Irish Parents lead the way in mediating their children’s use of the internet.
Today 29th September, EU Kids Online publishes a comparative report based on their analysis of over 250 empirical studies of children’s experience of the Internet in 21 European countries. Based on data concerning: children’s use of the Internet, perceptions of risk, and parental mediation, EU Kids Online developed classifications of countries that reflect different conditions for children and teenagers with regard to online risks and opportunities.
Ireland is classified as medium in terms of use of the internet by children and also medium in terms children’s exposure to risk. In general it is true to say that greater access to the Internet results in more exposure to risk with some notable exceptions, high risk situations are characteristic of new entrants to the EC. Southern European countries tend to be lower in risk, though there are differences among them.
Beyond the question of exposure to risk, is the question is children’s ability to cope with, or their resilience towards, it. According to risk and coping indicators, Estonia and Bulgaria are the highest risk/lowest coping countries followed by Poland and the Czech Republic. On the other side of the spectrum, Ireland is also one of a group of seven countries (Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and the UK) combine low risk and a high ability to cope.
“This report highlights that Irish children’s experience of using the internet is similar in many ways to their European peers. It is good to see that parents in Ireland are more likely than parents anywhere else in Europe to set rules regulating their children’s internet behaviour with 62% having rules in place. Many of their rules relate to the amount of time children are allowed spend online and the type of sites they are allowed to visit. We need to keep working to provide guidance to parents so that they can positively engage with the contact risks their children encounter as they make friends and share their lives online.” Simon Grehan, National Centre for Technology in Education
Link to full report – http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/EUKidsOnline/Reports/ReportD3-2CrossnationalComparisonFINAL4.pdf
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SUMMARY OF FINDINGS:
Across Europe use of the internet increases with age, at least up until the early to mid teens, when usage may peak. Contrary to the widespread assumption that, in general, children are the digital natives and parents the digital immigrants, it seems that those children under 11 years use it less than parents but those aged 12-17 are more likely to use the internet than are parents (87% vs. 65%). It is teenagers, therefore, who are the digital pioneers in Europe.
“These findings suggest that, in general, for younger children, it is reasonable to expect that their parents will understand the internet sufficiently to guide their use, but this may not hold for teenagers. Further, even though internet use may be low among the adult population, it is more likely that parents will be sufficiently familiar to undertake a mediating role with their children.” -Uwe Hasebrink, Hans Bredow Institute For Media Research.
High Internet use is generally associated with a relatively greater reliance on home use, while lower use is also associated with a greater reliance on school use. Across Europe, children are equally likely to use the internet at home and at school. The more children use the internet at home in a country, the more they are likely to use it also at school, and vice versa.
Across Europe, a fair body of research evidence suggests that adults and children agree that children use the internet as an educational resource, for entertainment, games and fun, for searching for global information and for social networking, sharing experiences with distant others. Other opportunities such as user-generated content creation or concrete forms of civic participation are less common.
“Evidence indicated that each child climbs a ‘ladder of online opportunities’, beginning with information-seeking, progressing through games and communication, taking on more interactive forms of communication and culminating in creative and civic activities. Though many variants are possible, one implication is that communication and games playing may not be ‘time-wasting’ but, instead, a motivational step on the way to ‘approved’ activities.” Sonia Livingstone, EU Kids Online coordinator London School Economics
It appears that giving out personal information is the most common risk encountered across Europe(approximately half of online teenagers), that seeing pornography is the second most common risk at around 4 in 10 across Europe, that seeing violent or hateful content is third most common risk (at approx one third of teens), that being bullied/harassed/stalked affects around 1 in 5 or 6 teens online, that receiving unwanted sexual comments is experienced by between 1 in 10 teens (Germany, Ireland, Portugal) but closer to 1 in 3 or 4 teens in Iceland, Norway, UK and Sweden, rising 1 in 2 in Poland. Last, as regards meeting an online contact offline, this is the least common but arguably most dangerous risk, showing considerable consistency in the figures across Europe at around 9% (1 in 11) online teens going to such meetings, rising to 1 in 5 in Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic.
Parents practice a range of strategies for mediating their children’s online activities - they favour time restrictions, sitting with their children as they go online and discussing internet use, tending to prefer these social strategies to technical mediation (filtering, monitoring software). More consistent across Europe is the tendency for higher SES parents to mediate their children’s internet use, and for girls to be more subject to such mediation than boys. With regard to age, the consistent finding is that of a U-curve: that parental mediation increases with age until the age of around 10-11 years and then decreases again.
Cross-national variation in the amount of children’s use of the internet, which depends in many ways on variation in internet diffusion, is a crucial dimension in influencing children’s experience of the internet in Europe. Higher use is associated with higher risk, but not exclusively so – there are also some medium use, high risk countries and at least one low use, high risk country (Bulgaria).
Compounding the challenges ahead, it will be observed that relatively low engagement of NGOs with internet safety issues was found in several high risk countries.
The technical infrastructure of schools as well as the way how the internet is integrated in curricula and everyday teaching practices will influence children’s online use at schools. Since online use at schools is often restricted risks as well as opportunities are reduced in that setting.
Background information
EU Kids Online (www.eukidsonline.net) is the first systematic European comparison of research findings from 21 countries on children and young people’s experience of the Internet and online technologies. Now in its second year, the network is funded by the EC Safer Internet Plus Programme.
EU Kids Online is at http://www.eukidsonline.net.
Countries included are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia,Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands and The United Kingdom.
EU Kids Online published 3 new reports in 2007 – one identifying the availability of research findings and the key gaps in the evidence; one comparing Portugal, Poland and the UK for contextual factors accounting for differences in children’s experiences of the internet; one analysing the methodological challenges of researching children in relation to the internet in cross-national perspective. All may be freely downloaded from www.eukidsonline.net
The IRELAND team is based in the Centre for Social & Educational Research, at the Dublin Institute of Technology and at the National Centre for Technology in Education, Dublin.
Dr Brian O’Neill -Brian O’Neill is Head of Research for the Faculty of Applied Arts, Dublin Institute of Technology.
Dr Helen McQuillan - Helen McQuillan is an Arnold Graves postdoctoral scholar in Dublin Institute of Technology.
Simon Grehan -Simon Grehan is the Internet Safety Project Officer at the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE).