CHALLENGES FACED BY CHILDREN IN INTERNET UNDERSTANDING, WEB SEARCHING, AND SEARCH RESULTS EVALUATION

The current generation of children is the first generation to have the World Wide Web ("web") as a permanent fixture in their lives-- for these children, it has always existed. Today's children use the web to look up information, play games, and socialize. Researchers found that children are one of the largest groups of computer users today, and have perhaps been using a computer since they were in kindergarten. They note that children search not only for information related to school assignments, but also random information based on their curiosity of the world surrounding them. In addition, researchers theorize that not only are children viewing information in text, hypertext, images and video, they must also determine the relevance and validity of the information, and determine savvy search methods using no clear point of entry to the web page.
This research reviews the environment of young web users, including their internet understanding, cognitive limitations, information literacy skills, and their resultant strengths and weaknesses performing web searching. Research will be updated on children's web searching skills by reporting findings of a study of the web search skills of five 11-to 12-year-old children, including their interactions with search engines designed for children and a popular search engine designed for adults. Results uncover little change in children's understanding of the internet, but a more sophisticated web searching and results evaluation behavior than previously found.