New European Project About Online Risks For Children

EU Kids Online is a new project to conduct the first systematic European comparison of research on children and young people’s experience of the Internet and online technologies. It is funded by the EC Safer Internet Plus Programme.

Professor Sonia Livingstone, Director of EU Kids Online at the LSE says, „There is a growing body of research showing that the internet can be risky for children and teenagers, though it also has lots of benefits. Compared with other European countries, British parents are aware of this, but they still need more guidance, especially as they don’t always know what their children are up to and because the risks themselves are changing all the time.“

Dr Leslie Haddon, Co-director of EU Kids Online at LSE says, „In this project, we are collecting all the research findings across Europe on this important topic in one place, so we can begin to compare findings across countries. But so far, this makes it obvious that a lot more research is needed“.

What does the research show?

By comparing available research in 18 countries [1], over 200 separate projects have been identified and linked to a publicly searchable repository.

But most research charts access and use of the internet by youth at home and school: we know very little of the risks of going online.

The 2006 Mediappro [2] project found internet use varies considerably across Europe:

 50% of British children (aged 12-18) claim to use Instant messaging, rising to 73% in Belgium, 82% in Estonia and 88% in Poland (Source:

 In Denmark, 7% of children claim to have a blog, while the figures for the UK and Poland are 14% and 18% respectively, rising to 35% in Belgium.

 School rules also differ: 57% of Danish children claim their schools have rules governing Internet use, compared to 73% of Polish children, and two thirds in the UK.

The 2006 Eurobarometer [3] survey also shows large variation across countries:

 18% European parents/carers believe their child (under 18) has encountered harmful or illegal content on the internet.

 From our initial more systematic examination of three of the participating countries, British parents claim to regulate their children’s use of Internet more 62% of UK parents have rules about not giving out personal information online, but only 35% of Polish parents and 14% of Portuguese parents do so.

 Paradoxically, UK parents also seem to have more confidence in their children: 75% thought that their children would know what to do if a situation on the Internet made them feel uncomfortable. The figures for Poland and Portugal are 56% and 48%.

 Possibly, safety awareness raising efforts in the UK have been more effective than in some other countries, as these have been coordinated across multiple stakeholders (government, child protection, industry, parenting organisations, etc).

What don’t we know?

 We still don’t know whether differences in European children’s experiences reflect genuine variations in risk or, instead, differences in how risks are perceived by parents and others.
 We just don’t know how many children and young people have been exposed to racist, violent or gory material, or to gambling or self-harm sites. The 2006 Irish Webwise survey [4] of 9-16 year olds found 26% had visited hateful sites, 35% had visited pornographic sites, 23% had received unwanted sexual comments online, and 7% had met an online contact offline.

In the UK, there’s still grounds for concern:

 Ofcom’s 2006 research [5] shows 16% 8-15 yr olds have come across something ‘nasty, worrying or frightening’ online.
 The UK Children Go Online project [6] found that those young people who take communication risks online tend to be more likely to be risk-takers who are less satisfied with their lives offline.

In the USA, some risks are increasing:

 The Online Victimization of Youth report [7] found increased exposure to sexual material among 10-17 year olds (34% compared with 25% in 2003) and online harassment (9% vs. 6% in 2003), though they also found reduced unwanted sexual solicitations (13% vs. 19%). In that survey, 4% had been asked for nude/sexually explicit photos of themselves online.

But maybe children are getting more ‘internet literate’:

 The SAFT survey in Norway and Ireland found that in 2006, children were more critical of the internet and gave out less personal information than in 2003.

 Directing more safety awareness at children themselves may be the best way forward, since parents often don’t know just what their children are doing online.

Background information

 EU Kids Online->
 EU Kids Online project representative: Gender Education, Research and Technologies Foundation (GERT)
 European Commission’s Safer Internet Plus Programme
 The UK national awareness node for child safety on the Internet
 and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre
 The 2006 Mediappro project
 The 2006 Eurobarometer survey
 Ofcom’s Media Literacy Audit of Children->
 The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Report ‘Online Victimization of Youth
 UK Children Go Online
 SAFT
 Webwise

Contact information

Professor Sonia Livingstone, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE. Email s.livingstone@lse.ac.uk