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2014 Mascheroni

This document provides an introduction to the report "Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities. Second Edition" which examines children's use of and experiences with the mobile internet. Key points: - The report studies how children access the internet using portable devices like smartphones, tablets, and how this may present different opportunities and risks than accessing the internet via PC. - It aims to understand children's mobile internet experiences in terms of the activities they engage in, their communication practices, skills developed, and risks encountered, and how this compares to using the internet on a PC. - The policy context emphasizes the important role of parents, teachers, and peers in mediating children's internet use and ensuring their safety,

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)

111 views123 pages

2014 Mascheroni

Uploaded by

Cristina Șișcanu

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

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CO-Funded by:

Risks and opportunities.

Second edition.
Giovanna Mascheroni & Kjartan lafsson

Full Findings
Report
May 2014

www.netchildrengomobile.eu

Net Children Go Mobile

Net Children Go Mobile:

Risks and opportunities.
Second Edition
Giovanna Mascheroni & Kjartan lafsson

PLEASE CITE AS:

Mascheroni, G. and lafsson, K. (2014). Net Children Go Mobile:
risks and opportunities. Second Edition. Milano: Educatt.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
The authors would also like to thank Andrea Cuman, Thuy Dinh, Leslie Haddon, Leen
d'Haenens, Heidi Jrgensen, Sonia Livingstone, Marina Micheli, Brian ONeill, Cristina Ponte,
Jos Simes, Gitte Stald, Sofie Vandoninck, Anca Velicu and Jane Vincent for their
contributions in writing this report.
The Belgian data collection is made possible thanks to the financial support of the Flemish
Government.
The Portuguese data collection is made possible thanks to the financial support of the
Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT).
3

Net Children Go Mobile

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Contents
1 introduction .................................................. 6
1.1 Context ................................................................6
1.2 The policy agenda .............................................7
1.3 The project ..........................................................8
1.4 Framework and methodology ........................9
1.5 This report........................................................ 10
2. Access and use.......................................... 11
2.1 Where children use the internet .................. 11
2.2 How children access the internet................ 15
2.3 Ownership........................................................ 18
2.4 Age of first use ................................................. 21
2.5 Parental uses of the internet, smartphones
and tablets ............................................................. 23
3. Online activities ....................................... 25
3.1 Types of online activities .............................. 25
3.2. Smartphone users ......................................... 27
3.3 Tablet users ..................................................... 28
3.4 Social networking and media sharing
platforms ................................................................ 29
4. Communication practices ....................... 35
4.1 Nature of childrens SNS contacts .............. 35
4.2 SNS privacy settings ...................................... 38
4.3 Different media for different contacts ........ 40
4.4 Childrens approach to online
communication .................................................... 45

7. Dependence and overdependence.......... 80

7.1 Managing the complexity of everyday life . 80
7.2 Excessive use of the internet and
smartphones .......................................................... 82
8. Mediation ................................................. 86
8.1 Parents .............................................................. 86
9. Mobile internet in schools ...................... 98
9.1 Availability of and rules about wifi in schools
.................................................................................. 98
9.2 Rules about smartphones in school ......... 100
9.3 Teachers mediation and learning
opportunities ....................................................... 101
10. Conclusions ............................................ 98
10.1 Access, usage, opportunities and skills.. 105
10.2 Risks and harm ........................................... 107
10.3 Mediation ..................................................... 109
10.4 Conclusive remarks .................................... 110
10.5 A list of variables used in tables in this
chapter .................................................................. 111
11. References .............................................. 114
12. List of tables .......................................... 117
13. List of figures ......................................... 119
14. The network ........................................... 121

5. Skills ..........................................................47
5.1 Self-confidence ............................................... 47
5.2 Skills and competences related to internet
use in general ........................................................ 51
5.3 Skills related to smartphones and tablets 54
5.4 Average number of skills ............................... 55
6. Risk and harm .......................................... 58
6.1 Overall perception of risk and harm ........... 58
6.2 Bullying............................................................. 61
6.3 Sexual messages ............................................ 65
6.4 Meeting new people ...................................... 67
6.5 Sexual images ................................................. 72
6.6 Other inappropriate content ........................ 75
6.7 Other risks ........................................................ 76
6.8 Responding to risks ....................................... 76
Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

1 Introduction

Portable devices connected to the internet

via wifi or 3G/4G, such as smartphones, tablets,
feature phones, portable games consoles and
MP3/MP4 players (such as iPod Touch) and ebook readers. Thanks to their portability, the
internet can technically be accessed anywhere,
anytime that there is a signal, although it is not
exclusively used while on the move, and social
considerations affect its usage.

Convergent multifunctional devices, which

support an ever-growing repertoire of
communication practices and online activities.
These combine options already supported by
previous generations of mobile phones (such
as phone calls, text messages, games, radio,
music, photos) with activities usually
performed on computers, the internet and
social media (such as email, instant message
services, social network sites [SNS], maps,
video, television and blogging). They also
enable new activities such as those related to
location-based services, and those performed
through apps (which can shape new online
experiences).

Personal devices,1 which are affective media

(evoking emotional attachment) that have
become taken-for-granted components of
everyday lives. Being personal and portable,
mobile media make the way we consume
media and engage in online practices more
flexible and personalised, and create new
opportunities for private use within the
domestic/school/public
context.
This
privatisation of access and use is
accompanied by the pervasiveness of the
internet in childrens daily lives, and implies
the creation of different social conventions of
freedom, privacy, sociability and not least,
supervision by parents and adults.

1.1 Context
Both childhood and the media environment are
changing and co-determining each other
(Livingstone, 2009). Children are growing up in a
convergent media ecology (Ito et al., 2009),
whereby significant opportunities for sociability,
self-expression,
learning,
creativity
and
participation are provided by online media and
increasingly, mobile media (Hjorth & Goggin, 2009;
Goggin, 2010; Goggin & Hjorth, 2014). However,
children may also experience risks on the internet:
since 2006, the EU Kids Online network has
investigated online opportunities and risks for
children,
showing
their
interdependence
(Livingstone et al., 2011): the more children use the
internet, the wider range of opportunities taken up,
the more they are exposed to risky experiences. The
changing conditions of internet access by means of
mobile media call for new research on children's
online experiences, opportunities and risks of the
mobile internet.
Although there is much current discussion of
mobile media, there is scope for different
definitions at this point in time as well as changing
definitions over time if, like the internet itself,
mobile media are a moving target as new
technologies and applications are continuously
developed. That said, any research project has to
define its object of study. Certainly, we would like to
differentiate between experiences of the internet
when it is accessed by PCs (including via laptops
and netbooks) and the online experiences when
accessed by portable devices that utilise different
operating systems (e.g. smartphones and tablets)
since these technological affordances can either
enable or hinder different practices.
Hence, when we speak of the mobile internet in
this project, we refer to access to the internet from
mobile media that is potentially different from a
PC-based online experience. The mobile media we
focus on are as follows:

One question is whether, by potentially expanding

the range of online opportunities, the mobile
internet is promoting a specific repertoire of
communication and entertainment activities - eg.
1

It should be noted that we are interested not just in the owners

of mobile devices, but also in users (e.g. of shared tablets).

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

social networking and gaming - which are preferred

by children compared to educational and other
more socially legitimate online activities. Another
question is whether access to the internet by
means of mobile media poses greater, fewer or
newer risks to children.
Our aim is therefore to understand and distinguish
the mobile internet experience from the PC-based
internet experience in terms of opportunities and
risks.

1.2 The policy agenda

Both researchers and policy makers agendas
attribute an increasingly crucial role for childrens
online safety to teachers, peers and especially
parents mediation. As the media and
communication environment becomes increasingly
difficult for governments to regulate, greater
parental responsibility in the domestic regulation of
their children has been advocated (Oswell, 2008).
Thus, activities that were hitherto seen as being
private - as parental regulation of children's media
use - are more likely to be addressed within public
policy frameworks, especially those concerned with
protecting children from media-related harm
(European Commission, 2008).
Drawing on the EU Kids Online2 framework, we can
understand parental mediation of children's
internet use as typically articulated in five main
forms (Livingstone et al., 2011):

Co-use and active mediation of internet use

involves parents discussing with their children
what they do online, sharing their online
activities and sitting with them while they are
online.

Active mediation of internet safety entails

parents promoting safer uses of the internet,

The EU Kids Online is a research network directed by Prof.

Sonia Livingstone and co-funded by the Safer Internet
Programme of the European Commission to investigate
children's online risks and opportunities. For more information
see: www.eukidsonline.net

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

giving advice on risk and helping children when

something on the internet bothers them.

Restrictive mediation entails parents setting

rules that limit childrens media use (by time or
activities).

Monitoring refers to parents checking

available records concerning the childs
internet use.

Technical restrictions entail the use of

software to filter, restrict and monitor the
childs internet use.

Overall, the EU Kids Online findings found a

positive picture of parental mediation. Not only do
parents express confidence in their childrens
ability to cope with online risks, but children also
welcome parental interest and involvement
(Haddon, 2012). As regards which parenting
strategies work best, while restrictive mediation is
clearly associated with lower risk, it may also
reduce childrens chances of benefiting from the
online world, and there is also evidence that
parental active mediation of internet use can
reduce childrens experience of harm without
restricting their opportunities (Drager &
Livingstone, 2012).
The portability of smartphones and their
personalised and private nature, inherited from
ordinary mobile phones, poses new challenges to
parents ability and willingness to share and
supervise their childrens use of online media.
Mobile phones can facilitate technical and
monitoring mediation, but mobile access may
make active mediation more difficult -because the
device is more personal, it has smaller screens, etc..
Thus, it becomes necessary to explore the new
conditions under which parental mediation is
taking place, in order to shed light on the new kinds
of constraints and possibilities parents consider
when trying to mediate their childrens internet
experiences.
Teachers and educational institutions also play
a crucial role in mediating the internet activities
undertaken by children from their mobile media. As
with parents, online access from mobile platforms

Net Children Go Mobile

deeply modifies both the preconditions for and

effectiveness of mediation strategies adopted in
school contexts. Thus, we need to understand
whether and to what extent teachers are
incorporating mobile platforms into e-safety
education as well as into class activities overall,
and if they need to be supported in carrying out this
role, for instance, increasing their awareness about
specific risks or signalling priorities to address.
The new conditions of social mediation of mobile
internet access define a new agenda for policy
making. The new convergent media ecology
requires a close collaboration between the various
social actors that are able to shape childrens
online experience. Self-regulatory initiatives from
the mobile phone industry, such as the European
Framework for Safer Mobile Use by Younger
Teenagers and Children, or other self-regulatory
initiatives endorsed by the European Commission
such as the CEO Coalition to Make the Internet a
Better Place for Kids and the ICT Coalition for the
Safer Use of Connected Devices and Online Services
by Children and Young People in the EU3 'are
starting to take into account the new developments
related to the mobile internet, but it is essential to
include them in a constructive dialogue with
governments, child experts, non-governmental
organisations (NGOs), academics, parents and
educators as well as children. In this light, the Net
Children Go Mobile findings are interpreted in order
to establish a list of policy priorities and to identify
those critical areas where cooperation between
various stakeholders is indispensable for an
effective promotion of internet safety.

1.3 The project

The Net Children Go Mobile project is co-funded by
the Safer Internet Programme to investigate
through quantitative and qualitative methods how
the changing conditions of internet access and use
namely, mobile internet and mobile-convergent
media bring greater, fewer or newer risks to
childrens online safety. Participating countries
3

See www.ictcoalition.eu

include Denmark, Italy, Romania, the UK,

Belgium, Ireland and Portugal, the latter three
joining the project on a self-funded basis.
Clearly, these countries cannot be assumed as
representative of Europe as a whole. However, the
rationale for choosing the first initial countries, as
well as the three new countries, represents a clear
strength of the project in terms of extending the
validity of the findings beyond these single
countries to the pan-European area. Indeed,
Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Portugal,
Romania and the UK are emblematic of sociocultural and technological differences across
Europe that have to be considered when planning
policy and awareness-raising initiatives aimed at
promoting childrens online safety on mobileconvergent media. The countries differ in many
respects: in terms of their particular historical
domestication of mobile phones, which may now
influence the domestication of smartphones and
other handheld devices; in terms of the digital
cultures of their youth; in relation to the incidence
of online risks among children; and finally, in terms
of childhood and parenting cultures.
With respect to the diffusion of mobile phones
during the 1990s, Denmark (as in the other
Northern European countries), the UK and Italy
have all been characterised by a rapid and
pervasive adoption of mobile phones, which have
become a distinctive component of youth cultures.
The popularity of the devices and the new
communication practices (such as SMS [short
message service]) in these countries in turn gave
rise to a substantial body of national empirical
research on the social uses of mobile telephony
(Green & Haddon, 2009). It is not only different
processes of incorporation of mobile media in the
context of everyday life, but also varying
technological
and
economic
mobile
communications infrastructures that influence the
current adoption of smartphones, by supporting or
inhibiting it. By investigating access and usage of
mobile phones, smartphones and other convergent
media devices, the Net Children Go Mobile project
provides a portrait of the domestication of new
mobile ICTs (information and communication
technologies) in relation to social and cultural
variations, thus enabling explanations that can be

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

extended to other countries, with similar national

media systems, technological infrastructures,
patterns of adoption of other ICTs, etc.
The countries participating in Net Children Go
Mobile are also relevant in terms of children's
experiences of online risks, and their implications
for safety awareness policies. According to the new
classification provided by the EU Kids Online study
(Helsper et al., 2013), Belgium, Italy, Ireland,
Portugal and the UK belong to the category of
countries where children are protected by
restrictions - the countries are characterised by
relatively low levels of risk, probably because
internet use is also more limited and largely
restricted to practical activities; Denmark belongs
to the supported risky explorers category - with
children who are experienced social networkers
and are exposed to more sexual risks online, and
with parents more actively involved in guiding their
childrens internet use; while Romania is included
in the group of countries where children are semisupported risky gamers - whereby children
encounter only moderate online opportunities,
mainly focused on gaming, and yet they experience
relatively high levels of risk and harm. The EU Kids
Online II verified this classification by comparing
daily use of the internet by children, their exposure
to risks and parental mediation strategies.
Comparing the countries involved in the Net
Children Go Mobile project therefore provides
further data relevant for the above classification
system and the evidence-based policies that can be
applied in different countries with similar patterns
of internet use, online risks and mediation.
Finally, these countries are emblematic of different
cultures of childhood and associated parenting
styles. Although all European countries support the
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child (UNCRC), approaches vary somewhat
throughout Europe, and sustain national
constructions of childhood, ranging from childcentred states, such as Denmark, to states where
the child in danger perspective dominates. Based
on these differences, ad hoc awareness campaigns
and policy initiatives can be planned and extended
to other European countries.

methodology
Drawing on the experience of network members
within the EU Kids Online network, the conceptual
framework is operationalised in a child-centred,
critical, contextual and comparative approach
(Livingstone & Haddon 2009; Livingstone et al.,
2011), which understands childrens online
experiences as contextualised and shaped by three
intersecting circles: 1) childhood, family life and
peer cultures; 2) media systems and technological
development; and 3) the European social and
policy context.
Accordingly the project assumes that the voice and
viewpoint of children is crucial to understanding
online opportunities, risks and any harmful
consequences of mobile-convergent media use. In
order to maximise the quality of childrens answers
and to ensure their privacy, the survey was
conducted face to face in the home, but sensitive
questions were self-completed by the child. The
wording of the questionnaire was refined on the
basis of cognitive testing with children of different
age groups and gender in each country, in order to
ensure childrens comprehension and to avoid
adults terminology (such as sexting). Furthermore,
particularly emotive terms, such as stranger or
bullying, were also avoided.
The combination of quantitative and qualitative
data will contribute to enhancing knowledge on
childrens uses of mobile-convergent media by
providing clear, representative and cross-nationally
comparable quantitative data, combined with indepth qualitative and comparative research on
childrens social awareness and perceptions of
mobile media risks. Moreover, the qualitative
fieldwork includes group interviews with parents,
teachers and other youth workers, in order to
compare childrens and adults perceptions and
awareness of mobile internet risks, and to provide
empirical data that can inform awareness-raising
initiatives and guide safety policies.

1.4 Framework and

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

1.5 This report

This report is the updated version of the full
findings report Net Children Go Mobile: risks and
opportunities, launched on Safer Internet Day 2014.
It presents the findings of a survey that involved
3,500 children aged 9-16 who are internet users and
their parents4 in seven European countries. The
fieldwork was conducted between May and July
2013 in Denmark, Italy, Romania and the UK;
between November and December 2013 in Ireland;
and between February and March 2014 in Belgium
and Portugal.
Key features of the survey are:

A cognitive testing with eight children from

different age groups (9-10, 11-12, 13-14, 15-16)
in each country, to check childrens
understandings of and reactions to the
questions.

Random stratified survey sampling of some 500

children (9-16 years old) who use the internet
per country.

Survey administration at home, face to face,

with a self-completion section for sensitive
questions.

