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Unless we see take action on online child protection, legal uncertainty and disputes will continue and we run the risk of excessive legislation being enacted in response.

There is a crisis of trust in information. Technology offers unprecedented potential to support informed debate and decision-making, but the threats to reliable information and a healthy public debate are growing. Politicians, regulators, platforms, news media and campaigners are responding, with mixed motives and uncertain results. While most share the view that the information crisis needs addressing, each stakeholder has its own interests. The digital platforms, news organisations, political campaigners and civil society all need to be part of a new integrated policy arrangement. This report seeks to rise above the fray. It outlines the contours of the crisis and some of the evidence for the harm caused. It argues for a bold, structural approach to address what is a systemic problem of a crisis of trust in information.

There is currently a lack of guidance for both parents and health professionals regarding screen time and the use of digital devices by 0- to 5-year-olds, despite rising concerns among health visitors. In a context of increasing reliance on digital technologies, public anxiety about the still-uncertain outcomes for children, and a policy debate that prioritises risks over opportunities, this article offers a balanced assessment of recent evidence that can underpin realistic screen media guidance. While evidence for screen-related risks is less strong than often supposed, it appears that parent-child interaction mitigates any associated harms of screen time, also fostering screen-based learning opportunities. We conclude with some practical, evidence-based suggestions for health visitors

This chapter argues that, while parenting has always been inherently future-oriented and, therefore highly uncertain, the conditions of reflexive modernity amplify and individualize the burden of risk such that parents become increasingly anxious both because of their uncertain and risky task and also because of the judgments of others. Based on depth interviews with over 70 London families, we show how parents navigate this situation by tacking back and forth between their memories of their own (non-digital) childhood and their anticipations of their children’s imagined ‘digital’ future in order to narrate for themselves and their children the values, identities and practices that are important to them. These narratives are sometimes romantic and other times instrumental; both narratives are highly agentic, allowing parents’ visions of the future to shape their actions in the present. But, we explain last, it matters that the future is imagined through the lens of the digital.

As the world absorbs the impact of Europe’s GDPR, Sonia Livingstone asks if data protection can work for children’s privacy – or if a wider view is needed for all ages of user.

This article seeks to understand how, in a highly mediated society, a “digital thread” is established through the personal and social life and in the learning process of young people. For this purpose, an ethnography was carried out with students aged between 13 to 14 years, during a year. The interlinked forms of digital media that young people have used to find spaces of autonomy and personal action have been revealed, while their parents and teachers try to establish digital media in a normative way, shaping young people’s current achievements and future perspectives. This is related to the subtle stimulation of connections and disconnections, often motivating or problematic, present inside their homes and between home and school. The result is that digital media – although it does not necessarily determine the lives of young people – has become an important source of anxiety and conflict between generations. Este artigo procura entender como, em uma sociedade fortemente mediatizada, se tece um “fio digital” através da vida pessoal, social e de aprendizagem de jovens. Para tanto, foi realizada uma etnografia com alunos de 13 a 14 anos de idade, durante um ano. Foram reveladas as formas interligadas de mídia digital da qual os jovens se apropriam para encontrar espaços de autonomia e ação pessoal, enquanto seus pais e professores tentam implantar a mídia digital de maneira normativa, moldando as realizações atuais e as perspectivas futuras dos jovens. Isso se dá pela sutil promulgação de conexões e desconexões, muitas vezes motivadoras ou problemáticas, sustentadas dentro e entre o lar e a escola. O resultado é que a mídia digital – embora não necessariamente determinante à vida dos jovens – tornou-se uma importante fonte de ansiedade e luta entre as gerações.

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In all the recent discussion over social media data exploitation, licit or illicit, with or without consent, urging people to lock down privacy settings or even delete their profiles, the ‘user’ is constantly assumed to be an adult – responsible for their decisions about when to allow information society services to monetise their personal data. But who is looking out for children and their data privacy? The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), coming into force on 25th May 2018, proposes that for children under a certain age, companies should gain parental consent before processing their personal data. But under what age? But what is under-age? The GDPR proposed 16 as the age of consent, albeit for largely unexplained reasons. It then allowed member states to reduce the age to 13, and the UK’s Data Protection Bill has proposed just that, resulting in a lower age of consent than in some European countries, but leaving unresolved the challenges of implementation. In all this, it seems no-one has consulted parents. US research with parents suggests 13 is too young and, as Facebook reported, 77% of parents say they should be the ones to decide. The Parenting for a Digital Future project surveyed a nationally representative sample of 2032 UK parents of 0-17 year olds in November 2017. As we show, overall parents think 13 is about right, but parents of teens – to whom this decision actually matters in practice – think 13 is too young.

Debates about personal data and online privacy often make assumptions about parents’ digital skills and sharing practices, how they view their children’s online privacy, and whether parents have the skills to translate concerns about privacy into practical action. This report, the third in a series, is based on a nationally representative survey of 2032 UK parents of children aged 0-17 years old. We examine how UK parents view their own and their children’s digital privacy, whether and how they share images of their children online, and how they negotiate new norms about parents’ roles in supporting their child’s safety and fostering their independence online.

In development agendas regarding children in low income communities, both older and emerging media are typically ignored, taken for granted or assumed to have beneficial powers that will redress social and gender inequality. Taking the field of ICT for Development (ICT4D) as a subfield of communication for development, we build on a recent rapid evidence review on adolescents’ digital media use and development interventions in low- and middle-income countries to critique the often-ubiquitous assumptions about the role and significance of new media in empowering children and adolescents in the global south. From this literature, we examine the contexts of children and adolescents’ access to and uses of information and communication technology(ICT). Noting that only a handful of studies heed the significance of social class and gender as major axes of inequality for adolescents, we subject the gap between the rhetoric of ICT-based empowerment and the realities of ICT-based practice to critical scrutiny. We call for a radical rethinking of childhood and development in light of the actual experiences, struggles and contexts.

This briefing paper provides information, analysis and recommendations regarding future EU policy developments on the protection of minors in the digital age to support the CULT Committee’s deliberations. Focusing on developments since 2012, it identifies recent policy developments at EU level, evaluates existing EU initiatives and instruments, and recommends further action by the European Commission and other stakeholders.

Digital media have become deeply integrated into family life, extending old ways of connecting and introducing new ones. Contrary to what panicky headlines might have us believe, rather than displacing established ways of interacting, playing and communicating – digital media sit alongside them. Today, British families eat, shop and read together – and they watch TV, stream content, play video games, and use educational technology. They stop by to see friends and family and they text, use messaging apps and make video calls. Yet parents have woefully few sources of support and advice when they have digital questions and dilemmas. In this report, released for Safer Internet Day 2018, we present key findings from a nationally representative survey of UK parents of children aged 0-17.

This case presents the Global Kids Online research model, revealing the challenges of researching children’s internet and mobile use in a global context, and providing practical methodological solutions. With most available research conducted in the global North while most growth in the population of young internet users is occurring in the global South, researchers are faced with the challenge of creating research tools that are both context-sensitive, yet able to capture children’s experiences of the internet on a global scale, and that allow for robust cross-country comparative approaches. The Global Kids Online methodology is designed for children aged 9-17 who use the internet at least minimally and for adult respondents (the children’s parents or carers). It includes a survey of parents and children, and individual and group interviews with children. The Global Kids Online project was developed as a collaborative initiative between the London School of Economics and Political Science, the UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti, and the EU Kids Online network to address this need for a robust global evidence base on children’s online opportunities and risks, and their effects on children’s well-being and rights, which can be used to inform national and international policy, regulation, and practice

In this chapter we analyse the widely influential American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) “screen time” guidelines (issued in 1999 and updated in 2016) in relation to the existing evidence about parental mediation and the lived experience of families in the digital age. In our interviews with 73 diverse families in London, we have been struck by how often some version of these guidelines surfaces, often without knowing where they come from, as parents castigate themselves for allowing their children “too much” screen time, without much critical examination of what this means. We argue that these and similar time- or exposure-based guidelines rely on an insufficient evidence base, and lead parents to prioritise restrictive forms of screen time that neither serve the purpose of keeping children safe, nor of helping them towards opportunities. Go to the full book to find a version of this chapter tagged for accessibility.

