知义不知害：儿童网络语言使用中的认知发展不同步——基于医务社会工作实习的探索性研究

“Knowing the Meaning but Not the Harm”: Developmental Asynchrony in Children’s Use of Internet Language—An Exploratory Study Based on Medical Social Work Practicum

摘要: 既有研究多以“语义空心”解释儿童网络语言使用，认为幼儿因不理解词义而盲目跟风，但难以解释部分儿童通晓语义却漠视语言伤害的现象。本研究依托北京某三甲医院“微笑空间”游戏治疗场域，采用质性研究方法，对3名住院患儿(4~7岁)开展参与式田野观察与半结构化访谈，并对3名教育与社会工作从业者进行访谈，运用Braun & Clarke六步主题分析法整理资料。研究发现，在就医患儿这一特殊群体中，部分儿童呈现出“知义不知害”的认知特征，体现在能够解释网络语言的语义内涵，但对语言可能造成的伤害缺乏共情反应的方面。儿童通过“开玩笑”的话语重构、沉默回避、网络知识区隔、责任外部化等策略维持这一认知状态。研究认为，这一现象需置于4~7岁儿童正常道德发展阶段，即皮亚杰前运算阶段及科尔伯格前习俗水平中理解，数字媒介环境可能放大了语义认知与伦理认知之间的发展不同步，而非造成病理性的认知缺陷。本研究定位为探索性案例研究，旨在补充“语义空心”理论的解释边界，为医务社会工作在医疗情境中的干预实践提供参考，并指出未来需在普通儿童群体中验证这些发现的适用性。

Abstract: Existing research often explains children’s use of internet language through the lens of “semantic hollowness,” positing that young children blindly follow trends due to their inability to comprehend word meanings. Yet this framework fails to account for the paradoxical phenomenon wherein some children fully understand semantic content yet remain indifferent to the harm caused by language. Drawing upon the “Smile Space” play therapy setting at a tertiary hospital in Beijing, this study employed qualitative research methods, conducting participatory field observations and semi-structured interviews with three children in medical settings aged 4~7, alongside interviews with three education and social work practitioners. Data were analyzed using Braun & Clarke’s six-phase thematic analysis. Findings revealed that within this special population of children in medical settings, some exhibited a cognitive characteristic of “knowing the meaning but not the harm”: they were capable of explaining the semantic connotations of internet language but lacked empathic responses to the potential harm inflicted upon others. Furthermore, they actively maintained this cognitive state through strategies including reframing through the “just joking” framework, silent avoidance, internet knowledge compartmentalization, and externalization of responsibility. This study argues that this phenomenon should be understood within the normal moral development stages of 4~7-year-old children (Piaget’s preoperational stage, Kohlberg’s preconventional level), and that the digital media environment may have amplified the developmental asynchrony between semantic and ethical cognition rather than causing pathological cognitive deficits. Positioned as an exploratory case study, this research aims to supplement the explanatory boundaries of the “semantic hollowness” framework, provide reference for medical social work intervention practice in healthcare settings, and indicate that future research is needed to validate these findings among general child populations.