On several occasions we compare the findings of

the Net Children Go Mobile survey with the 2010 EU
Kids Online survey. When such comparisons are
made we calculate an average number from the EU
Kids Online survey only for the countries included
in the Net Children Go Mobile survey, thus
attempting to provide as direct a comparison as
possible.

Parents were asked questions on the household's

demographics and socio-economic status (SES), as well as on
their own use of the internet, smartphones and tablets.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Own bedroom

At home but not in

own room

At school

Other places (home

of friends/ relatives,
libraries, cafs)

When out and

about, on the way
to school or other
places

Q1 a-e: Looking at this card, please tell me how often you go

online or use the internet (from a computer, a mobile phone, a
smartphone, or any other device you may use to go online) at
the following locations
Base: All children who use the internet.

More than half of children in our sample

(55%) access the internet from their own
bedroom on a daily basis, with 29% of the
interviewees saying they do so several times a
day. One out of three children do not use the
internet in their own bedroom or a private
room at home.

Similar frequency can be observed for internet

access from another room at home: 60% of
children report using the internet several times
a day or at least once a day in a room which is
not their private room.

If we consider locations where children access

2.1 Where children use the

internet
The ways through which and the locations
where children go online are diversifying, as
the EU Kids Online findings (Livingstone et al., 2011)
already showed in 2010. Indeed, the increasing
diffusion of portable devices and mobileconvergent media may actually expand the range
of places and social situations where children
access the internet, fostering the so-called
ubiquitous internetting (Peter & Valkenburg, 2006)

Never or
almost never

Table 1: How often children use the internet in

different places
At least every
week

To attempt to capture the complexity of internet

use in childrens everyday lives we use three
indicators. Location of use: own bedroom at home;
at home but not in own room; at school; other
places such as libraries, cafs and relatives or
friends homes; when out and about, on the way to
school or other places. Frequency of use: several
times each day, daily, at least every week, never or
almost never. And devices through which they go
online: desktop computers, laptop computers,
mobile phones, smartphones, tablets, other
handheld devices such as iPod Touch, e-book
readers and games consoles.

However, when asked how often they go online

from the diverse locations listed below by means of
any device, children still indicate the home
whether their own bedroom or another room at
home as the most common location of
internet use. Table 1 shows how often children
use the internet at the locations asked about,
bearing in mind that they generally use it in more
than one location.

Daily or
almost daily

Prior research has shown that the social context of

internet access and use shapes childrens online
experiences and, more specifically, the conditions
under which children are taking advantage of
online opportunities, or are exposed to online risks
(Livingstone et al., 2011). With respect to internet
access, mobile-convergent media are likely to
expand the spatial and temporal locations of
internet use among children by providing
anywhere, anytime accessibility, although
economic or technological constraints (such as the
cost of web packages or the lack of wifi
connections) may actually limit the use of mobile
devices when children are on the move.
Nonetheless, mobile-convergent media may
reconfigure social conventions of freedom, privacy
and surveillance.

Several times
each day

2. Access and use

and the pervasiveness of online activities in

childrens everyday lives.

Net Children Go Mobile

% Other places

% When out and

about

% At school

% At home but
not own room

by gender, age and SES

% Own
bedroom

the internet at least once a week, then the

percentage of children using the internet in a
private bedroom or in a public room at home
increases to 66% and 81% respectively.

Boys

Girls

9-10

11-12

Nearly half of the children use the internet once

a week or more in other places such as at
friends or relatives homes, or in public places
such as libraries or cafs.

13-14

15-16

Low SES

Medium
SES

Internet access while on the move such as

on the way to school or when out and about
is still limited although on the rise. More
specifically, only 7% of our sample say they
access the internet several times a day when
out and about, a few more children (10%) use
the internet on the move at least daily, while
the majority (75%) say that they do not use the
internet on the move. While this is clearly
related to the ways children connect to the
internet - more specifically to the availability of
internet plans (Table 6) - interviews and focus
groups also suggest that children may be wary
of using smartphones on the move because
they fear they might be stolen or lost.

High SES

All

The third most common context of internet

access and use is school, where most of the
children report having access to the internet
daily (21%) or weekly (34%).

Q1 a-e: Looking at this card, please tell me how often you go

online or use the internet (from a computer, a mobile phone, a
smartphone, or any other device you may use to go online) at
the following locations
Base: All children who use the internet.

In all the locations asked about, daily internet

access is strongly differentiated by age,
with older children having more access
everywhere.

Age
differences,
however,
are
more
pronounced for private and mobile internet
use, with teenagers aged 15-16 far more
likely to access the internet at least daily in
their own bedroom (78%) or when out and
about (33%) than any other age group. This
suggests that teenagers benefit from a
better online experience in terms of
flexibility, ubiquity and privacy.

Gender differences in access are minor,

although girls are slightly more likely to access
the internet when out and about and also in
places outside of home and school.

Access to the internet is still differentiated by

SES, with children from higher or medium SES
being more likely to access the internet in all
locations than children from lower SES.
Remarkably, children from less advantaged
families are also less likely to benefit from
internet access in school on a daily basis.

Table 2 shows the distribution of daily internet

access in the locations asked about by gender, age
and socio-economic status (SES)5, and helps us to
understand in more detail the changing contexts of
internet use

Table 2: Daily internet use in different places,

Based on prior research, we hypothesise that differences in

children's uses of the internet persist based on the
socioeconomic status (SES) of their household as well as on
their age, gender and, of course, country.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

inclusion, awareness raising and e-safety

campaigns (Barbovschi, O'Neill, Velicu &
Mascheroni, 2014), 45% of children do not use
the internet at school or else use the internet
at school less than once a week, and this
percentage rises to 73% of Italian children.

% When out and

about

% Other places

% At school

% At home but
not own room

% Own
bedroom

Table 3: Daily internet use in different places,

by country

Belgium

Denmark

Ireland

Italy

Portugal

Romania

All

While school access at least once a week is

more common in the UK (87%), only in
Denmark is the internet being significantly
integrated into daily school activities (61%).

Figure 1 shows the comparison between home and

school access across gender, age groups and SES:
Figure 1: Comparison between home and
school access, by gender, age and SES
% Daily use at school

Q1 a-e: Looking at this card, please tell me how often you go

online or use the internet (from a computer, a mobile phone, a
smartphone, or any other device you may use to go online) at
the following locations
Base: All children who use the internet.

% Daily use at home (bedroom or elswhere)

Boys

Girls

Daily use of the internet varies considerably by

country. For example, private domestic
access to the internet at least daily is the
most common experience in most countries
considered except Belgium, Ireland and
Portugal. Moreover, it is in general significantly
higher in Denmark. Meanwhile, Romanian
children are more likely to access the
internet daily in the privacy of their
bedroom than anywhere else at home (60%
compared to 40%). By contrast, Belgian, Irish
and Portuguese children report using the
internet more in a room which is not their own
room, than in their private bedroom.
Danish children are more likely to access the
internet on a daily basis at home, school and
other places than children in other countries.
Daily internet access when out and about is
highest in the UK and Italy where one third
of children use the internet on the move but
lowest in Belgium, Ireland, Portugal and
Romania.
Country differences are also relevant when we
examine school access. While the school is
considered to be a strategic site for digital

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

9-10 yrs

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs
17

Low SES

High SES

All
0

92
74

Medium SES

79
20

100

Q1 a, Q1 b and Q1 c: Looking at this card, please tell me how

often you go online or use the internet (from a computer, a
mobile phone, a smartphone, or any other device you may use
to go online) at the following locations
Base: All children who use the internet.

As we have already observed, both home (in

own bedroom and/or another room at home)
and school access to the internet on a daily
basis increase with age. However, while more
13

Net Children Go Mobile

than half (56%) of 9 to 10 year old children use

the internet at home at least once a day, just
7% of the same age group and a minority, 34%,
of the oldest group (teenagers aged 15-16) have
internet access in school on a daily basis. This
suggests that the internet is mainly a
domestic phenomenon and that it has not yet
been integrated into school life.

Gender differences are minor, with girls slightly

more likely to use the internet at school every
day than boys, and boys more likely to access
the internet daily from home.
As anticipated, internet access is also
structured by SES, with children from high SES
homes being more likely to use the internet
daily both at home and at school.

Figure 2 shows the comparison between home and

school access by country:

As anticipated, country differences are also

noteworthy: only young Danes have thoroughly
incorporated the internet into both domestic
and school everyday life contexts and activities,
also thanks to different rules regarding the use
of wifi networks and smartphones in schools
(see chapter 9, Figure 84 and Figure 85). By
contrast, in Belgium, Ireland, Italy and
Romania, daily internet access is almost
exclusively domestic, due to different policies
in school (see chapter 9, Figure 84 and Figure
85).

Figure 2: Comparison between home and

school access, by country
% Daily use at school
% Daily use at home (bedroom or elswhere)

Belgium

76
61

Denmark
7

Ireland

Italy

Portugal

Romania

All
0

79
79

100

Q1 a, Q1 b and Q1 c: Looking at this card, please tell me how

To conclude, home is still the main context of

internet use. In terms of policy recommendations,
therefore, empirical evidence confirms the need to
focus on promoting awareness among parents as a
means of reaching wider populations of children.
However, as we have seen, in many countries
teenagers use the internet at home in the privacy
of their own bedroom more than in a public
room. Additionally, a further challenge to parental
mediation comes from portable, personal devices
through which children can create new spaces of
privacy within the domestic context, shared rooms
included.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

2.2 How children access the

internet
The increasing privatisation of internet use is
even more pronounced when we look at the
devices through which children access the internet
in each of the locations asked about.

and doesnt need to be turned on.

Laptop computers are also accessed on a daily

basis by a significant number of children,
although their use is mainly limited to the
childs bedroom (30%), another room at home
(30%) and school (8%).

For each device considered, use on a daily

basis in childrens bedrooms is higher than use
from another room at home in Denmark, Italy,
Romania and the UK - and as much high or
slightly less than use from a shared room at
home in the remaining three countries. This
privatisation of internet use reinforces a
phenomenon known as bedroom culture
(Livingstone & Bovill, 2001): since children are
immersed in media-rich bedrooms that
represent the main context of their leisure time,
practices and meanings associated with
identity construction, sociality and selfexpression are increasingly embedded in the
space of the bedroom, and, thus, increasingly
mediated and privatised.

Table 4 shows what devices children use at least

daily to access the internet in different places,
suggesting a shift towards a post-desktop media
ecology.

Among all the devices asked about,

smartphones are the most used devices on a
daily basis in all contexts. Being personal
and portable, smartphones are seemingly
carried around in various places and integrated
into different social contexts and activities.

The smartphone is also the device that is used

most on the move (18%).

At home but
not own room

At school

Other places

When
out and about

Desktop computer (PC)

Laptop computer

Mobile phone

Smartphone

Tablet

E-book reader

Desktop
computer (PC)

Other handheld devices

Laptop computer

Mobile phone
that is not a
smartphone

Smartphone

A tablet

E-book reader

Other handheld
devices

Home games
consoles

Home games consoles

Access at least once a day

Q2 a-h: When you use the internet these days at ..., how often do
you use the following devices to go online?
Base: All children who use the internet.

However, the place where children are more

likely to use their smartphones at least
once a day is actually their own bedroom
(32%) or another room at home (33%). This
suggests that children value privacy and
convenience more than mobility perhaps
because the smartphone is always at hand

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Table 5: Daily use of devices, by age and

gender

Girls

13-16 years
Boys

9-12 years
Boys

Table 5 shows how daily use of different devices

varies by age and gender.

Own bedroom

Table 4: Devices used to go online daily in

different places

All

Q2 a-h: When you use the internet these days at ..., how often do
you use the following devices to go online?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Net Children Go Mobile

Across all age groups, laptops (46%) and

smartphones (41%) are the two devices most
used to go online followed by desktop
computers (33%) and tablets (23%). However,
age and gender differences are noteworthy.

Figure 3: Daily use of smartphones and

laptops, by gender, age and SES
% Use smartphones daily

Use of each of the devices considered generally

increases with age, but the age divide is
greater for certain devices. The use of
smartphones is particularly structured by age,
with only 24% of boys and 25% of girls aged 912 having access to a smartphone as opposed
to 54% and 58% of teenage boys and girls
respectively. Age differences matter less for
ordinary mobile phones.

Boys

40
44

Girls

43
47

9-10 yrs

35
37

11-12 yrs

52
51

13-14 yrs

60
60

15-16 yrs

Use of different devices also varies by

gender. Indeed, certain devices are seemingly
highly gendered: while boys of all age groups
are more likely to use desktop computers and
home games consoles, teenage girls are more
likely to use a smartphone, a laptop computer,
a tablet, and a mobile phone which is not a
smartphone to go online.

36
44

Low SES

Figure 3 looks at the daily use of smartphones and

laptop computers.

% Use laptops daily

Medium SES

45
49

High SES

46
46

All

41
46
0

100

Q2 b and Q2 d: When you use the internet these days at ..., how
often do you use the following devices to go online?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Figure 3 shows that, while gender differences in

the daily use of smartphones are very low, girls
are more likely than boys to use laptops on a
daily basis.

The daily use of smartphones and laptops is

more differentiated by age: while younger
children are much more likely to use
laptops every day, teenagers use
smartphones as much as laptops.

The differences in daily use of smartphones

by SES are notable: only 36% of children from
lower SES homes go online from a smartphone
every day, compared to 46% of upper class
families.

As shown in Figure 4, variations across

countries are also noteworthy: while children in
Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Romania are more

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

likely to use laptops daily, their peers in Ireland

and the UK use smartphones more than
laptops, while young Danes are almost equally
likely to use both devices.

Figure 4: Daily use of smartphones and

laptops, by country
% Use smartphones daily

% Use laptops daily

28
35

Belgium

Table 6 examines how boys and girls of different

ages and SES access the internet from mobile
phones or smartphones, showing that the ways in
which children connect to the internet from their
mobile phones or smartphones is strongly
differentiated by age, SES, and, to a minor extent,
by gender.

Children aged 9-10 (41%) and children from

lower SES homes (26%) are more likely to
have a phone that does not connect to the
internet. This is in line with the fact that
younger children and children from less
advantaged families are not likely to use the
internet when out and about (Table 2).

One out of four interviewees (27%) use both

free wifi networks and internet plans to go
online from their smartphones or mobile
phones. If we look at gender, age and SES
differences, the percentage of children going
online through both wifi networks and mobile
web packages is higher for boys (29%),
children aged 15-16 (33%) and higher SES
children (31%).

The number of children who go online from

their phones/smartphones using mobile
internet plans only is higher than the
average (15%) among girls (17%), children
aged 13-14 (17%), and lower SES children
(19%). That less advantaged children are more
likely to go online from their smartphones
through internet plans and less likely to use wifi
networks suggests that lower SES families are
less likely to provide wifi connectivity at home.
In contrast, children from higher SES homes are
more likely to use only wifi networks from their
smartphones. The use of wifi is also higher than
the average among children aged 9-10 and 1314 years old.

72
70

Denmark

35
28

Ireland

42
51

Italy

Portugal

21
28

Romania

56
47

41
46

All
0

100

Q2 b and Q2 d: When you use the internet these days at ..., how
often do you use the following devices to go online?
Base: All children who use the internet.

As anticipated, despite mobile-convergent media

providing in principle anywhere, anytime
connectivity, mobile internet use may actually be
constrained by the cost of the service. This may
particularly affect younger children, who can count
on less pocket money than teenagers. The
availability of wifi networks (at home, school,
cybercafs or other places) may also vary, being
unevenly distributed across countries, and across
different regions within the same country (e.g.
urban versus rural areas). , children from higher SES
homes are more likely to use only wifi networks
from their smartphones. The use of wifi is also
higher than the average among children aged 9-10
and 13-14 years old.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

% free wifi
only

% phone
does not
connect to
the internet

% mobile
internet plan
only

% mobile
internet plan
and free wifi

Table 6: Ways of connecting to the internet

from mobile phone/smartphone, by gender,
age and SES

Boys

Girls

9-10

11-12

13-14

15-16

Low SES

Medium
SES

High SES

All

Q8 a-c: Are you able to connect to the internet from your

smartphone/mobile phone, and if so, how do you connect?
Base: All children who own or have for private use a mobile
phone or a smartphone.

Table 7 shows how access to the internet from

mobile phones or smartphones varies by country.

% free wifi
only

% phone
does not
connect to
the internet

% mobile
internet plan
only

% mobile
internet plan
and free wifi

Table 7: Ways of connecting to the internet

from mobile phone/smartphone by country

Belgium

Denmark

Ireland

Italy

Portugal

Romania

All

Q8 a-c: Are you able to connect to the internet from your

smartphone/mobile phone, and if so, how do you connect?
Base: All children who own or have for private use a mobile
phone or a smartphone.

just 7% of children own or have for private use

a phone that does not provide internet access.

Danish children (51%) are also more likely than

the average (27%) to go online from
smartphones or mobile phones through both
wifi and internet plans, followed by children in
the UK (41%) and Italy (32%). In contrast, the
number of children who go online from their
phones/smartphones using mobile internet
plans only is higher than the average (15%)
in Romania and Italy (24%).

