Children's formal and informal definition of technology

Though today's children have many chances to interact with technology, what they understand about technology from their point of view still needs to be explored. In this poster we report how children define technology and what they understand technology to be in a real-life context. We use qualitative methods aiming to identify the differences in children's formal definitions and their practical understanding of technology. We interviewed six focus groups and asked twenty-six children to create video self documentaries in two countries: Hungary and India. We found consistency between their formal definitions and their statements on their actual use of technology. For example, they stated that technology makes things easier, uses electricity, is entertaining, useful, and harmful as well, which can also be found in their statements of technology use. The differences were that they expressed technology is easy in daily life while in the definition they indicated its complexity. Moreover, they mentioned technology's influence on their social lives, which never appeared in the formal definitions.