Childhood Spaces in a Changing World: Exploring the Intersection between Children and New Surveillance Technologies

Abstract

Children are at the forefront of the rapidly changing technological landscape, living in a world where both physical and virtual spaces are an intertwined part of daily experience. As an example of a child's changing relationship with new technologies, this article explores the increasing presence of surveillance technologies in the day-to-day spaces children inhabit. It suggests that childhood experience needs to be understood in the context of fluid and interdependent relations with others and the worlds around them, including their relationships with new technologies in the surrounding environment. At the same time, it is important to retain a view of the child that is more complex than what is simply gleaned through their relationship with new technologies, even as this becomes a prominent mode of interaction with others and the world around them.