think they know these things (social media platforms).’ I asked how many of the children used these things. More than half raised their hands.” Hind Al Suwaidi, parent of Deira International School student, Saeed Abdullah Al Naboodah, 11, said while she thought her son spent more time on online gaming than social media platforms, she still had rules for use. “He cannot use his iPhone unless he’s done with his studies. “I don’t know how long he spends on Instagram. (But) I don’t mind — if I tell him not to use it, he will use it behind my back. I follow him and he follows me back, (so I can) keep an eye on him. “This generation — you can’t prevent them from using it. They have this curiousity…so I give him the opportunity to see what it’s all about, and there are rules and guidelines around that.” Saeed, who also has a Facebook account, said that like most of his friends, he did not use Twitter much anymore, as Instagram was better. “I post funny things and cute things, like my baby sister. She’s three.” Saeed said he posted mainly in English, and occasionally in Arabic. His favourite people to follow included YouTuber Ryan Hegel, and family members. “My cousin posts photos with life lessons, things like “if you don’t work hard, you won’t achieve anything’…they’re quite inspiring.” He also follows his uncle who posts pictures of drawings he has created. “He really inspires me to draw.” Out of his friends, he considers himself the most “addicted”. He checks it every day, and again just before he goes to sleep. However, he only posts two or three times a week, and tries to stop posting during the majority of the school year. “I just look the most, I don’t post as much. But I get more ‘likes’ than my friends because I put a lot of tags in so if people search one of those tags they will look at my picture and like it.” Hareb will present her research at an Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference in Washington, US, later this year. Continue reading
Is There Life After ETS?
By Dave Keating – Today, 02:10 CET If the Emissions Trading Scheme does become an irrelevancy incapable of lowering emissions between now and 2020 (see above), then José Manuel Barroso’s declared ambition to put climate change at the top of the agenda during his presidency of the European Commission would be counted a failure. Although environmental campaigners are now among the loudest voices calling for the ETS to be saved, this was not always the case. When the idea of a market mechanism to address the problems of climate change was first proposed, many environmental campaigners were sceptical, to say the least. Then, as it became clear that the ETS was to become the law of the land, some environmental groups clambered on board, joining the business community. However, not everybody joined the party. Friends of the Earth, for instance, has always opposed using a market mechanism as the EU’s main tool for fighting climate change. Ahead of the European Parliament’s vote, a group of 36 global NGOs, including chapters of Friends of the Earth, Corporate Europe Observatory and FERN, the European forests campaign group, released a report calling for the ETS to be scrapped. “The vote on backloading is the wrong debate,” said Hannah Mowat of FERN. “No amount of structural tinkering will get away from the fact that the EU has chosen the wrong tool to reduce emissions in Europe.” The report says that rather than wasting time and energy fixing a broken system, the EU should instead shift to more direct policies for stimulating changes that lower emissions, such as feed-in tariffs for renewables, redirecting public subsidies away from the fossil-fuel industry and towards low-carbon infrastructure, and improving energy efficiency. Such a change of approach would not be straightforward. The ETS is now almost ten years old. For the past decade, the EU’s climate policy has been constructed with the ETS at its core. “I don’t see how [scrapping the ETS] would offer immediate solutions,” said Sam Van Den Plas of campaign group WWF. “That’s a process that would require many more years.” “Despite the disappointing news on backloading, ETS is still a directive in place,” he added. “It’s still a useful policy framework, but the parameters are incorrect. The real debate still lies in the structural changes [to be proposed by the Commission], regardless of whether backloading goes ahead or not.” But the backloading debate has left environmental campaigners in the awkward position of defending a market mechanism they were never keen on from the outset, while the centre-right politicians who devised the system are now silent as it crumbles. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, was a main proponent of emissions trading, but now she refuses to take a position on backloading. Barroso was also a champion, but has not come out with a statement on ETS since the Parliament’s vote. German centre-left MEP Matthias Groote, chairman of the Parliament’s environment committee, has criticised him for this silence. Quiet support Ville Niinistö, Finland’s environment minister, says that there is still support for the ETS as the main vehicle for emissions reduction, particularly because the alternative at this point would probably be 27 different national climate policies. The UK’s recent unilateral climate action, for instance, seems to be a troubling sign of things to come. But he says that the current sense of crisis around the ETS is alerting political and business leaders to the need for change if the ETS is to be relevant in the future. “There is still momentum behind making sure that the ETS works, but this is a good reminder that NGOs were right when they said that you cannot have a market-based mechanism and then make it too loose, because then there is no market,” Niinistö said. “The ETS is a big part of the European approach, and we should not leave it easily,” he said. “But we have a lot to prove – that this market mechanism works. European companies have a lot to prove – that they want this market mechanism to work. There seems to be quite a lot of discussion within the business world in Europe at this moment, that if they want the ETS to work they should be supportive of making sure it is the main vehicle for emissions reductions.” If no solution to the ETS crisis of confidence is found in the coming months, there could be big implications worldwide for other countries that are copying the EU system – the first and largest carbon market in the world. Australia’s system is set to begin trading in 2015 and has plans to link to the EU ETS. China is launching ETS pilot schemes and California has a fully functioning market. A collapse of the ETS might lead these countries to rethink their plans. Continue reading
Drax coal-to-Biomass Project Will Be First Backed By UK Guarantee, Says Treasury
The conversion of a coal-fired power station to biomass will be the first project to be backed by a UK Guarantee, the Treasury has announced. 29 Apr 2013 It has provided a £75 million guarantee to power company Drax, enabling the company to obtain private financing from a “wider group of investors” than would otherwise have been possible, it said. Announced in July 2012, the UK Guarantees scheme was designed to benefit up to £40 billion worth of major infrastructure projects which are struggling to obtain funding. It is open to financially credible, nationally significant infrastructure projects, provided that work can begin on those projects within 12 months of the guarantee being given. The Treasury had previously announced that guarantees would be given to the procurement of rolling stock for the new Crossrail route , and for the funding of the £1 billion Northern Line extension to Battersea . However, the Drax project is the first of these arrangements to be finalised. “I am very pleased that the development of Drax has been able to benefit from the UK Guarantees Scheme,” said Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. “This is another example of how we are using the credibility Britain has earned through its determination to deal with its deficit to support investment in the economy.” In a statement, Drax announced a new £75m loan arrangement with Friends Life, underpinned by the Treasury guarantee. The company plans to convert three generators from coal-fuelled to biomass-fuelled. It has obtained financing from several lenders, including £50m from the UK Green Investment Bank. “This further strengthens our balance sheet, as we progress our project to transform the largest coal-fired power station in the UK into an electricity generator fuelled predominantly by sustainable biomass,” said Tony Quinlan, Drax’s finance director. “The benefits are multiple, from securing jobs at Drax and across the UK in the supply chain to providing low carbon, cost effective and reliable renewable power for the consumer. We are delighted to secure the support of Friends Life and Infrastructure UK,” he said. Continue reading