In contrast, Irish (74%), Belgian (50%) and

Portuguese (47%) children are much more
likely to be restricted in using only free wifi
networks than the average (35%), suggesting
cross-cultural differences in parental mediation
as well as at the level of wifi provision in public
spaces.

To conclude, while those who can rely both on

mobile web plans and wifi networks to go online
from their mobile phones and smartphones can
actually
benefit
more
from
ubiquitous
internetting, those accessing the internet either
through free wifi networks only or through internet
plans only are likely to experience more constraints
when using mobile devices to go online.

2.3 Ownership
The use of a device and ownership do not
necessarily coincide, with children having access
to a wider range of devices than those they
actually own or have for private use. However,
ownership and private use shape the quality of
online experience, with children owning a certain
device being more likely to use it intensively
throughout the day.
Table 8 shows which devices children own or have
for private use, and how ownership varies by age
and gender.

The number of children who have a mobile

phone that does not connect to the
internet is highest in Romania (41%) and
Portugal (32%) and lowest in Denmark, where

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Table 8: Ownership of devices, by age and

gender

Teenagers (55% of children aged 13-14 and

64% of older teenagers) are more likely to
own or have for private use a smartphone
than younger children (20% of children aged 910 and 40% of those aged 11-12).

Similarly,
smartphone
ownership
is
considerably higher among children from
more advantaged social backgrounds
(55%), than those from lower SES (38%).

The ownership of tablet computers follows

different patterns with respect to age, gender
and SES. Tablet ownership is also structured by
age but the divide between the youngest and
the oldest is much narrower than in the case of
smartphones - varying from 13% of the
youngest to 21% of the oldest age group, but
with a peak in early adolescence. Indeed, one
in four children aged 13-14 report having a
tablet for their private use. Moreover, tablet
ownership is more differentiated by gender with 22% of girls having a tablet compared to
only 18% of boys. In contrast, socio-economic
differences are less pronounced compared to
smartphone ownership: 16% of less
advantaged children have a tablet, while 25%
of medium and higher SES do so.

Girls

13-16 years
Girls

Boys

9-12 years

All

Desktop
computer (PC)

Laptop
computer

Mobile phone
that is not a
smartphone

Smartphone

Tablet

E-book reader

Other handheld
devices

Home games
consoles

Q3 a-h: Do you personally own or have for your private use any
of these devices? (By private use of a device we mean a device
that only you use.)
Base: All children who use the internet.

Smartphones are the devices children are

most likely to own across all age groups
and gender (46%), followed by laptop
computers (43%), home games consoles (34%)
and ordinary mobile phones (33%).

Ownership of each of the devices in general

increases with age, but the age divide is
greater for certain devices. The possession of
smartphones is particularly structured by age,
with 30% of boys and 32% of girls aged 9-12
having a smartphone for private use as
opposed to 60% and 59% of teenage boys and
girls respectively.

Ownership of different devices also

partially varies by gender. Indeed, certain
devices are seemingly highly gendered: while
boys of all age groups are more likely to own
home games consoles, girls are more likely to
have a laptop and a tablet computer.

Figure 5 shows how ownership of smartphones and

tablets varies by age, gender and SES.

Overall, age and SES differences in smartphone

ownership matter more than gender.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 5: Ownership of smartphones and

tablets, by age, gender and SES
% Own a tablet
18

Boys

Girls

Figure 6: Ownership of smartphones and

tablets, by country
% Own a tablet

% Own a smartphone

11-12 yrs

Low SES

Medium SES

All
0

58
46

100

Q3 a-h: Do you personally own or have for your private use any
of these devices? (By private use of a device we mean a device
that only you use.)
Base: All children who use the internet.

46
20

All

High SES

Romania

40
45

Portugal

Italy

15-16 yrs

Ireland

13-14 yrs

Denmark

13
20

9-10 yrs

24
35

Belgium

% Own a smartphone

100

Q3 a-h: Do you personally own or have for your private use any
of these devices? (By private use of a device we mean a device
that only you use.)
Base: All children who use the internet.

Children in Denmark (84%) and the UK

(58%) are more likely to be smartphone
owners than their peers in Italy (45%), Ireland
(40%), Belgium (35%), Portugal (34%) and
Romania (26%).

Figure 6 examines how the ownership

smartphones and tablets varies by country:

As noted about gender, age and SES

differences, tablet ownership follows different
patterns. Children in the UK (29%) and
Ireland (27%) are more likely to be given a
tablet, followed by Belgium (24%), although
again, the gap between the country with the
highest penetration (the UK with 29%), and
countries with the lowest penetration (Italy and
Romania, with 10%) is narrower than in the
case of smartphones.

Table 9 shows ownership of devices compared with

daily use of those same devices (defined as using
that device to access the internet at least daily in

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

given

locations).

Table 9: Children who own devices and

children who use devices daily, by age
Use daily

Own

Use daily

13-16 years

Own

9-12 years

Desktop computer
(PC)

Laptop computer

Mobile phone that

is not a smartphone

Smartphone

Tablet

E-book reader

Other handheld
devices

Home games
consoles

Q3 a-h: Do you personally own or have for your private use any
of these devices? (By private use of a device we mean a device
that only you use.)
Q2 a-h: When you use the internet these days at ..., how often do
you use the following devices to go online?
Base: All children who use the internet.

is higher than the percentage of children who

say that they use a smartphone at least daily to
access the internet.

2.4 Age of first use

Prior research (Livingstone et al., 2011) showed that
the average age when children start using the
internet is dropping. In the Net Children Go Mobile
survey, we asked children how old they were when
they started to use the internet, but also at what
age they were given a mobile phone and/or a
smartphone.
Table 10 compares the average age children were
given access to these different devices, across age
groups, gender and SES.
Table 10: Age of first internet use, first mobile
phone and first smartphone, by gender, age
and SES
How old were you when you first...

More children say that they use a desktop

computer at least daily to access the internet
than those who say that they own such a device
or have it for their private use., and the same
trend can be observed for laptops This might
indicate that desktop and laptop computers
are, to some extent, shared devices, that
might be shared with siblings, classmates, etc.
If this comparison between daily use and
ownership is to be taken as an indicator of
devices that are shared between more
individuals, then tablets would also fall into
that category. A higher percentage of children especially in the youngest group - say that they
use such a device at least daily to access the
internet than the percentage of children who
say that they own such a device. Indeed,
evidence from interviews and focus groups
shows that borrowing their parents' tablet is
quite common among younger children.
For smartphones, however, the percentage of
children who say that they own a smartphone

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Got a
smartphone

the

Got a mobile
phone

Used the
internet

any

Boys

8,2

9,5

11,9

Girls

8,7

9,5

12,0

9-10

7,0

7,9

8,4

11-12

7,9

9,1

10,6

13-14

9,0

9,8

11,9

15-16

9,7

10,4

13,8

Low SES

9,0

9,5

12,0

Medium
SES

8,3

9,5

12,2

High SES

7,7

9,5

11,7

All

8,5

9,5

12,0

Q5: How old were you when you first used the internet?
Q6: How old were you when you got your first mobile phone (a
phone which is not a smartphone)?
Q7: How old were you when you got your first smartphone?
Base: All children who use the internet.

The average age of first internet use is still

dropping, now being around eight years
old. However, the age at which children start
using the internet varies by age group, SES and,
to a lesser extent, by gender. Children now aged
9-10 started to use the internet on average

Net Children Go Mobile

The average age at which children receive a

smartphone is older, at twelve years old.
Similar to mobile phones, ownership of
smartphones is differentiated by age more than
SES and not influenced by gender. Age patterns
are indeed similar to those observed regarding
mobile phones: younger children are more
likely to be given a smartphone when they are
only eight, while older teenagers were aged 14
when they got their first smartphone.

Got smartphone

20
15

10
14

9 10

15-16 yrs

13-14 yrs

8 9

8
7 8

11-12 yrs

9-10 yrs

Table 11 compares the average age children were

given access to the internet, mobile phones and
smartphones by country.
Table 11: Age of first internet use, first mobile
phone and first smartphone, by country
How old were you when you first...

Belgium

8,8

10,8

13,0

Denmark

6,6

8,5

11,1

Ireland

8,6

9,7

11,7

Italy

9,5

9,9

12,2

Portugal

8,6

9,2

12,3

Romania

9,1

12,4

7,9

9,9

12,3

All

8,5

9,5

12,0

10 10

This suggests that 2011 is a turning point: after

2011 children of all age groups are more
likely to be given a smartphone than an
ordinary mobile phone. Indeed, 15% of our
interviewees had never owned a mobile phone
that was not a smartphone.

Figure 7 summarises the average age of adoption of

the internet, mobile phones and smartphones
across different age groups, showing that children
are using the internet and getting a mobile
phone or a smartphone at ever younger ages.

Got a mobile phone

Got a
smartphone

The age when children were given their first

mobile phone is nine years old on average,
higher than the age of first internet use. So,
children start using the internet before
they are given a mobile phone. The age
when children first received a mobile phone
does not vary by gender and SES. However, the
age of getting the first mobile phone increases
with age: children who are aged 9-10 were
given a phone when they were eight; at the
opposite end of the scale, teenagers aged 15-16
were over ten when they first got a mobile
phone

Used the internet

Got a mobile
phone

Figure 7: Age of first internet use, first mobile

phone and first smartphone, by age

Used the
internet

when they were seven, while teenagers now

aged 15-16 were almost 10 when they first used
the internet. Children from higher SES homes
were more than one year younger than children
from low SES when they first used the internet.
On average, girls started using the internet later
than boys.

The average age when children started using

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

the internet is lowest in Denmark and highest

in Italy. Danish children were also younger
when they were given their first mobile phone
or smartphone. In contrast, children in Belgium
tend to receive either a mobile phone or a
smartphone considerably later than their peers
in the other six countries, being on average 11
when they are given a mobile phone and 13
when they own a smartphone.

On average, 84% of parents of children who are

internet users in the seven countries that we
surveyed say that they themselves are internet
users. There is no much difference between
fathers and mothers in this respect. There are,
however, substantial country differences, with
parents in Romania and Portugal less likely
than parents in the other five countries to say
that they use the internet.

2.5 Parental uses of the

internet, smartphones and
tablets

Use of mobile devices is also different by

country, with Romanian and Portuguese
parents being much less likely than parents in
the other countries to say that they own a
smartphone or a tablet PC that they use to
connect to the internet6.

Figure 8 shows the percentage of parents in the

sample who say that they are internet users, and
the percentage of parents who say that they
personally own a smartphone or a tablet PC that
they use to access the internet.
Figure 8: Parents internet use and ownership
of mobile devices
% Own a smartphone or a tablet

Table 12 shows the percentage of children who

own or have for their own use a range of devices, by
their parents internet use and ownership of mobile
devices (smartphones or tablet PCs).
Table 12: Childrens ownership of devices, by
parents internet use and ownership of mobile
devices
Is parent an
internet user?

Belgium

Denmark

Ireland

Portugal

Romania

99
91

Italy

89
68

57
75

UK
53

All

Desktop computer
(PC)

Laptop computer

Mobile phone

Smartphone

Tablet

E-book reader

Other handheld
devices

Home games
consoles

% child owns or has

for his/her own use...

Mothers

Yes

Fathers

100

P2: Do you personally use the internet?

P3: Do you personally own a smartphone or a tablet PC that you
use to connect to the internet?
Base: Parents of children who use the internet.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Does parent own a

mobile device?

Yes

% Use the internet

Q3 a-h: Do you personally own or have for your private use any
of these devices? (By private use of a device we mean a device
that only you use.)
P2: Do you personally use the internet?
P3: Do you personally own a smartphone or a tablet PC that you
use to connect to the internet?
Base: All children who use the internet and one of their parents.

This suggests that there are considerable SES variations

between and within countries, which will be further explored in
future publications by the network.

Net Children Go Mobile

To some extent the differences in the

ownership of devices among children whose
parents are internet and/or smartphone users
and those whose parents are non-users can be
understood as country differences, since most
of the parents who do not use the internet or
own a smartphone or a tablet are located in
Romania and Portugal.

If children have parents who are not internet

users, they are more likely to say that they use a
desktop computer to go online, while a child
whose parents use the internet and a
smartphone is more likely to own a laptop
computer and a smartphone. This finding
might suggest that parents who are non-users
and thus perhaps, more likely to be digitally
illiterate, are less interested in investing in new
technological equipment. But it may also point
to economic inequalities - whereby non-users
are more likely to belong to less advantaged
social groups - as well as to different stages of
diffusion of ICTs in different societies.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

The EU Kids Online data have also shown that

online activities are difficult to define as either
entirely beneficial or risky, and that children who
take up a wider range of online activities are usually
exposed to more risks, but are also better equipped
to cope with those risks, thus experiencing less
harm (Livingstone, Hasebrink & Grzig, 2012).
Drawing on these premises, we map childrens
online activities for three main reasons:

to understand whether and how the range of

online activities varies with mobile-convergent
media and anywhere, anytime connectivity;
to map childrens progression and any
relevant changes on the ladder of
opportunities (Livingstone & Helsper, 2007);
to assess whether and to what extent changes
on the level of opportunities relate to variations
in the experiences of risk and harm.

3.1 Types of online activities

Table 13 shows how many children do each of a
range of activities when they go online from any
device, by age and gender.

Girls

Boys

13-16 years
Girls

Previous research has shown that the range of

online activities that children take up varies by age
following a progression from basic uses such as
gaming and school-related searches to creative and
participatory uses of the internet, such as
maintaining a blog, creating and sharing content,
etc. (Livingstone & Helsper, 2007; Livingstone et al.,
2011).

9-12 years
Boys

3. Online activities

Table 13: Daily online activities (all types of

access), by age and gender

% who have daily

All

Listened to music

Watched video clips

Visited a social
networking profile

Used instant
messaging

Checked information
to satisfy a curiosity

Played games on your

own or against the
computer

Used the internet for

school work

Played games with

other people on the
internet

Downloaded music or
films

Watched broadcast
television / movie
online

Downloaded free Apps

Published photos,
videos or music to
share with others

Visited a chatroom

Read/watched the
news on the internet

Published a message
on a website or a blog

Registered my
geographical location

Used file sharing sites

Used a webcam

Spent time in a virtual

world

Looked up maps /
timetables

Created a character,
pet or avatar

Read an ebook

Purchasing apps

We selected daily use to show how much the internet is

integrated within children's daily lives. However, we are aware
that some of the activities measured here (such as purchasing
apps or checking for timetables and maps) are unlikely to be
carried out on a daily basis.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Bought things online

Read QR codes/scan
barcodes

Q9a-d, 10a-e, 11a-e, 12a-k: For each of the things I read out,
please tell me how often you have done it in the past month.
Base: All children who use the internet.

Listening to music, watching video clips

and social networking top the list of
activities done on a daily basis. Other social
activities also rate fairly high, such as using
Skype or WhatsApp.
Other activities such as searching for
information to satisfy a curiosity, schoolwork,
playing games (alone or in multiplayer games)
are part of the daily media diets of around one
in three children.
Activities that are typical of, although not
exclusive to, mobile-convergent media such as
downloading free apps (20%) or locating
themselves in places (9%), purchasing apps
(2%) or reading QR codes (1%), are practised on
a daily basis by only a minority of children.

All the activities asked about increase with

age.

The range and kind of activities taken up is

also different by gender, with gender
variations combining with age differences:
younger boys take up more of each of the
activities asked about, while teenage girls
engage more in all the activities except gaming.
Teenage girls tend to engage more in
communication practices and entertainment
activities, while boys of all ages play more. Of
all the activities asked about, indeed gaming is
still the most gendered activity: so, if older boys
engage more in online games and multiplayer
gaming environments than younger boys,
younger girls play more games on their own or
against the computer than teenage girls.
Conversely, girls are more likely to post photos,
videos or music to share with others.

2013 and 2010 (EU Kids Online survey data for the
seven countries).
Table 14: Online activities done at least once in
8
the past month
2010
(seven
countries)

20132014

Watched video clips (e.g. on YouTube,

iTunes, Vimeo, etc.)

Used the internet for schoolwork

Visited a social networking profile

Played games on your own or against the

computer

Used instant messaging

Played games with other people on the

internet

Published photos, videos or music to

share with others

Downloaded music or films

Read/watched the news on the internet

Published a message on a website or a

blog

Used a webcam

% who...

Q9a-d, 10a-e, 11a-e, 12a-k: For each of the things I read out,
please tell me how often you have done it in the past month.
EU Kids Online QC102: How often have you played internet
games in the past 12 months? QC306a-d, QC308a-f and QC311af: Which of the following things have you done in the past month
on the internet? (Multiple responses allowed.)
Base: All children who use the internet.

Table 14 shows that social networking,

sharing and entertainment activities have
increased substantially from 2010 to 20132014.

