Abstract
Mito Akiyoshi looks into the issue of parental mediation of children’s internet use in Japan. She analyzes the relationship between guidelines provided by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and parental decisions. She finds that the Ministry perceives grave risk in unregulated use of the internet by children and employs libertarian paternalistic approaches to control children’s online behavior. Quantitative analysis of a survey of parents and their children reveals that parents selectively adopt these guidelines. They often prefer to set up use rules built on trust in children’s good judgment. Each party’s power manifests itself in the ability to encourage and sidestep certain courses of action rather than in outright conflict.
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- 1.
This chapter refers to a broad range of online activities as “internet use.” It encompasses communications mediated by the computer as well as the mobile phone.
- 2.
Businesses that want to encourage consumers to subscribe to their newsletters thus show a screen where the check box for newsletter subscription is already checked for them.
- 3.
The concept of nudge is value-neutral. It may result in the optimization of the benefit of its recipients or it may lead to misinformation and exploitation (Thaler and Sunstein 2009).
- 4.
The NPA sent undercover researchers disguised as potential buyers of a mobile phone for their daughter to about 1200 mobile phone stores. The study found that the majority of the stores (52 %) did not properly inform potential consumers (NPA 2015).
- 5.
Japanese local governments are composed of about 1700 municipalities and special districts and 47 prefectures that contain these municipalities and districts. Both prefectural governments and municipal and district governments have a mandate to set their own ordinances. Although some ordinances have penalty for violation, all the ordinances discussed in this chapter do not have penalty for violation.
- 6.
A child may upload copyrighted material not understanding pertinent legal concepts. Alternatively, a child may hack into computer networks and bring them down. She may vaguely understand that her action constitutes a criminal offense and yet she may or may not grasp its full consequence. “Mafiaboy” and numerous other teenage hackers managed to cause millions of dollars worth of damage (Verton 2002).
- 7.
These threats are not mutually exclusive nor collectively exhaustive.
- 8.
Innovations such as the telephone and car endowed young people with previously unimaginable levels of freedom and autonomy (Fischer 1992). They gained independence and privacy in dating and courtship through these two technologies.
- 9.
The two types of social solutions differ in the types of sanction they invite in case of violation. The offenders of binding social solutions are held responsible in legal terms while the failure to follow non-binding social solutions simply raises some eyebrows.
- 10.
Ninety percent of the children in the study use a mobile phone to email their parents whereas 10 % use a personal computer.
- 11.
Social skills were measured with five variables: (1) whether the respondent is good at keep a conversation going, (2) whether the respondent is willing to initiate a conversation with someone she is not particularly close to, (3) whether the respondent is good at dealing with interpersonal problems, (4) whether the respondent is capable of expressing feelings and emotions, and (5) Whether the respondent admits to a mistake and apologizes.
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Dataset
FMMC. (2008a). A survey of net use and social ties.
Acknowledgments
The author is grateful to the Foundation for Multimedia Communications upon whose initiative the survey was designed and conducted. She also thanks the late Professor Kakuko Miyata of Meiji Gakuin University for her suggestions on measurements of attitudinal variables. The earlier version of this chapter was presented at a symposium entitled “Power in Contemporary Japan” held at the Institute for Study of Humanities and Social Sciences, Doshisha University on June 27, 2014. Suggestions and criticisms offered by Marie Thorsten, Gill Steel, panel members, and members of the audience are much appreciated.
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Akiyoshi, M. (2016). Negotiating Technology Use in Families. In: Steel, G. (eds) Power in Contemporary Japan. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59193-7_4
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