Middle-School Students' Mental Models of Online File-Sharing and Associated Risks

Middle-school students are active producers of online content via their social media posts and file-sharing. This study explored their mental models of the process of online file-sharing, in particular, in contexts involving photographs and homework, and associated risks. Students (N = 78; M-age = 13 years; 4 months, SD = 1 year; 0 months) described how pictures they drew showed the travel of a photograph via the Internet when shared online and what might happen to a homework assignment when someone sent it to a friend. Vignettes were used to elicit students' consideration of potential risks associated with online photo and homework-sharing via social media. Qualitative coding of drawings and oral explanations suggested that students' conceptualizations of the process of online file-sharing tended to be context-specific, as were the risks associated with file-sharing in each vignette. Furthermore, students' mental models were largely unrelated to their reports of associated risks. The results suggest that knowledge about the Internet may reflect a greater understanding of its social affordances than its structure as a complex construct.