As children in high, middle and even low-income countries gain access to the internet via a range of digital devices and services – most often via a mobile phone – parents are feeling challenged in their competence, role and authority. In response, parents draw on their available resources – socioeconomic and cultural – and their preferred parenting styles as well as some of the principles of positive parenting. In high income countries, a shift is underway from restrictive towards enabling forms of parental mediation. In middle and low-income countries, the evidence suggests that restrictive mediation is generally favoured by parents, although this brings costs in terms of children’s opportunities online, especially for girls. In all countries, the rapid pace of technological innovation undermines parental competence, this is in turn undermining children’s willingness to turn to parents for support. We conclude with suggestions to support parents in meeting the growing challenge of empowering their children online in diverse contexts. An earlier version was published as Livingstone, S. and Byrne, J. (2015). Challenges of Parental Responsibility in a Global Perspective. pp 26-29 in Gasser, U. (Ed.), Digitally Connected: Global Perspectives on Youth and Digital Media. Cambridge: Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University. Go to the full book to find a version of this chapter tagged for accessibility.

On 20 November 2017, a roundtable discussion chaired by Sonia Livingstone was held at LSE to explore how the European General Data Protection Regulation's new requirements will affect both children and the organisations that process their data. It built on a previous discussion held soon after the GDPR was published, and began the consultative process for the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guidance by identifying a range of issues, priorities, common ground and differences of opinion. This short report focuses on the key points and issues that arose. Representatives from various sectors were invited to participate in the meeting, and they are referred to by sector in this report: the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), academia, NGO, consumer advocacy, legal opinion, intergovernmental organisation (IGO), and Industry The Chatham House rule applied.

The entirely revised third edition of Research with Children forms a unique resource book on the methodology of childhood research with a core emphasis on theory driven practices. As in the previous two editions, this edition presents particular standpoints in the field, whilst also reflecting the latest developments in the now well-established interdisciplinary field of childhood studies.

As Internet use becomes widespread at home, parents are trying to maximize their children's online opportunities while also minimizing online risks. We surveyed parents of 6- to 14-year-olds in 8 European countries (N = 6,400). A factor analysis revealed 2 parental mediation strategies. Enabling mediation is associated with increased online opportunities but also risks. This strategy incorporates safety efforts, responds to child agency, and is employed when the parent or child is relatively digitally skilled, so may not support harm. Restrictive mediation is associated with fewer online risks but at the cost of opportunities, reflecting policy advice that regards media use as primarily problematic. It is favored when parent or child digital skills are lower, potentially keeping vulnerable children safe yet undermining their digital inclusion.

This rapid evidence review examines adolescents’ access to and use of digital media (especially mobile phones and the internet), together with the associated digital skills and practices, opportunities and risks, and forms of safety mediation, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The review is especially concerned with 10- to 14-year-old girls’ digital media uses, although little evidence specifically addressed this group. It is guided by two overarching research questions: 1. What do scholars and practitioners know about how young adolescents are using digital media (computers, mobile phones and other information and communication technologies, ICTs) and the key challenges these children face? What are the opportunities involved in their use of such media and what are most significant gaps in our knowledge? 2. What evidence is there of local, national and international development programmes’ effective use of digital media to target 10- to 14-year-olds (rather than older adolescents)? What are the most significant gaps in the existing knowledge about these interventions and their outcomes?