More specifically, uploading photos, videos or

music to share with others is the online activity
that shows the highest rate of growth, followed
by visiting a profile on a SNS, watching video
clips on video sharing platforms, posting a
message on a website or blog and playing in
multi-players online environments.

By contrast, playing games alone or against

the computer, using the internet for

Table 14 compares a number of activities done by

respondents at least once in the past month in

Please note that there differences in the response scale used.

The EU Kids Online survey measured activities done in the past
months, while the Net Children Go Mobile survey measured
activities done at least once a week.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

3.2. Smartphone users

In order to grasp the consequences of mobile
internet devices on the mix of daily online activities,
Table 15 compares smartphone and nonsmartphone users, divided into two age groups.

The percentage of children taking up an activity

on a daily basis is higher among smartphone
users of both age groups for each of the
activities asked about. This suggests that on a
daily basis, smartphone users engage more
in each of the online activities measured.
The greatest differences are to be found in
communication practices (visiting a profile
on a SNS is practised every day by 53% and
87% of smartphone users aged 9-12 and 13-16
respectively; instant messaging by 43% and
73% of younger and older children who use a
smartphone),
and
in
entertainment
activities (listening to music and watching
video clips). However, children who use a
smartphone are also more likely to use the
internet for schoolwork on a daily basis (28%
and 48% of smartphone users versus 13% and
29% of non-smartphone users).
Not surprisingly, children who use a
smartphone to go online also engage more in
activities usually associated with mobileconvergent media such as downloading free
apps (29% and 37% of smartphone users
versus 7% and 12% of non-users) or registering
their position through geolocating systems
(11% and 16% of smartphone users versus 2%
and 10% of non-users). Nonetheless, the use
of location-tracking services is low even
among smartphone users.

Table 15: Daily online activities, by age and by

whether child uses a smartphone or not
% who have daily

9-12 years

13-16 years

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

All*

S-ph user

Non-user

S-ph user

schoolwork, using a webcam and instant

messaging are decreasing. Downloading
movies or music, reading or watching the news
on the internet and playing games on their own
or against the computer haven't changed
much.

Non-user

Net Children Go Mobile

(users
and
nonusers)

Listened to music

Watched video clips

Visited a social
networking profile

Used instant
messaging

Checked information
to satisfy a curiosity

Played games on your

own or against the
computer

Used the internet for

school work

Played games with

other people on the
internet

Downloaded music or
films

Watched broadcast
television / movie
online

Downloaded free Apps

Published photos,
videos or music to
share with others

Visited a chatroom

Read/watched the
news on the internet

Published a message
on a website or a blog

Registered my
geographical location

Used file sharing sites

Used a webcam

Spent time in a virtual

world

Looked up maps /
timetables

Created a character,
pet or avatar

Read an ebook

Purchasing apps

Bought things online

Read QR codes/scan
barcodes

Q9a-d, 10a-e, 11a-e, 12a-k: For each of the things I read out,
please tell me how often you have done it in the past month.
Base: All children who use the internet.
* The 'All' values here refer to the average number of children
who are internet users and do a certain activity on a daily basis
(as shown in Table 13).

Net Children Go Mobile

However, although smartphone use is associated

with higher percentages of children doing each of
the activities asked about on a daily basis, we
cannot assume a causal relationship between
smartphone use and online activities at this
stage of the analysis: it may well be that children
who were already using the internet more and for a
wider range of activities are more likely to be given
a smartphone. Moreover, we cannot take it for
granted that children who are smartphone users
practise these activities mostly, if not exclusively, on
the smartphones they own or use.
What we can conclude so far is that children who
also use a smartphone to go online are more likely
to take up online activities on a daily basis, and
have thus incorporated the internet more
thoroughly into their everyday lives. In other words,
the anywhere, anytime connectivity and the
privacy afforded by smartphones is associated
with the intensity and the quality of young
peoples online experiences.

3.3 Tablet users

Table 16 compares the online activities of tablet
users and non-users, divided into two age groups.

Table 16: Daily online activities, by age and by

whether child uses a tablet or not

Tabl et
user

13-16 years
Non-user

Tabl et
user

% who have daily

Non-user

9-12 years

All*
(users
and
nonusers)

Listened to music

Watched video clips

Visited a social
networking profile

Used instant messaging

Checked information to
satisfy a curiosity

Played games on your

own or against the
computer

Used the internet for

school work

Played games with

other people on the
internet

Downloaded music or
films

Watched broadcast
television / movie
online

Downloaded free Apps

Published photos,
videos or music to share
with others

Visited a chatroom

Read/watched the news

on the internet

Published a message
on a website or a blog

Registered my
geographical location

Used file sharing sites

Used a webcam

Spent time in a virtual

world

Looked up maps /
timetables

Created a character, pet

or avatar

Read an ebook

Purchasing apps

Bought things online

Read QR codes/scan
barcodes

When looking at the use of tablets, the correlation

between going online from a tablet computer and
the increase in the daily rate of online activities is
less straightforward, and differentiated by age:

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Overall, the activities that tablet users do more

than non-users are communication and
entertainment. In both age groups, and for all
the activities measured, the difference
between users and non-users is lower than
the gap between users and non-users of
smartphones.

Figure 9: Children (%) with a SNS profile, by

gender, age and SES

Among younger children, the difference

between tablet users and non-user is more
pronounced in entertainment activities:
55% of tablet users aged 9-12 listen to music
and 54% watch video clips online (versus 31%
and 34% of non-users); 47% play games alone
or against the computer (versus 26% of nonusers) and 33% play in multiplayers online
environments (vs. 19% of non-users).

We have seen that social networking tops the

activities taken up by children on a daily basis, and
that children who also use a smartphone and a
tablet to go online are more likely to engage in
activities on a SNS every day. Figure 9 shows the
number of children who have one or more profiles
on SNS, by age, gender and SES.

Girls

9-10 yrs

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Although many schools across Europe are

experimenting with the use of tablets in class,
the use of tablets to go online is associated
with a smaller increase in the overall use of
the internet for schoolwork than the use of
smartphones, especially among younger
children (see Table 15).

3.4 Social networking and

media sharing platforms

Boys

Low SES

Medium SES

High SES

All

100

Q16 a-f: Do you have your own profile on a SNS (e.g. Facebook,
Twitter, etc.) that you currently use and if you have a
profile/account, do you have just one or more than one?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Overall, 68% of children have at least one

profile on a SNS.

The use of SNS varies consistently by age.

While just one fourth of children aged 9-10 have
a profile on a SNS, this percentage rises to 93%
of older teenagers. The 60% of children aged
11-12 on SNS is also noteworthy, since most
social networking platforms have age limits
that are not being followed.

Social networking varies hardly at all by gender,

and very little by SES - with children from
middle SES being more likely to have one or
more profiles on SNS.

Figure 10 shows variations in social networking by

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

country.
Figure 10: Children (%) with a SNS profile, by
country
66#

Belgium#

Denmark#

81#

54#

Ireland#

Italy#

64#

Portugal#

76#

Romania#

79#

The lower diffusion of social networking in

Belgium, Ireland, Italy and the UK is due to
lower rates of under-age use in these countries
(see Table 17). This finding suggests that awareness
campaigns against under-age use of SNS have been
more effective in these countries, and that parents
are more likely to set rules on social networking.
This conclusion is consistent with the new country
classification by EU Kids Online (Helsper et al.,
2013), according to which Ireland, Italy and the UK
belong to the category of countries where children
are protected by restrictions. The higher number
of 9-12 year-olds who have a profile on SNS in
Portugal is, therefore, a notable exception to the
common pattern observed in the protected by
restrictions countries.
Table 17: Children with a profile on SNS, by
country and by age
9-10 years

11-12 years

13-14 years

15-16 years

58#

UK#

Belgium

Denmark

Ireland

Italy

Portugal

Romania

All

68#

All#

%
0#

20#

40#

60#

80#

100#

Country differences also matter: despite

being very different in terms of both places and
devices for internet access, Denmark and
Romania top the list, with around 80% of
children who have a profile on a SNS. These
services are less popular in Belgium (66%), Italy
(64%), the UK (58%) and in Ireland (54%).
If we compare the Net Children Go Mobile data
with the 2010 EU Kids Online data regarding
the seven countries, overall, the average use
of SNS has increased from 61% to 68%.
However, the rate of this growth is uneven
across countries: while social networking has
been growing in Denmark, Italy, Portugal and
Romania and it has passed from 46% to
79% in Romania it has decreased in the UK
(from 67% in 2010 to 58% of children in
2013) and Ireland (from 59% to 54%). Social
networking has varied less in Belgium (from
64% in 2010 to 66% in 2014).

Since sharing photos, videos and other content is

one of the most popular online activities, and it has
increased since 2010, we also asked children if they
have a profile on a media sharing platform such as
YouTube, Instagram or Flickr. Figure 11 shows the
number of children having an account on one of
these platforms, by gender, age and SES.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 11: Children (%) with a profile on a

media sharing platform, by gender, age and
SES

Figure 12: Children (%) with a profile on a

media sharing platform, by country
Belgium

Boys

34
Denmark

Girls

33
Ireland

9-10 yrs

10
Italy

11-12 yrs

27
Portugal

13-14 yrs

39
Romania

15-16 yrs

52
UK

Low SES

Medium SES

All

0
High SES

All

100

Q23 a-f: Do you have your own profile/account on a media

sharing platform (photo and video) such as YouTube, Instagram,
Flickr, that you currently use, and if you have a profile/account,
do you have just one or more than one?
Base: All children who use the internet.

While it is equally common among boys and

girls, the probability of having an account on
media
sharing
platforms
varies
consistently by age and SES. Just 10% of
children aged 9-10 report having a profile on
one of these services, a number that rises to
more than half of teenagers aged 15- to 16year-old. Children from higher SES are also
more likely to have a profile on a media sharing
platform.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

100

Q23 a-f: Do you have your own profile/account on a media

As shown in Figure 12, country differences are

even more striking, with more than half the
Danish children having their own accounts on
media sharing platforms, and just 17% of
Italian youth doing so.

Analysing which are the most popular SNS and

media sharing platforms across gender, age groups
and countries is also interesting. Figure 13 shows
which SNS children use most, by gender, age and
SES.

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 13: Which social networking profile is

the one children use most, by gender, age and
SES

Figure 14: Which social networking profile is

the one children use most, by country
% Facebook

% Facebook
Boys

% Twitter

% other

Belgium

2 12

Denmark

2 9

Ireland

9-10 yrs

Italy

Portugal

Romania

15-16 yrs

Low SES

All

90
0

8 9

All

100

Q17: What social network is the profile/account that you use the
most on?
Base: All children who use SNS.

100

Q17: What social network is the profile/account that you use the
most on?
Base: All children who use SNS.

Facebook is still the SNS that children are

most likely to use, with some variations by
age and SES: both younger children and
children from higher SES are less likely to
indicate Facebook as the most used SNS.

Similarly, the popularity of Twitter varies by

gender, age and SES, and is higher among
boys, teenagers and higher SES children.

Figure 14 shows which SNS children use most, by

country.

High SES

Medium SES

7 12

13-14 yrs

2 14

11-12 yrs

% other

Girls

% Twitter

Country differences are more consistent: while

it is still the most popular SNS in the countries
surveyed, almost all respondents in
Romania, Portugal and Italy indicated
Facebook as the SNS they use most, while
just three out of four of UK children did so. The
UK is an interesting case because one in four
children also said the profile they used the
most was on Twitter.

If we compare these findings with the EU Kids

Online 2010 survey, we can see that Facebook
has grown considerably in Romania (where in
2010 just 25% of children indicated it as the
profile they used most) and Portugal (from 51%
in 2010 to 97% in 2014). Facebook has
registered a significant though smaller increase
in Belgium (from 70% to 86%) and Ireland
(from 58% in 2010 to 81% in 2013); it has faced
smaller variations in Denmark (from 85% to
89%) and Italy (from 94% to 96%), while it has
decreased in the UK (from 87% to 75%).

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 15 shows which media sharing platform is

the account children are most likely to use, by
gender, age and SES.

Age differences are less linear and clear-cut:

Instagram is seemingly more popular than
YouTube among children aged 9-12, while in
the other age groups, YouTube is still the
platform children use most. Findings from the
qualitative research confirm that younger
children are using Instagram, especially in
countries where their parents don't allow them
to be on Facebook before they are 13.

Having an account on a media sharing platform

varies also by SES, with more than half of
children from higher SES families having a
profile on Instagram, compared to just one out
of five children from less advantaged homes.

Figure 15: Which media sharing platform is the

account children use most, by gender, age
and SES
% Youtube

% Instagram

% other

Boys
Girls

6
10

9-10 yrs

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Low SES

Medium SES

High SES

All

Figure 16: Which media sharing platform is the

account children use most, by country
% Youtube

8
37

Figure 16 shows variations by country in the

number of children having a profile on media
sharing platforms.

Contrary to SNS, where Facebook dominates,

among media sharing platforms there is no
single platform that dominates: 55% of the
respondents who have an account on media
sharing platforms indicate YouTube as the
account they are most likely to use, and
37% say they use Instagram most.
Having a profile on media sharing platforms is
strongly differentiated by gender: while nearly
three out of four boys are more likely to use
YouTube (70%), girls use Instagram more
(51%).

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Denmark

Italy

Q24: What media sharing platform is the profile/account that

you use the most on?
Base: All children who have a profile on media sharing
platforms.

% other

Belgium

Ireland

100

% Instagram

Portugal

Romania

19
86

55
0

10
14 0

All

37
40

8
80

100

Q24: What media sharing platform is the profile/account that

you use the most on?
Base: All children who have a profile on media sharing
platforms.

With respect to country differences, the

majority of Portuguese and Romanian
33

Net Children Go Mobile

children are most likely to have a profile on

YouTube; YouTube is also still the most popular
media sharing platform in Italy, where
however one in three children use Instagram
most. Young Danes and Belgians use
Instagram nearly as much as YouTube, while
in Ireland and the UK, Instagram is more
popular than YouTube.

Preliminary findings from focus groups and

interviews indicate, however, that YouTube and
Instagram are attributed different meanings
and functions by children: while Instagram is
more perceived as an SNS - especially by
children who are not allowed to have a profile
on Facebook or Twitter - YouTube is used
mainly to create playlists of favourite (music)
videos.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

4. Communication
practices
Online communication more specifically, social
networking (SNS) and instant messaging (IM) is on
the rise among children and adolescents. Staying in
touch with friends represents a great part of youths
online daily activities, as we have seen in Chapter 3.
Moreover, prior research has shown that social
access to peers is also the primary motivation for
adopting mobile communication, at least among
teenagers (Lenhart et al., 2010; Ling & Bertel, 2013).
What happens when access to SNS and instant
messaging services is provided on mobile phones,
and then, always at hand? The potential for
anywhere, anytime access to peers and
online contacts has renewed public concerns over
SNS, such as popular anxieties regarding the fragile
balance between privacy and intimacy, as well as
contact with people met online. Moreover,
smartphones expand the range of mobile
communicative practices and the type of audiences
children are now able to engage with (Bertel &
Stald, 2013). New questions has thus emerged
regarding the changing role of the mobile phone
and
the
potential
reconfiguration
of
communicative practices such as: can the mobile
phone still be considered as the tool for accessing
the full-time intimate sphere (Ling, 2008; Matsuda,
2005)?

notion of a communication repertoire (Haddon,

2004), and assume that children, just like adults,
develop sophisticated repertoires of practices,
devices and services from which they choose what
best suits the particular communicative situation
and relationship. Rather than replacing one SNS
with another, children combine and integrate them
with other communicative practices.
This chapter aims at providing a clearer picture of
childrens communicative practices by examining,
first, SNS use, and more specifically, the number of
friends they are in contact with, the management of
friend requests, privacy settings and personal
information provided on their profiles. Different
practices on different SNS for example, different
privacy settings are highlighted when relevant. In
order to grasp the complexity of childrens
communication repertoires, we then examine the
preferred
channels
children
use
when
communicating with parents, friends, siblings,
other relatives, online contacts, teachers and
others.

4.1 Nature of childrens SNS

contacts
The number of contacts on SNS is often assumed
as an indicator of risky behaviour. However, as
Figure 17 shows, the risk that children are getting in
touch with ever-larger social circles is overstated.

While Facebook is still being reported by the

majority of respondents as the most used SNS,9
we nonetheless recognise that the use of social
media is diversifying children simultaneously
use various services, each enabling specific
practices and targeted at a specific audience.
Furthermore, different SNS may imply different
notions of friendship and different regimes of
privacy and disclosure. In addition, we rely on the

Contrary to the huge debate on the death of Facebook which

arose from the misinterpretation of the findings of the Global
Social Media Impact Study (http://gsmis.org/) on media
coverage.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

contacts. Therefore, around one in three

children (35%) have more than 100
contacts, with huge variations across age,
gender and SES: this group varies from 9% of
younger children to 41% of older teenagers and
is more consistent among boys (37%) than girls
(33%), and middle or high SES (37%) than
lower SES children (33%).

