Exam Question 2!

How far does the primary and secondary research you have conducted support the conclusions drawn from the article?

My Primary and Secondary research that I have conducted support the 2014 OFCOM report, but there are some key areas of findings that differentiates from it. For my first primary research, I conducted a survey on ‘survey monkey’, where I asked questions to draw in some conclusions and analyse it with the report. The purpose of this research was to see how young children using social media, how many hours they use it for and which technology device do they most prefer to use. In the 2014 OFCOM report, it focuses heavily on Children’s consumption towards different forms of media, and by conducting this primary research, I have proven that it does partly relate to the research provided by OFCOM. Since I completed my secondary research first, I found that the websites where I got most of my research from sort of contradict my primary research. Overall, my survey was useful in some ways, because although it gave me extensive research which I was able to compare with my secondary research, some of the questions contradicted with the 2014 OFCOM report.                                                                                                                                     In the 2014 report, it heavily states that seven in ten children aged 5-5 now have access to a tablet or computer at home. This statement partly related to my second primary research which is an Observation I conducted while watching three of my cousins in the living room (aged 5-11), and it showed them watching Television, but they would often use their iPads or tablets between times to go on social media and play app games. Since the article states that a lot of 5-15 year olds are spending time online each day, I came to the conclusion on the report that my observation report partly contradicted the report because even though my three cousins all had their technology devices in front of them, they mostly preferred to watch the TV, which then challenges the report as it talks about children watching less TV on their Television and watching it more on devices such as laptops, phones and iPads/tablets. I would say that my observation findings supported the article more and drew in the most conclusions for me to compare and analyse with the 2014 OFCOM report. 

When conducting my Secondary research, I used to websites from ‘the guardian’ and two websites from ‘the independent’ and what I found was that although there were some areas in both articles which I found very useful and trustworthy, some areas also heavily contradicted with the 2014 report which made the information collected not relevant. The research that I conducted in my ‘the guardian’ secondary research partly relates to the report as it talks about the use of Television decreasing by 5-15 year olds. It also undermines my primary research as more children would prefer to use social media than sit in front of the TV. Although the 2014 OFCOM report spoke about how children aged 5-15 has consumed media over the years, I found from my conclusions that the more children consume different media the unhappier and antisocial they become. In the report it talks about children aged 5-15 year old having access to tablets/iPads at home and spending more time online, particularly on social media. This relates to my secondary research as I found out that, young children spend almost eight and a half hours a week online and how 72% of children under eight have used a mobile device. One of the most interesting information I found while conducting my secondary research is ‘More children now live in a household with a tablet than any other technology media devices’. This differentiates with my primary research, but it does not contradict to the report as children aged 5-15 spend the majority of their time online.                                                                                           Overall, the conclusions that I have drawn from both from my primary and secondary research partly support the 2014 OFCOM report, as it talks about how children from aged 3-15 like to consume the media and spend their time online, mostly on social media. However, it also contradicted the report in some areas where it spoke about how much time that children spend watching Television on their TV.