8 Jun 2008
Asked by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to investigate the new dangers to children being brought up in the digital age, Dr Tanya Byron, under the auspices of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, produced a 224-page report (see The Byron Review). The child psychologist’s recommendations included a cinema-style system of classification for video games and a thorough public education campaign and educational efforts in schools. She also warned that protecting children against all risks stunts their development and that an important part of growing up is learning to assess and deal with danger.
This Lecture provides an opportunity to hear Tanya Byron’s reactions to the Review’s launch and to the feedback she has received since.
This event is organised in collaboration with the Family Online Safety Institute
(FOSI), with sponsorship from Vodafone, Fox Interactive Media, and MySpace.
Speakers
Professor John Palfrey
Clinical Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
John is Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School. In these roles at HLS, he is director of the school’s library and co-chair of the IT committee. He is also a faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. John’s research and teaching focus on Internet law, intellectual property, and the potential of new technologies to strengthen democracies locally and around the world. He is the co-author of ‘Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives’ (Basic Books, 2008) and ‘Access Denied: The Practice and Politics of Global Internet Filtering’ (MIT Press, 2008).
Dr Tanya Byron
Child psychologist
Tanya did her first degree in psychology at York, her clinical psychology Masters training at UCL and her doctorate (on the treatment of cocaine, amphetamine and ecstasy misusers) between University College Hospital and Surrey. She has been working in the NHS for 18 years, working in Drug Dependency, HIV/AIDS and sexual health, adult mental health and eating disorders services. She was the Consultant of an in patient unit for 12 – 16 year olds with severe mental health problems and child protection issues. Tanya now works one day a week as a Consultant in child and adolescent mental health in a general practice. In addition Tanya writes a weekly column for the Times newspaper and for several women’s magazines. She has published three books on child behaviour, the latest published by Penguin.
Annie Mullins
Global Head of Content Standards at Vodafone