Figure 17: Number of contacts on SNS, by

gender, age and SES
Up to 10 | 10-50 | 51-100 | 101-300 | 300+
Boys

Girls

9-10 yrs

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Low SES

11-12 yrs

14
12

High SES

All

18
17

Medium
SES

25
24

Figure 18 shows variation in the number of contacts

on SNS by country.
Figure 18: Number of contacts on SNS, by
country

Up to 10 | 10-50 | 51-100 | 101-300 | 300+

24
14

Belgium

Denmark

Ireland

8 7 5

12 12 10

18
Portugal

Romania 2

100

One in four children are in touch with 10 or

less people on SNS, and half have fewer
than 50 contacts. The proportion of children
who have small circles of friends on the internet
varies by age and gender, and is higher among
girls and younger children (51% of girls and
66% of 9- to 10-year-olds have less than 50
contacts on SNS). SES differences are smaller
but still notable, with 53% of lower SES children
having up to 50 online contacts compared to
47% of children from medium or high income
families.

18% of children have more than 300

contacts: this number rises to nearly one in
four teenagers aged 15-16, while it makes up
just 2% of 9- to 10-year-olds.

A further 17% have between 100 and 300

Q18: Roughly how many people are you in contact with when
using [SNS profile that is used the most]?
Base: All children who use SNS.

27
29

Italy

All

39
22

25
17

10
18
100

Q18: Roughly how many people are you in contact with when
using [SNS profile that is used the most]?
Base: All children who use SNS.

The number of contacts varies considerably

by country: while half of Danish children and
40% of their Irish peers have less than 10
contacts, just 2% of Romanian children belong
to this category. Conversely, the number of
children with more than 100 contacts is higher
in Romania (66%) and lower in Denmark (12%)
and Ireland (22%). Italy, Portugal and the UK
follow similar patterns, with a range of 43% to
46% of children being in contact with up to 50
people, and around one in three having more
than 100 contacts. In Belgium, while the

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

number of children having up to 50 contacts is

similar to the average, 42% report having more
than 100 friends on SNS. Still, if compared with
the 2010 EU Kids Online data, the number of
children with over 100 friends has decreased.
If we relate these data to under-age use of SNS
(see Table 17), we can observe four main
patterns. In Denmark under-age use of SNS is
high (61% of 9- to 12-year-olds have at least
one profile on a SNS), but the average number
of contacts is also low (81% have less than 50
contacts); being under-age and having up to
10 contacts could also be a common
preventive measure in other supported
risky explorers countries, as classified in the
EU Kids Online country classification (Helsper
et al., 2013). Conversely, in countries such as
Ireland, Italy, Portugal and the UK, belonging to
the protected by restrictions group of
countries (ibidem),10 under-age use is low,
and the proportion of children with more
than 100 contacts is also low or average,
varying from 22% in Ireland to 35% in the UK.
Belgium combines a higher rate of underage
use compared to 2010 data with the number of
children with more than 100 contacts above
the average; this is still a decrease compared to
2010. Finally, Romania shows a different
pattern: while under-age use has more than
doubled in the past three years (from 29% of
9- to 12-year-olds in the EU Kids Online survey
to 65% in 2013), the number of children with
over 100 contacts has also increased
dramatically (from 8% to 66%).

Table 18 shows the variation in the breadth of

online circles of friends by type of SNS.

Other

Twitter

Facebook

Table 18: Number of contacts on SNS, by

name of profile that is used the most

%
10

For a definition of 'supported risky explores' and protected by

restrictions countries see par. 1.3 in the Introduction

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Up to 10

11-50

51-100

101-300

More than 300

Q18: Roughly how many people are you in contact with when
using [SNS profile that is used the most]?
Base: All children who use SNS.

The proportion of children with up to 10 contacts is

slightly below average among Facebook users, and
above average among children who primarily use
Twitter or other SNS. While this might well signal
different behaviours and different notions of
friendship on different SNS, we cannot underplay
the effect of age and country variation. Thus we
must bear in mind that Twitter is reported as the
most used SNS mainly in the UK, and that younger
children who are more likely to report having a
profile on different platforms such as Moviestar
Planet are also more likely to have fewer friends.
Moreover, all the Romanian children reported
Facebook as their primary SNS, and, as we have
just seen, they are more likely to build wider social
circles online.
The number of online contacts is also the outcome
of different norms of friending, as shown in Figure
19:

Two out of three children add new contacts

when they know them (49%) or know them
very well (18%), one in four accepts requests
from people with whom they share friends in
common, while just 9% accept all requests.

Gender differences are not pronounced: while

girls are slightly less likely to accept all
requests, they tend to be more inclined to add
people with whom they share connections or
whom they know very well.

SES variations are also small, though we can

observe that lower SES children are more likely
to both add people they have never met before
and they know very well, and less likely to
expand their online circles through 'friends of
friends' compared to children from middle or
upper class.

Net Children Go Mobile

The response to people adding them on SNS

varies more consistently across age group:
while in all groups the majority of children add
only people they know or know very well, this
varies from 78% of 9- to 10-year-olds to 61% of
teenagers aged 13-16.

Figure 19: Childrens responses to friends

requests on SNS, by gender, age and SES
% I generally accept all requests
% Accept only if we have friends in common
% Accept only if I know them

% Accept only if I know them very well

Boys

Girls

9-10 yrs

23
25

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Low SES

Medium
SES

High SES

All

% I generally accept all requests

% Accept only if we have friends in common
% Accept only if I know them
% Accept only if I know them very well

29
22

Figure 20: Childrens responses to friends

requests on SNS, by country

11-12 yrs

49
46

Belgium

Denmark

Ireland

Italy

Portugal

22
48

people with whom they share contacts. In other

words, Italian children are more likely than children
in other countries to expand their online networks
by activating latent ties (e.g. people they share
friends or locations with). Conversely, although
Romanian children are more likely to have a larger
number of contacts on Facebook, more than half
(56%) prefer to add people they already know.
Danish and Irish children, instead, tend to have
smaller circles of friends on the internet, which
predominantly consists of people they know.
Portuguese children are the most cautious, with
31% of respondents saying they add only people
they know very well to their online friends.

15
14

Romania
100

Q22: How do you generally respond to requests from people to

become your friends on [SNS profile that is used the most]?
Base: All children who use SNS.

All

Country variations (Figure 20) show interesting

patterns: while the number of children who
generally accept all requests is highest in Romania
(18%) and lowest in Belgium (5%), Ireland (6%),
Italy (6%) and, Portugal (6%), the proportion of
children who friend only people they know or
know very well is the highest in Denmark (80%) and
lowest in Italy (49%). An equally consistent number
of Italian children (45%) accept requests from

11
22
18

100

Q22: How do you generally respond to requests from people to

become your friends on [SNS profile that is used the most]?
Base: All children who use SNS.

4.2 SNS privacy settings

Figure 21 shows how privacy settings vary by
gender, age and SES.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 21: Whether SNS profile is public or

private, by gender, age and SES

% Public, so that everyone can see

% Partially private
% Private, so that only your friends can see

Boys

Girls

9-10 yrs

11-12 yrs

Figure 22: Whether SNS profile is public or

private, by country

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

SES differences show that children from

wealthier socio-economic backgrounds are
more likely to maintain a private profile and
least likely to have a public profile compared to
lower SES children, who, in contrast, set
their profile as public more than the
average.

% Public, so that everyone can see

% Partially private
% Private, so that only your friends can see
Belgium

Denmark
Low SES

All

48
27

Portugal

While 44% of SNS users keep their profile

private, and a further 27% keep it partially
private (e.g. also disclosing some information
to friends of friends and networks), nearly one
in three children report having a public
profile.

Variations by gender are consistent, with girls

being more likely to have a private profile.

In terms of age differences, while the

proportion of children with a public profile
remains somewhat stable across the four age
groups, over half of children aged 9-10 have
set their profile as private. Conversely, the
number of children who keep their profiles as
partially private is higher in adolescence, when
children are supposedly more skilled in setting
different levels of privacy.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Romania

100

All

Q20: Is your profile set to?

Base: All children who use SNS.

Italy

High SES

Ireland

Medium
SES

23
52

100

Q20: Is your profile set to?

Base: All children who use SNS.

Country differences are pronounced: half the

children or more in Belgium, Ireland, Portugal
and the UK have a private profile. Around 70%
of children in Denmark (74%) and Italy (68%)
have a private or partially private profile.
Conversely, 57% of Romanian children report
having set their profiles as public. Different
privacy settings may not necessarily be an
indicator of risky behaviour, and also have to
be contextualised within friending practices
and number of online contacts. So, while
Romanian children are more likely than peers
in other countries to have public profiles and
over 300 contacts on Facebook, half of them
respond to friendship requests by adding just
39

Net Children Go Mobile

people they know, or know very well.

Table 19 shows the distribution of different privacy
settings across different social networks, suggesting
that, as for the number of online contacts, different
platforms have diverse social and technological
affordances that result in slightly different choices.

Their phone number

Their school

An age that is not their

correct age

Q21: Which of the bits of information on this card does your

profile/account include about you?
Base: All children who use SNS.

The majority of children include their

surname and a photo showing their face on
their profiles, with small variation across age
groups and gender: younger children are
generally slightly more reluctant to share a
picture of their face, while teenage girls are
more likely to do so.

Two in three children display the name of

the school they attend, but this behaviour
varies substantially by age, with teenagers
more likely to do so.

Nine out of ten children across all age groups

and gender do not share their phone
number and home address.

39% of children display an incorrect age on

their profile. Not surprisingly, more younger
children than teenagers include an age that is
not correct, often to circumvent the age limits.
Notably around 30% of children who are over
13, and therefore allowed to have a profile on
SNS, tend to do so.

Other

% of children who set

their profile as...

Twitter
Twitter

Facebook

Table 19: Whether SNS profile is public or

private, by name of profile that is used the
most

Public, so that
everyone can see

Partially private, so that

friends of friends on
your network can see

Private, so that only

your friends can see

Q20: Is your profile set to?

Base: All children who use SNS.

Whether it matters that childrens profiles are set to

public or private depends not only on friending
habits, but also on the identifying information they
post
on
their
profile.
Table 20 shows what kind of personal information
children are likely to share on their SNS profiles:

4.3 Different media for

different contacts
Table 20: What information children show on
their social networking profile, by age and
gender

Girls

13-16 years

Boys

Girls

% who say that their

SNS profile shows...

Boys

9-12 years

All

A photo that clearly

shows their face

Their last name

Their home address

To investigate how children develop complex

communication repertoires, in which they
incorporate different platforms and channels of
communication, we asked them how often they are
likely to communicate with specific others through
a set of platforms or channels. Table 21 shows how
children communicate with their parents.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

times a day. Overall, 74% use SNS to

communicate with friends daily or almost daily.

Sending emails

Contact on SNS

Q13, Q14, Q15, Q19: How often are you in contact with the
following people by talking on the mobile phone/smartphone,
by sending SMS/text or multimedia messages (MMS) with
pictures or videos from your mobile phone/smartphone, by
sending email, on all the SNS you use?
Base: All children who use each means of communication.

The mobile phone is still the preferred

medium to be in touch with parents: 57%
report talking to their parents daily or almost
daily, with 19% doing so more than once a day;
41% also exchange SMS with their parents on a
regular basis.

Table 22 shows ways of communicating with

friends:

Never or almost
never

At least every
week

Daily or almost
daily

% of children in
contact with friends
by...

Several times
each day

Table 22: Ways of being in contact with

friends

Talking on a mobile or
smartphone

Sending texts

Sending emails

Contact on SNS

While mobile communication is still a relevant

mode of contact among friends, SNS are the
most used platform: one in three children
keep in touch with friends on SNS several

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

As shown in Table 23, contact with siblings is less

regular and mainly carried out through phone calls
or SMS:
Table 23: Ways of being in contact with
siblings

% of children in
contact with siblings
by...

Never or almost
never

Talking on a mobile or
smartphone

Sending texts

Sending emails

Contact on SNS

Table 24 shows how children keep in touch with

people met online whom they have never met
before:
Table 24: Ways of being in contact with
people met online

% of children in contact
with people met online
by...

Never or almost
never

Sending texts

At least every
week

Daily or almost
daily

However, as anticipated, SNS have not

replaced mobile communication: two out of
three children regularly use texts to keep in
touch with friends, while 61% call them daily or
almost daily.

Several times
each day

Talking on a mobile or
smartphone

Several times
each day

Never or almost
never

At least every
week

Daily or almost
daily

% of children in
contact with parents
by...

Several times
each day

Table 21: Ways of being in contact with

parents

Talking on a mobile or
smartphone

Sending texts

Sending emails

Contact on SNS

Net Children Go Mobile

While contact with people met online is

sporadic, 26% of children communicate
with online contacts on SNS at least every
week, 16% call them on their mobiles at least
weekly, while just 11% report exchanging texts
with people met online on a weekly basis.

their parents (38% report calling their parents

daily, while just 27% call their friends). At the
opposite end, teenagers call friends more
than parents on a daily basis.

Figure 23 shows how daily contact with parents and

friends by talking on a mobile phone varies across
age, gender and SES:
Figure 23: Daily contact by talking on the
mobile phone/smartphone, by gender, age
and SES
% Friends

% Parents

% Friends

64
60

Girls

61
57

100

Q13: How often are you in contact with the following people by
talking on the mobile phone/smartphone?
Base: All children who use a phone or a smartphone.

All

61
57

All

54
50

High SES

77
74

Romania

69
64

Medium SES

60
53

Portugal

60
58

Low SES

74
75

Italy

76
66

15-16 yrs

36
31

Ireland

70
60

13-14 yrs

58
66

Denmark

49
54

11-12 yrs

% Parents

54
50

Belgium

27
38

9-10 yrs

Figure 24: Daily contact by talking on the

mobile phone/smartphone, by country

57
54

Boys

SES variations are also remarkable: while

middle SES children are more likely to be in
touch with both parents and children by means
of phone calls, children from higher SES homes
are the least likely to call their parents or
friends on a daily basis.

Gender variations in contact with parents are

remarkable: girls are more likely to call both
parents and friends daily.
Contact with friends and parents through
phone calls varies considerably across age
groups: while the overall likelihood of calling
both parents and friends almost triples from 9to 10-year-olds to older teenagers, younger
children are more likely to be in touch with

100

Q13: How often are you in contact with the following people by
talking on the mobile phone/smartphone?
Base: All children who use a phone or a smartphone.

Country differences are also considerable and

noteworthy: Italian and Romanian children
are more likely to call their parents and
friends daily, with little difference in the two
kinds of interlocutors. Children in the UK are
almost as likely as their peers in Italy and
Romania to be in touch with friends by talking
on the phone, but less likely to call their

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

parents. Similarly, Portuguese children make

phone calls to friends more than to parents.
Danish children, on the other hand, call their
parents more than their friends. Finally, just
half Belgian children and one in three Irish
children call their friends and parents
daily.

Figure 25: Daily contact by sending texts or

multimedia messages (MMS) with pictures or
videos from a mobile phone/smartphone, by
gender, age and SES
% Friends
Boys

Texting is strongly structured by age. The

number of children who are in touch with
friends and parents daily through SMS
increases across age groups, but texting with
friends increases more by age (from 32% of
9-10 year-olds to 81% of older children) than
texting with parents (from 25% of younger
children to 51% of older teenagers).

32
25

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

Gender variations are more pronounced

compared to phone calls: while both boys and
girls text more with friends than parents, girls
engage in more texting than boys

9-10 yrs

Most daily texting occurs among friends

though the childparent communication by
means of SMS is also frequent.

Girls

As shown in Figure 26 texting follows a different

pattern:

% Parents

15-16 yrs

Low SES

Medium SES

High SES

All

66
69

63
66

100

Q14: How often are you in contact with the following people by
sending SMS/text or multimedia messages (MMS) with pictures
or videos from your mobile phone/smartphone?
Base: All children who use a phone or a smartphone.

Children from different socio-economic

background equally text more with friends than
parents. Again, the daily use of SMS to
communicate with both friends and parents is
below average among higher SES children.

Figure 26 shows how daily contact by texting varies

across countries.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 26: Daily contact by sending SMS/text

or multimedia messages (MMS) with pictures
or videos from a mobile phone/smartphone,
by country
% Friends

% Parents

to communicate daily with their peers,

while only one in ten use SNS to keep in touch
with parents.
Figure 27: Daily contact on SNS, by gender,
age and SES
% Friends

Belgium

Boys

Ireland

Girls

Italy

Medium SES

Country variations show that the majority of

children in Belgium (71%), Italy (79%), Portugal
(79%) and the UK (78%) are in touch with their
friends through SMS on a daily basis; one in
three children in Denmark and Romania text
their peers daily, while only 37% of Irish
children do so. Daily contact with parents
through texting is reported by 54% of Belgian
and Portuguese children, half the children in
Italy and the UK, fewer in Denmark (43%) and
Romania (32%), and is the lowest in Ireland
(17%).

Daily contact on SNS, as shown in Figure 27, reveals

even greater disparities between communication
with parents and with peers:

As in the case of texting, most daily

communication involves friends rather than
parents: three out of four children use SNS

72
76

High SES

100

Low SES

All

15-16 yrs

13-14 yrs

Romania

11-12 yrs

Portugal

9-10 yrs
50

Denmark

% Parents

All

100

Q18: How often are you in contact with the following people on
SNS?
Base: All children who use SNS.

Use of SNS to communicate with peers and

parents does not vary much by gender. Instead,
age differences are more considerable: while
the number of children in contact with parents
on a daily basis remains very low across all age
groups, contact with peers increases steadily
from 41% of 9-10 year-olds to 85% of those
aged 15-16.

Communication with peers on SNS varies by

SES: children from medium SES households
are more likely to communicate with friends on
SNS on a daily basis. By contrast, higher SES
children are the least likely to communicate
with their parents on a social networking
service.

Figure 28 examines communication on SNS by

country

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 28: Daily contact on SNS, by country

% Friends

Denmark

% who say that...

Ireland

Italy

11
69

Portugal

Romania

14
10

I find it easier to be myself on the

internet than when I am with
people face to face

I talk about different things on the

internet than I do when speaking
to people face to face

On the internet I talk about private

things which I do not share with
people face to face

Q47: How true are these of you?

Base: All children who use the internet.

All

100

36% of children say they find it easier to be

themselves on the internet than when with
other people face to face; 64% however, say
this is not true of them. Compared to the
findings of the EU Kids Online study
(Livingstone et al., 2011), and looking only at
the five countries included in the Net Children
Go Mobile study, the number of children who
perceive the internet as the place for more
authentic communication is decreasing. Thus
in 2010 some 57% of respondents in Denmark,
Ireland, Italy, Romania and the UK said it was
not true that they found it easier to be
themselves on the internet (compared to 64%
in 2013). This might well indicate that children
are now drawing a distinction between online
and offline communication, to a lesser extent,,
as the internet is such an integral part of their
everyday lives.

Similarly, one in three children say they talk

about different things on the internet, and just
21% say that they talk about private things
online that they do not discuss face to face.

Q18: How often are you in contact with the following people on
SNS?
Base: All children who use SNS.

Very true

A bit true

Table 25: Online and offline communication

compared

Not true

Belgium

% Parents

(Livingstone et al., 2011). Table 25 shows how

children
compare
online
and
offline
communication.

Country comparisons show that SNS is the

preferred channel to keep in touch with
friends daily in Denmark, Ireland, Italy and
the UK. Overall children in Italy and the UK
communicate more with peers through all
channels; on the other hand, Irish children keep
in touch with friends mostly through the SNS
platform,
while
Portuguese
children
communicate more through texting and
Romanians tend to call slightly more than use
SNS. Children in Belgium are as likely to use
SNS and texts to communicate daily with peers.

4.4 Childrens approach to

online communication
Online communication is one of the major
opportunities that the internet offers children, and
one where the boundary between benefits and
risks is hard to draw. It has been argued, however,
that risk-taking behaviour is associated with a
particular approach to online communication

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Figure 29 shows how approaches to online

communication vary by age, gender and country.

Net Children Go Mobile

approaches to online communication.

Figure 29: Online and offline communication

compared, by gender, age and SES

Figure 30: Online and offline communication

compared, by country

% Talk about private things on the internet

% Talk about different things on the internet

% Talk about private things on the internet

% Talk about different things on the internet
% Easier to be myself on the internet

% Easier to be myself on the internet

Boys

36
36

22
33
37
13
25
24
16
30
33
25
37
40
27
44
45
26
34
38
17
34
37
18
37
33
21
34
36

Girls
9-10 yrs
11-12 yrs
13-14 yrs
15-16 yrs
Low SES
Medium SES

High SES
All

Denmark
Ireland
Italy
Portugal

Romania
UK
All

100

Gender differences are slight, though girls are

more inclined to believe it is easier to be
oneself on the internet, and to talk about
private things. Age variations are even more
notable: teenagers, especially those aged 1516, are more likely to agree with each
statement, suggesting that the internet offers
adolescents a valued opportunity for intimate
communication.

Approach to online communication is also

differentiated by SES: children from less
advantaged families are more likely to believe
that it is easier to be oneself on the internet and
to talk about private things. In contrast, higher
SES children are more likely to say it is true that
they talk about different things on the internet.

examines

100

Q47: How true are these of you?

Base: All children who use the internet.

Q47: How true are these of you?

Base: All children who use the internet.

Figure

23
33
35
17
34
36
12
23
27
22
35
29
24
38
41
31
44
54
18
33
32
21
34
36

Belgium

country

variations

Country differences are also notable: while

most countries are below or average,
Romanian children score higher on the items
examined. More specifically, more than half of
Romanian children find it easier to be
themselves on the internet.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Hence, we acknowledge the limitations of using the

three measures of literacy skills, activities
and self-confidence traditionally employed in
surveys (see also Livingstone et al., 2011), as well as
the limitations of indirect measurement by means
of self-reported abilities compared to direct
observation in performance tests (van Deursen &
van Dijk, 2008). Nonetheless, the above measure of
literacy has proved empirically valid in the study of
the relationship between childrens risk and
opportunities on the internet. Prior research
demonstrated that skills are positively associated
with the diversity and frequency of online activities
(Kuiper & de Haan, 2012; Livingstone & Helsper,
2007, 2009): the more online activities children
engage in, the more children are skilled and
self-confident and vice versa. The role of digital
skills in mediating the relationship between risk
and harm is less clear, although there are some
indicators that more skilled children are less likely
to report harm when they encounter online risks,
while children who had experienced harm tend to
have a lower level of self-reported digital skills
(Sonck & de Haan, 2013).
To provide a more accurate account of childrens
internet competences, we expanded the range of
online skills measured so as to include
instrumental skills, critical and safety skills and
communicative abilities. Furthermore, we also
examined smartphone- and tablet-specific skills.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

To measure childrens self-confidence we asked

them to assess themselves against a set of
statements, as shown in Table 26.

% of children who say...

Very true

Table 26: Self-assessment of various skills

A bit true

Skills are often assumed to be an indicator of digital

literacy, together with online activities and belief in
ones own internet abilities. However, digital
literacy is more than a set of specific internet
competencies a child may or may not possess: it is
a combination of knowledge, competencies and
attitudes, and indeed, a social practice
(Buckingham, 2007; Livingstone, 2009). Being
digitally literate means having the ability to develop
a critical relationship with media, and to engage in
communication in an autonomous, competent and
safe manner.

5.1 Self-confidence

Not true

5. Skills

I know more about the internet

than my parents

I know lots of things about using

the internet

I know how to use report abuse

buttons

I know more about using

smartphones than my parents

I know lots of things about using

smartphones

Q47: How true are these of you?

Base: All children who use the internet.

On average, 38% of children say that the

statement, I know more about the internet
than my parents, is very true, a further
one third (31%) say it is a bit true and 30% say
it is not true. Compared with the 2010 EU
Kids Online survey, the number of children who
are very self-confident is quite similar looking
only at the seven countries included in the Net
Children Go Mobile study.

The majority agree it is very (36%) or a

bit true (47%) that they know a lot of
things about the internet, while just 17%
believe this is not the case. This further
suggests that children's belief in their own
internet abilities is high.

Self-confidence about using smartphones is

even higher: 58% of children say that the
statement, I know more about using
smartphones than my parents, is very
true of them, 22% say it is a bit true, while
20% think it is not true. Similarly, more than
half (54%) say it is very true that they
know a lot of things about using
smartphones, one third (35%) say it is a bit
true and just 11% say it is not true. This finding
47

Net Children Go Mobile

suggests that the generational gap is higher

for smartphones, and is consistent with data on
the use of the internet and smartphones
among parents presented in Figure 8.
Self-confidence regarding ability to use the
internet safely is the lowest of the items
measured here: while over half of the children
say that the statement, I know how to use
report abuse buttons, is very (39%) or a
bit true (19%) of them, 42% say it is not
true.

Figure 31 and Figure 33 help understand how selfconfidence varies by gender, age and SES:
Figure 31: I know more about the internet
than my parents, by gender, age and SES
% Not true
Boys

% A bit true

Girls
9-10 yrs

SES differences in children's self-confidence are

less marked but still noticeable: both lower and
medium SES children claim more confidence in
their own internet abilities than their parents.

Figure 32: I know more about the internet

than my parents, by country
% Not true
Belgium

34
31

Age variations, however, are more marked:

while 59% of younger children dont believe
that they have more internet abilities than
their parents, conversely, 58% of teenagers
aged 15-16 claim it is very true of them
that they know more about the internet than
their parents.

11-12 yrs

% Very true

about the internet than my parents, is

differentiated by gender: more boys than girls
say that it is very true of them.

Denmark

Ireland

32
50

27
38
100

Q47: How true are these of you?

Base: All children who use the internet.

All

High SES

Medium
SES

30
28

Romania

Low SES

34
40

Portugal

15-16 yrs

% Very true

Italy

13-14 yrs

% A bit true

Agreement with the statement, I know more

100

Q47: How true are these of you?

Base: All children who use the internet.

Country differences must be contextualised in

the light of internet and smartphone diffusion,
as shown in Figure 8. In countries where the
use of the internet among parents is
around or above 90%, the number of
children who say it is very or a bit true

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

that they have more internet abilities than

their parents ranges between 60% in
Ireland to 76% in Denmark. This variation is
consistent with different levels of skills reported
by children in these countries. Conversely, in
Romania, where just 57% of parents are
internet users, 85% of children say it is true
that they know more about the internet
than their parents.

true of them that they know more than

their parents about using smartphones, this
belief rises to 93% of 15- to 16-year-olds.
Figure 34 examines country variations in selfconfidence specific to smartphones
Figure 34: I know more about using
smartphones than my parents, by country
% Not true

Figure 33 shows how self-confidence specific to

smartphones varies by demographic variables:

Belgium

Figure 33: I know more about using

smartphones than my parents, by gender,
age and SES

Denmark

% A bit true

Girls

63
27

Portugal

Romania

Medium
SES

69
65

100

All

Q47: How true are these of you?

Base: All children who use the internet.

High SES

Low SES

0
15-16 yrs

Italy

All

13-14 yrs

11-12 yrs

% Very true

Boys

9-10 yrs

Ireland

% Not true

% A bit true

100

Q47: How true are these of you?

Base: All children who use the internet.

Belief in ones own abilities regarding

smartphone use shows little variation by
gender.

Age follows a similar pattern as self-confidence

regarding internet use: while just 37% of
children aged 9-10 say it is very or a bit

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Country variations are not so straightforwardly

related with parents use of smartphones: in all
countries more than half of the children
surveyed believe their competencies about
smartphones are greater than their parents'.
However, while the proportion of children in
Ireland (59%) who say it is very or a bit
true of them that they know more than
their parents about using smartphones may
be linked to a higher diffusion of smartphones
among their parents, and the higher numbers
in Belgium (87%), Italy (95%), Portugal
(93%) and Romania (92%) correspond to
lower penetration of smartphones among
Belgian (55%), Italian (48%), Portuguese (30%)
and Romanian parents (18%), in Denmark and

Net Children Go Mobile

the UK a substantial majority of parents

(respectively 77% and 75%) are smartphone
users, but still 81% and 86% of children believe
they have more abilities regarding use of
smartphones. Moreover, other factors may be
at play and influence childrens self-confidence.
For example, the strong mobile culture of
Italian youth is certainly an issue that cannot be
underplayed.

are very satisfied with the online provision

available to them, a minority of children (11%)
disagree with the statement, There are
lots of things on the internet that are good
for children of my age.

The EU Kids Online survey recognised that children

do not take advantage of the same online
opportunities across countries, due to different
levels of familiarity with the English language in
each country, and unequal provision of positive
content for children in national languages. Figure
35 shows how childrens perception of the quality
of online content varies by demographics:
Figure 35: There are lots of things on the
internet that are good for children of my age,
by gender, age and SES
% Not true
Boys

Girls

9-10 yrs

% A bit true
47

11-12 yrs

% Not true

Belgium

39
52

Figure 36: There are lots of things on the

internet that are good for children of my age,
by country

% Very true

15-16 yrs

9
5

Ireland

51
50

Portugal

Romania

Medium
SES

High SES

All

UK 2
All

100

Q47: How true are these of you?

Base: All children who use the internet.

Low SES

% Very true

Italy

13-14 yrs

% A bit true

Denmark

Age differences are remarkable. Younger

children are more likely to express
dissatisfaction about the online provision of
content for children: only 30% of 9-10 yearolds say there are lots of good things for
children of their age to do online, an even
lower figure than the 35% of respondents in
this age group from the same seven countries
in 2010. By contrast, the oldest age group is the
most satisfied (51%), though satisfaction in this
age group was also higher (56%) in the 2010 EU
Kids Online survey for the same seven
countries.

While over four in ten (41%) 9-16 year-olds

57
48

100

Q47: How true are these of you?

Base: All children who use the internet.

Country variations are also considerable:

children are most satisfied in the UK (57%)

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

and Ireland (51%) in the latter country, with

a substantial increase from 2010, where just
44% of children were very satisfied. By contrast,
childrens satisfaction is lowest in Belgium
(29%) and Italy (30%), and compared to
2010, has decreased considerably in all non
English-speaking countries: in Belgium (from
41% to 29%), Denmark (from 47% to 37%), Italy
(from 40% to 30%) Portugal (from 52% to 44%),
and Romania (from 49% to 40%).
The unique position of children in Ireland and
the UK, who can access all content in English, is
also confirmed by the very low levels of
dissatisfaction in these countries (6% and 2%
respectively).

With children going online at ever younger

ages, the gap between the provision of positive
online content in English and locally produced
content has increased rather than been bridged.
Notwithstanding notable policy efforts to promote
the provision of positive online content in the past
few years, these have proved more effective in
English-speaking countries. Therefore, the gap
between children who can access a wider variety of
content produced both locally and globally, and
those who are more reliant on locally produced
content, is widening.

5.2 Skills and competences

related to internet use in
general

Q26 a-c: Which of these things do you know how to do?

Base: All children who use the internet.

Basic instrumental and critical skills are

still unevenly distributed: while 61% of
children know how to bookmark a website, and
nearly half (49%) can compare different
websites to decide if information is true, just
31% of children report being able to change
filter preferences.

Across all age groups boys claim more skills

than girls, with differences being higher for
changing filter preferences among teenage
boys and girls. One notable exception being
critical skills, with girls who report being able to
compare different websites in order to assess
reliability of the source being almost as much
as boys.

Variations by age are also notable, with younger

children claiming considerably fewer skills than
teenagers, especially in terms of critical
understanding and changing filter variables.

Table 28 examines the distribution of the same set

of skills among smartphone users and non-users: in
both age groups smartphone users claim more
of each skill considered.

Table 28: Skills related to internet use and

critical understanding, by smartphone use and
by age
9-12 years

Table 27 shows instrumental and critical internet

abilities, by age and gender

Girls

% who say they can

All

Change filter
preferences

Bookmark a
website

Compare different
websites to decide if

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

S-ph user

Non user

% who say they can

13-16 years

Boys

Girls

Boys

9-12 years

Non user

Table 27: Skills related to internet use and

critical understanding, by age and gender

13-16 years
All*

S-ph user

information is true

(user
s and
nonusers
)

Change filter
preferences

Bookmark a
website

Compare different
websites to decide if
information is true

Q26 a-c: Which of these things do you know how to do?

Base: All children who use the internet.
* The All values here refer to the average number of children
who are internet users and claim these skills (as shown in Table

Net Children Go Mobile

27).

which sites they have

visited

On the contrary, differences among tablet users

and non-users are less marked, as shown in Table
29:

Change privacy settings

on a social networking
profile

Block messages from

someone they dont
want to hear from

Block pop-ups

Find information on how

to use the internet safely

Table 29: Skills related to internet use and

critical understanding, by tablet use and by
age

Tabl user

Non user

13-16 years

Tabl user

Non user

9-12 years

% who say they can

All*
(users
and
nonusers)

Q26 d, Q27 a-e: Which of these things do you know how to do?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Change filter
preferences

More notably, there are consistent variations by

age and partly by gender:

Bookmark a
website

Compare different
websites to decide if
information is true

While boys generally claim more safety

skills than girls, teenage girls claim as many
skills as their male peers regarding the safer
management of online communication; the
majority of girls aged 13-16 years old being able
to block unwanted contacts and change
privacy settings on SNS.

Teenagers claim more than double the

skills reported by younger children, though the
gap between the two age groups is less
pronounced when abilities to find information
on how to use the internet safely is considered.
That just one in three children aged 9-12 can
change privacy settings on SNS, and a few
more can block unwanted contacts, raises
further concerns regarding underage social
networking.

13-16 years
All*

Non user

Girls

% who say they can

All

Block unwanted adverts

or junk mail spam

Delete the record of

9-12 years

13-16 years

Boys

Girls

Boys

9-12 years

Table 31: Skills related to internet safety in

general, by smartphone use and by age
S-ph user

Table 30: Skills related to internet safety in

general, by age and gender

Table 31 shows that variations between

smartphone users and non-users in the
possession of safety skills are also considerable
in both age groups.

Non user

Table 30 shows the distribution of safety skills by

gender and age group. Although safety initiatives
across Europe have widely promoted safety skills,
just four skills out of the six measured are claimed
by over half of the children, who know how to
block messages from unwanted contacts
(60%), change privacy settings on SNS (56%),
find information on how to use the internet safely
(54%) and delete the record of websites visited
(54%). So while there is generally an acceptable
level of skills regarding safer social networking,
other skills such as blocking spam (45%) and popups (44%) are less common.

S-ph user

Q26 a-c: Which of these things do you know how to do?

Base: All children who use the internet.
* The All values here refer to the average number of children
who are internet users and claim these skills (as shown in Table
27).

(user
s and
nonusers
)

Block unwanted adverts

or junk mail spam

Delete the record of

which sites they have
visited

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Block messages from

someone they dont
want to hear from

Block pop-ups

Find information on how

to use the internet safely

Q26 d, Q27 a-e: Which of these things do you know how to do?
Base: All children who use the internet.
* The All values here refer to the average number of children
who are internet users and claim these skills (as shown in Table
30).

Table 33: Communicative abilities, by age and

gender
9-12 years

Boys

Table 32 confirms that, as for instrumental and

critical skills, disparities between tablet users
and non-users are less pronounced than in the
case of smartphones. However, younger children
who are tablet users claim considerably more
safety skills related to SNS, such as blocking an
unwanted contact and changing privacy settings,
compared to non-users.

When we look at communicative abilities (Table

33), we find support for the hypothesis that
creative and interactive uses of the internet
are still at the top of the ladder of
opportunities (Livingstone & Helsper, 2007), but
that social media are now taken-for-granted
everyday activities for the majority of children: so
while just 31% of children know how to create a
blog, 56% claim they know how to post a comment
online and 63% how to upload and share content
on social media. The distribution by age and
gender shows the same patterns, with little
variation among boys and girls, and teenagers
claiming considerably more skills than
younger children.

Tabl user

13-16 years
Non user

Tabl user

Non user

9-12 years

% who say they can

All*

(users
and
nonusers)

Block unwanted
adverts or junk mail
spam

Delete the record of

which sites they have
visited

Change privacy
settings on a social
networking profile

Block messages from

someone they dont
want to hear from

Block pop-ups

Find information on
how to use the
internet safely

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

% who say they can

All

Publish a comment on a
blog, website or forum

Upload images, videos

or music onto social
media

Create a blog

Q27 f-h: Which of these things do you know how to do?

Base: All children who use the internet.

Table 34 shows that, as for other sets of skills

examined in this report, smartphone users claim
more communicative abilities, although
disparities between users and non-users are higher
among 9-12 year-olds with respect to uploading
content on to social media.
Table 34: Communicative abilities, by
smartphone use and by age
9-12 years
Non user

Table 32: Skills related to internet safety in

general, by tablet use and by age

13-16 years

Girls

13-16 years
S-ph user

Boys

Non user

Girls

S-ph user

Change privacy settings

on a social networking
profile

% who say they can

All*
(users
and
nonusers)

Publish a comment on a
blog, website or forum

Upload images, videos

or music onto social

Net Children Go Mobile

and girls is stronger in the youngest group.

media
31

Table 35 shows variations between tablet users and

non-users, which follow the same patterns just
noted for smartphone users: those aged 9-12 who
are tablet users are significantly more likely to be
able to share content on social media than their
peers who do not use a tablet.

Less common, but still claimed by more than half

the children, is the ability to compare different
apps in order to choose the most reliable, and to
synchronise all the devices the child has access to.
With respect to these two skills, age differences are
marked. By contrast gender variations in the ability
to compare different apps are considerable only
among children of the youngest group.
Table 36: Skills related to use and critical
understanding on smartphones and tablets,
by age and gender
9-12 years

% who say they can

All*
(users
and
nonusers)

Publish a comment on a
blog, website or forum

Upload images, videos

or music onto social
media

Create a blog

Q27 f-h: Which of these things do you know how to do?

Base: All children who use the internet.
* The All values here refer to the average number of children
who are internet users and claim these skills (as shown in Table
33).

5.3 Skills related to

smartphones and tablets
After asking all children who are internet users
about a set of instrumental, critical, safety and
communicative skills, we also measured skills
related to smartphones and tablets among children
who own or have for personal use mobile devices.
As shown in

Table 36, the majority of children know how to

download apps and connect their devices to a
wifi network. Variations by age and gender persist,
with boys and older children likely to claim
more skills; moreover, the divide between boys

13-16 years

% who say they can

All

Download apps

Connect to a wifi
network from
smartphone

Have the same

documents, contacts
and apps on all devices
that they use

Compare different apps

with similar functions in
order to choose the one
that is most reliable

Q28 a, Q28 c, Q28 e, Q29 b: Which of these things do you know

how to do?
Base: All children who own or have for their own use a
smartphone or a tablet.

Table 37 shows the distribution of safety skills

related to smartphones and tablets, by age and
gender.
Table 37: Skills related to safety on
smartphones and tablets, by age and gender
9-12 years
Boys

Tabl user

13-16 years
Nonuser

Tabl user

Nonuser

9-12 years

Boys

Table 35: Communicative abilities, by tablet

use and by age

Girls

Q27 f-h: Which of these things do you know how to do?

Base: All children who use the internet.
* The All values here refer to the average number of children
who are internet users and claim these skills (as shown in Table
33).

13-16 years
Girls

Boys

Girls

Create a blog

% who say they can

All

Deactivate the function

showing their
geographical position

Block push notifications

from different apps

Block pop-ups which

promote apps, games or
services they have to
pay for

Protect a smartphone

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

mobile media.
75

Q28 b, Q28 d, Q28 f, Q28 g, Q29 a: Which of these things do you

know how to do?

Base: All children who own or have for their own use a
smartphone or a tablet.

It is comforting that the majority of children

can protect their smartphones and tablets
with a passcode, with few variations across
age groups, but some differences between girls
and boys. Indeed, risks related to personal data
misuse are often listed among the top concerns
by children, as the qualitative interviews and
focus groups currently being carried out
suggest.
The second most common skill is finding
information on how to use smartphones
and tablets safely, a skill claimed by two out
of three teenagers, half of the younger boys
and just 45% of girls aged 9-12.
Deactivating location-tracking functions is
claimed by 63% of smartphone users and
tablet users overall, but with considerable
variations by age and gender: while 78% of
boys and 72% of girls over 13 can do it, just
49% of younger boys and 32% of younger
girls say they are able to do it.
Blocking push notifications from apps is
claimed by 61% of children, but is also
strongly structured by age and gender, so while
boys and older children are more likely to claim
this skill, just 29% of younger girls report
being able to do it.
Finally, blocking pop-ups that promote
apps, games or services you have to pay for
is the least common ability, claimed by half of
the children overall, with considerable gender
and age differences: just one in three boys and
girls aged 9-12 and one in two teenage girls say
they can actually block pop-up messages.

Therefore, the findings suggest that younger

children, and younger girls in particular, are more
vulnerable to privacy and commercial risks on
Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Finally, we asked children about specific

communicative abilities on smartphones and
tablets. As shown in Table 38, the majority of
children claim the ability to update their status
on SNS from a mobile device and to create and
share content on SNS by means of their
smartphones or tablets. Age differences persist,
with around two out of three children in the
youngest age group saying they are able to do
these activities. However, together with data on
daily online activities, these findings point to a
more advanced progression on the ladder of
opportunities by children who own smartphones
and tablets.
Table 38: Communicative abilities on
smartphones and tablets, by age and gender
9-12 years

13-16 years

Girls

Boys

Girls

Find information on how

to use smartphones
safely

Boys

with a PIN, with a screen

pattern

% who say they can

All

Update status on SNS

used most

Take a picture or a short

video with smartphone
and upload it on to
social media

Q28 h, Q29 c: Which of these things do you know how to do?

Base: All children who own or have for their own use a
smartphone or a tablet.

5.4 Average number of skills

It has already been shown that specific skills vary
considerably by age, and in some cases, by gender.

Figure 37 shows variations by age, gender and SES

in the overall number of skills claimed by children.

On average children claim half of the 12

skills we asked about, with small differences
between girls and boys.

Net Children Go Mobile

By contrast, the number of skills is strongly

structured by age, ranging from two skills
claimed by 9-10 year-olds to over eight skills
among 15-16 year-olds.

internet use (out of 12), by country

Belgium

Children from medium SES background claim

slightly more skills than higher SES children
and, especially, peers from lower income
families.

Denmark

Figure 37: Average number of skills related to

internet use (out of 12)
Boys

5,3
6,9

Ireland

5,3

Italy

5,1

Portugal

7,1

Romania

5,5

5,9

All

5,9

6,1

Girls

5,6

9-10 yrs

1,9

11-12 yrs

4,9

13-14 yrs

8,7

Low SES

6,2

High SES

6,0

All

5,9

When we focus on skills related to smartphones

and tablets, as shown in Figure 39, the picture is
somewhat different:

5,6

Medium SES

Q26 a-d, Q27 a-h: Which of these things do you know how to do?
(Average out of 12 items.)
Base: All children who use the internet.

7,1

15-16 yrs

Q26 a-d, Q27 a-h: Which of these things do you know how to do?
(Average out of 12 items.)
Base: All children who use the internet.

On average, children claim more skills related

to smartphones and tablets (7.5 out of 11),
with a slight gender difference, and even
smaller variations by SES.

Age differences are again considerable, but less

wide, ranging from four skills claimed by 910 year-olds to nearly nine skills among 1516 year-olds.

Country variations show some differences

compared to the EU Kids Online 2010 data
(Livingstone et al., 2011): Portugal and Denmark
now top the list with children claiming seven skills
on average, followed by the UK with an average of
six skills; Romania exceeded Ireland and Belgium,
Italy is close to the latter two.

Figure 38: Average number of skills related to

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 39: Average number of skills related to

smartphones and tablets (out of 11)
Boys

Figure 40: Average number of skills related

to smartphones and tablets (out of 11), by
country

7,9
Belgium

Girls

6,9

7,1
Denmark

9-10 yrs

7,3

3,9

11-12 yrs

Ireland

6,4

13-14 yrs

8,1

15-16 yrs

8,9

Italy

7,9

Portugal

8,0

Romania

Low SES

7,6

Medium SES

7,5

High SES

7,3

All

7,5

6,9

6,7
8,3
7,5

Q26 a-d, Q27 a-h: Which of these things do you know how to do?
(Average out of 11 items.)
Base: All children who own or have for their own use a
smartphone or a tablet.

Variations across countries (Table 40) are also

noteworthy, with the UK, Portugal and Italy
leading with around eight skills on average,
followed by Denmark, Belgium and Ireland, and
Romania.
These country differences may be the outcome of
different
processes
of
domestication
of
smartphones and tablets among young people,
diverse diffusion of the internet overall, a different
way of incorporating the internet in the education
system, as well as reflecting specific youth media
cultures.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

6. Risk and harm

The body of research on risks of the internet for
children has been considerable in the past
decade.11 However, most studies have focused on
specific risks in certain countries, rather than on the
overall experience of risk and harm in comparative
perspective. One notable exception is the EU Kids
Online project, which has surveyed more than
25,000 children aged 9-16 and their parents in 25
European countries. One of the major findings of
this project is that online risky experiences do
not necessarily result in harm, as reported by
children (Livingstone et al., 2011). Rather, the EU
Kids Online research showed that children who
encounter more risks online are not necessarily
those who experience more harmful consequences;
on the contrary, they are usually more skilled and
develop more resilience. On the other hand,
children who are less exposed to both
opportunities and risks tend to be more bothered
when they have a negative experience online
(ibidem; See also Livingstone et al., 2012). In both
categories that is, older users who tend to be
exposed to more risks but who are also more
resilient, and younger users who are less skilled,
undertake fewer activities and encounter less risks
those who are vulnerable offline because of
psychological problems or social characteristics
find online risks more harmful (Livingstone et al.,
2012). In other words, online and offline
vulnerability go hand in hand.
In order to measure the incidence of online risks
and harm, we asked children who use the internet if
they had seen or experienced something on the
internet that has bothered them in some way, where
bothered was defined as something that made
you feel uncomfortable, upset, or feel that you
shouldnt have seen it. Additionally, children were
asked if they had encountered a range of online
risks, and then, if they had been bothered by these.

framework and methodology (Livingstone et al.,

2011). Similarly, then, harm was measured
subjectively in terms of the severity of
childrens
responses
to
online
risky
experiences. Continuities with the EU Kids Online
project were also ensured, both at the level of the
survey administration and in the questionnaire
design. In order to maximise the quality of
childrens answers and to ensure their privacy, the
survey was conducted face to face in the home, but
sensitive questions were self-completed by the
child. The wording of the questionnaire was refined
on the basis of cognitive testing with children of
different age groups and gender in each country, in
order to ensure childrens comprehension and to
avoid adults terminology (such as sexting).
Furthermore, particularly emotive terms, such as
stranger or bullying, were also avoided.

6.1 Overall perception of risk

and harm
Before asking children about specific risky
experiences, we asked them a closed and an openended question, asking them to provide their
overall view on negative online experiences.
Children were asked, In the past 12 months, have
you seen or experienced something on the internet
that has bothered you in some way? For example,
made you feel uncomfortable, upset, or feel that
you shouldnt have seen it?, and If you have seen
or experienced something on the internet in the
past 12 months that has bothered you in some way,
can you write down what happened or what it was
that bothered you or made you upset?

The measurement of risky and harmful online

experiences largely draws on the EU Kids Online
11

For a review of the European evidence see lafsson et al.,

2013.

Figure 41 shows childrens experiences

problematic events, by age, gender and SES.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 41: Online experiences that have

bothered children (%), by gender, age and SES
Boys

Figure 42: Online experiences that have

bothered children (%), by gender, age and SES

Girls

Figure 41 examines country variations in children's

experiences of problematic situations on the
internet.

9-10 yrs

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Low SES

Belgium

Denmark

Ireland

Italy

20
6

Portugal

Medium SES

Romania

High SES

All

100

Q30: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you seen or experienced

something on the internet that has bothered you in some way?
For example, made you feel uncomfortable, upset, or feel that
you shouldnt have seen it?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Overall, 17% of children say that they have

been bothered by something on the
internet in the past year. While it is still a
minority of children, this is a higher percentage
than reported by children in the 2010 EU Kids
Online survey.

Gender and age differences are considerable:

girls (21%) are more likely to be bothered
than boys (14%), and the youngest
children, aged 9-10, are the least likely to
have been bothered by something online
(11%) compared with older teenagers
(23%).

SES differences are less marked but still

noteworthy: children from lower income
families are the least likely to have experienced
anything on the internet which bothered them.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

100

Q30: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you seen or experienced

something on the internet that has bothered you in some way?
For example, made you feel uncomfortable, upset, or feel that
you shouldnt have seen it?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Perceptions of problematic events on the

internet is also variable across countries:
Danish children (39%) are more likely to
report being bothered by something on the
internet, while Italian children (6%) are the
least likely to do so. Comparison with the EU
Kids Online data shows that since 2010 the
number of children reporting an online
experience that bothered them has
increased in Denmark (from 28% to 39%),
Ireland (from 11% to 20%) and Romania
(from 21% to 27%), while it has been more or
less stable in the UK (from 13% to 15%),
Portugal (from 7% to 10%), Belgium (from
10% to 9%) and Italy (also 6% in 2010).

Figure 43 shows variations in the perceptions of

online risks among children who use smartphones
or tablets daily, and children who do not use
smartphones or tablets to go online, by gender, age
59

Net Children Go Mobile

and SES:

general pattern: across all three categories of

internet users, girls are more likely to claim they
have been bothered, with tablet users
especially likely to say so. Instead, among boys
smartphone users are more likely to have had a
negative online experience than tablet users.
Some age differences are also worth noting:
among children aged 11-14 years old, tablet
users are slightly more likely to say they have
been bothered. By contrast, in the remaining
three age groups, tablet users are more
exposed to bothering experiences, the gap
being wider among 15-16 years old.

Figure 43: Online experiences that have

bothered children, by gender, age and SES,
comparing mobile and non-mobile internet
users
% Amongst smartphone users

% Amongst tablet users

% Use neither
19
16
10
29
33
15
20
18
10
17
19
13
26
27
14
28
33
14
20
23
12
28
27
13
27
25
13
24
25
12

Boys
Girls
9-10 yrs
11-12 yrs
13-14 yrs
15-16 yrs

Low SES
Medium SES
High SES
All

Differences in the general pattern across SES

show that while among lower SES children
those who are tablet users indicate higher
levels of bothering experiences, among middle
and higher SES children smartphone users are
slightly more likely to report an online
experience which has bothered them.

Figure 44: Online experiences that have

bothered children, by country, comparing
mobile and non-mobile internet users
% Amongst smartphone users
% Amongst tablet users
% Use neither
15
14
7

Belgium

100

Q30: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you seen or experienced

something on the internet that has bothered you in some way?
For example, made you feel uncomfortable, upset, or feel that
you shouldnt have seen it.
Base: All children who use the internet.

40
41
37

Denmark
25
23
18
9
12
2
12
9
9

Ireland
Italy
Portugal

Overall, there is no difference between

children who use tablets daily (25%) and
those who use smartphones daily (24%),
when it comes to online experiences that
have bothered them. However both are
twice as likely to have bothering online
experiences than children who use neither
(12%) of the mobile devices to go online.
There are some gender variations in the

Romania
UK

23
22
28

43
52

24
25
12

All

100

Q30: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you seen or experienced

something on the internet that has bothered you in some way?

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

For example, made you feel uncomfortable, upset, or feel that

you shouldnt have seen it.
Base: All children who use the internet.

Country differences are also remarkable as

shown in Figure 42: while in Denmark the
likelihood of reporting being bothered doesnt
change much across the three categories of
internet users, in Romania tablet users (52%)
are more exposed to problematic experiences
than both smartphone users (43%) and nonusers (23%). Italy and the UK follow a similar
pattern, but with lower differences between
tablet users (12% and 28% respectively),
smartphone users (9% and 22%) and a greater
difference with non-users (2% in both
countries). In Belgium, Ireland and Portugal
smartphone users are slightly more likely to be
bothered than tablet users.

A few preliminary conclusions can be drawn. First,

what we have examined here are childrens
perceptions that there are things that have
bothered them online. The following sections
provide a more detailed picture of the specific
problems children experience on the internet.
Second, there seems to be an increase in the
likelihood that children say they have been
bothered by something they have seen on the
internet that can be associated with the use of
smartphones and tablets to go online. Denmark
is the only exception, since the overall perception
of
problematic
experiences
has
risen,
independently from single platforms.
Third, this association reinforces the so-called
usage hypothesis: the more children use the
internet, the more opportunities they take up,
but also the more risky experiences they are
exposed to.

6.2 Bullying
Despite being a recurrent theme in the research,
public and policy agenda, there is no standard
definition of cyberbullying, because the
phenomenon itself is a moving target (Schrock &
boyd, 2008; see also Levy et al., 2012). Most
Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

definitions rely on the definition of bullying itself,

and its components. Bullying has been defined as
a form of aggression that is (a) intentional, (b)
repetitive and (c) involving a power imbalance
between a victim and a perpetrator. Accordingly,
cyberbullying is defined as intentional and
repeated aggression using any form of
technological device such as the internet or mobile
phone. To avoid adopting contested, adult or
emotionally-charged terms, bullying was here
defined as follows: Sometimes children or
teenagers say or do hurtful or nasty things to
someone and this can often be quite a few times on
different days over a period of time, for example. This
can include: teasing someone in a way this person
does not like; hitting, kicking or pushing someone
around; intentionally leaving someone out of things.
When people are hurtful or nasty to someone in this
way, it can happen: in person face to face (a person
who is together with you in the same place at the
same time); by mobile phone (texts, calls, video
clips); on the internet (email, instant messaging,
social networking, chatrooms); on whatever device
you use to go online.
Although cyberbullying is also an intentional and
repeated communication activity aimed at
harassing or making fun of someone and as such
it involves power imbalance research has shown
that the specificities of online or mobile
communication reinforce the features of traditional
bullying while adding new elements. For example,
anonymity can heighten the threatening nature of
an act of cyberbullying, or the victims resultant
sense of powerlessness (Levy et al., 2012, p. 11),
thus reinforcing the power imbalance between the
victim and the aggressor. Anonymity, however, may
not be exclusive of online communication (the
school environment may well facilitate acts of
bullying that are anonymous, as Levy and
colleagues point out). Moreover, while an act of
cyberbullying may not necessarily be repeated over
time (Levy et al., 2012), the properties of mediated
publics

persistence,
searchability,
replicability and invisible audiences (boyd,
2008) potentially amplify the duration of
cyberbullying and its harmful consequences, as
wider audiences can be involved.
Prior research has shown that, while cyberbullying

Net Children Go Mobile

is less common than offline bullying (Livingstone et

al., 2011; Ybarra et al., 2012), it is a very distressing
and harmful experience (Livingstone et al., 2011).
The shift from offline to online spaces means that
the boundaries of space and time are becoming
meaningless: one cannot leave a place and know
that the bullying will end; rather, the bullying is
likely to take place also after school, on a variety of
platforms (Kernaghan & Elwood, 2013). Moreover,
compared to face-to-face forms of bullying, the
boundaries between the roles of victim, perpetrator
and bystanders are less easily drawn in online
bullying (Lampert & Donoso, 2012).

Figure 45: Child has been bullied online or

offline in the past 12 months, by gender, age
and SES
% Yes, and I was very upset
% Yes, and I was a little upset
% Yes, but I was not at all upset
% No, I havent experienced this
Boys 3 10 6

Consequently, we asked children how upset they

were when they experienced mean conduct by
someone else, and also whether they had ever
behaved in this way with someone else.

Girls

6 14 6

9-10 yrs

7 14 3

11-12 yrs 4 10 5
13-14 yrs 4 15

Figure 45 shows that 23% of children have

experienced any form of bullying on- or offline;
17% say they were very (5%) or a little upset
(12%) about what happened:

81
74

15-16 yrs

5 8 9

Low SES

5 10 5

Medium
SES

5 14

High SES

4 12 5

All

5 12 6

100

Q32: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, has someone treated you in this

kind of way, and if so, how upset were you about happened?
Base: All children who use the internet.

The experience of bullying is gendered, with

girls being more likely to experience
bullying (26%) and to be upset (20%) than
boys (among whom 19% reported being bullied
and 13% being harmed).

Age variations are also notable, and confirm

that the transition from pre-adolescence to
adolescence marks a time of increased
bullying: 13- to 14-year-olds (26%) are more
likely to be bullied. It is, however, the
youngest children who report higher rates of
harm (21%).

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 46: Child has been bullied online or

offline in the past 12 months, by country

Denmark
Ireland

87
20

6 10 6

Italy 1 7 5

Portugal 24 4

Romania

90
22

6 12 3

All

5 12 6

Age
%

% Yes, and I was very upset

% Yes, and I was a little upset
% Yes, but I was not at all upset
% No, I havent experienced this
Belgium 1 7 5

Table 39: Ways in which children have been

bullied in the past 12 months, by age
11-12

13-14

15-16

In person, face to face

By mobile phone calls

By messages sent on
phone (SMS, TEXT or
MMS)

On SNS

On a media sharing
platform

By instant messaging

In a chatroom

By email

On a gaming website

In any form on the

internet or through
mobile phones

Q33: If someone has treated you in this kind of way, how did it
happen? (Multiple responses allowed).
Base: All children who use the internet.

100

While 10% of children have been bullied

face to face, offline bullying is no longer the
dominant mode of mean and offensive
conduct; indeed, if we sum all the forms of
cyberbullying, 12% report being bullied
online or through mobile communication.

The most common ways cyberbullying occurs

is on SNS (7%), SMS and texts (3%), phone
calls (2%), instant messaging (2%) and
gaming websites (2%).

Age differences are noteworthy: the youngest

children are more likely to report being
bullied face to face and on a gaming
website. By contrast, among teenagers (aged
13-14 and 15-16), cyberbullying is more likely to
occur on SNS. The oldest group also reports
more experiences of cyberbullying via SMS and
phone calls.

Q32: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, has someone treated you in this

kind of way, and if so, how upset were you about happened?
Base: All children who use the internet.

The likelihood of being a victim of bullying

varies considerably through the countries:
children are more likely to be bullied in
Romania (41%) and Denmark (39%), and
less likely in Belgium (13%), Italy (13%) and
Portugal (10%).

Bullying can occur in many ways. Table 36 shows

the ways in which children have actually been
bullied12.

Note that 23% of children said that they had been treated in a
hurtful or nasty way but only 19% specified how this had
happened. For those who had been very upset, 9% failed to
give a concrete answer as to how this had happened, for the a
little upset group 12% didnt give a definitive answer to how it
happened and for the not at all upset, 19% didnt give a
definitive answer.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

All

9-10

Table 37 shows how the ways in which bullying

occurs varies across mobile and non-mobile
internet users:

Net Children Go Mobile

In person, face to face

Q33: If someone has treated you in this kind of way, how did it
happen? (Multiple responses allowed.)
Base: All children who use the internet.

Smartphone users (17%) and tablet users

(15%) are more likely to have experienced
any form of cyberbullying than children
who do not use mobile devices (8%)

Conversely, there are no differences among

different categories of internet users in the
likelihood of being bullied face to face.

As anticipated, research has shown that the line

between victims and perpetrators is more difficult
to draw in cyberbullying, and indeed, it is so for this
sample: 61% of those children who admit to
having treated others in a hurtful or nasty way
on the internet or by using mobile phones have
themselves been treated in a hurtful or nasty
way by others.

Table 38 shows the ways in which children bullied

others, by age:

In a chatroom

By email

On a gaming website

In any form on the

internet or through
mobile phones

Q34 In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you ever behaved in this way
to someone else and if so, in which way did you do it? (Multiple
responses allowed.)
Base: All children who use the internet.

The single most common mode of bullying

is face to face: 8% of children report having
bullied others in an offline context. But
combining all forms of cyberbullying, some
8% of children admit to having used any of
those communication channels to bully others.

Among the forms of cyberbullying, children

report aggressive conduct against other peers
especially on SNS, via SMS and other texts on
mobile phones, or through phone calls.

Age trends are notable: older teenagers are

more likely to bully others overall, and to do
so face to face, by messages sent on mobile
phones or on SNS.

Table 39 shows how aggressive conduct varies

among mobile- and non-mobile internet users.
Table 42: Ways in which children bullied
others in the past 12 months, comparing
mobile and non-mobile internet users

Table 41: Ways in which children bullied

others in the past 12 months, by age

%
Have engaged in any form of
cyberbullying

15-16

13-14

11-12

9-10

Age
All

In person, face to face

Use neither

By instant messaging

Tablet users

Have experienced any form of

cyberbullying

platform

Smart-phone
users

Use neither

Tablet users

Smart-phone
users

Table 40: Ways in which children have been

bullied in the past 12 months, comparing
mobile and non-mobile internet users

In person, face to face

By mobile phone calls

Q34 In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you ever behaved in this way
to someone else and if so, in which way did you do it? (Multiple
responses allowed.)
Base: All children who use the internet.

By messages sent on
phone (SMS, TEXT or
MMS)

On a SNS

On a media sharing

Children who use tablets to go online are

slightly more likely to bully others face to
face but the least likely to engage in any
form
of
cyber-bullying.
Conversely,

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

smartphone users are a bit more likely to report

having bullied others on the internet or by
means of mobile communication.
Some preliminary observations are required.
Although we are arguably observing a rise in
cyberbullying compared to the 2010 EU Kids Online
data (Livingstone et al., 2011), whether this is a
direct outcome of new media devices or rather, an
indirect outcome of changes in the way children
access the internet, or, even, the consequence of
awareness campaigns - whereby children are more
sensitive to this issue and more likely to recognise
mean conduct as bullying - needs further analysis.
We are rather inclined, however, to believe that the
more opportunities, more risks hypothesis is
a valid framework to understand the changes
associated with smartphones and tablets, changes
that lead to more pervasive internet access and use
in childrens everyday lives.
Since those who report being harmed by bullying
represent a consistent minority, it is vital to address
vulnerable children with specific safety and
empowering programmes.

6.3 Sexual messages

There is evidence that children are using the
internet and mobile phones as part of their sexual
interactions and explorations (Lenhart, 2009;
Livingstone et al., 2011). This practice has been
termed sexting (the amalgam of sex and
texting), and has been variously defined. One
approach restricts sexting to the exchange of
images by means of mobile phones: for example,
Lenhart defines sexting as the creating, sharing and
forwarding of sexually suggestive nude or nearly
nude images of themselves or someone they know
by mobile phones (2009, p. 2), thus excluding
sexually suggestive texts as well as other
communication platforms. The EU Kids Online
survey, instead, adopted a more inclusive notion of
sexting, which includes both images and texts and
privileges online communication over the use of
mobile phones (Livingstone et al., 2011). Drawing
on this broader definition, we defined sexting as
sexual messages or images. By this we mean talk
Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

about having sex or images of people naked or

having sex. Here are some questions about this.
Think about any way in which you use the internet
and your mobile phone/smartphone.
The Pew Internet study (Lenhart, 2009) identifies
three basic sexting scenarios, where the exchange
of sexual images occurs as (a) part of teenagers
experimenting with sexual identity and intimacy,
while they are not yet sexually active; (b) between
two romantic partners, as part of a sexual
relationship; c) as a prelude to sexual activity,
between friends who are not yet in a relationship,
but where at least one hopes to become
romantically involved. Indeed, most sexting is likely
to be contextualised in a peer-to-peer romantic
relationship, as a form of relationship currency
(Lenhart, 2009, p. 8). However, the specific
technological and social affordances of ICTs may
amplify the borders, meanings and audiences of
sexting: images and texts exchanged in the context
of a romantic relationship by means of SMS and
MMS, instant messaging (WhatsApp, Snapchat, etc.)
or SNS, can be easily forwarded, posted in more
public online spaces and thus shared with wider
audiences. Therefore, sexual messaging can have
unintended consequences and may turn into an
upsetting or problematic experience for some
children. Prior research has claimed that the
exchange of sexually explicit images, messages or
invitations is linked to harassment and bullying,
thus leading to a form of sexual cyberbullying
(Kofoed & Ringrose, 2012; Ringrose et al., 2012).
Consequently, we asked children In the past 12
months, have you received sexual messages of this
kind (this could be words, pictures or videos), and if
so, how upset were you about happened? Think
about any way in which you use the internet and
your mobile phone/smartphone.13 For ethical
reasons, this question was not asked of 9- to 10year-olds.
Figure 47 shows how children answered this
question by gender, age and SES:
13

The question asked in the EU Kids Online survey was if

children had seen or received sexual messages. Here, we
excluded the word seen as potentially misleading (it was
thought to lead to potential confusion with sexual images).

Net Children Go Mobile

half of 11-12 years old children who have

received sexual messages report being harmed,
compared to one out of three 15- to 16-years old.

Figure 47: Child has received sexual messages

online in the past 12 months (age 11+), by
gender, age and SES
% Yes, and I was very upset
% Yes, and I was a little upset

% Yes, but I was not at all upset

% No, I havent experienced this

Boys 22 7

Girls 3 4 5

Figure 44 examines country variations in the

number of children who received sexual messages:
Figure 48: Child has received sexual
messages online in the past 12 months (age
11+), by country

9-10 yrs
11-12 yrs 112
13-14 yrs 24 4

% Yes, and I was very upset

% Yes, and I was a little upset
% Yes, but I was not at all upset
% No, I havent experienced this

15-16 yrs 3 5 11

Low SES 34 4

Medium
23 8
SES

High SES 13 7

All 23 6

Belgium 21 8

Denmark 3 7 12
Ireland 13 7

100

Q42: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you received sexual

messages of this kind (this could be words, pictures or videos),
and if so, how upset were you about happened?
Base: All children aged 11-16 who use the internet.

SES differences in the number of children who

have experienced sexting are small; lower SES
children, however, seem slightly more likely to
report being bothered by what happened.

While the overall experience of receiving sexual

messages is not differentiated by gender, the
likelihood of being harmed from this
experience is: girls are more likely to be
very (3%) or a bit upset (4%) by sexting
than boys (among whom 2% and 2%
respectively are very or a bit bothered).
Sexting increases with age: while just 4% of
children aged 11-12 are likely to say they have
received messages of this kind, 10% of 13- to
14-year-olds and 19% of 15- to 16-year-olds
are likely to report this experience. However,

Italy 113

Portugal 122

Romania

6 8 7

UK 113

Overall, 11% of children have received

sexual messages of any kind, and 5% report
being very (2%) or a little (3%) upset as a
consequence.

All 23 6

79
95
89
50

100

Q42: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you received sexual

messages of this kind (this could be words, pictures or videos),
and if so, how upset were you about happened?
Base: All children aged 11-16 who use the internet.

Receiving sexual messages of any kind is more

likely to be experienced by Danish (22%) and
Romanian children (21%); it has been
reported by 11% of Belgian and Irish
children and is a limited experience in Italy,
Portugal and the UK (5%).

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Table 40 examines the ways in which children have

received sexually suggestive messages of any kind,
and shows that this occurs most on SNS (6%),
SMS or MMS (3%) and instant messaging (2%).
Children who are 15-16 years old experience more
sexting across all channels examined.
Table 43: Ways in which children have
received sexual messages in the past 12
months, by age (age 11+)

9-10

11-12

13-14

15-16

Age
All

By mobile phone calls

n/a

By text messages sent

on phone

n/a

On a SNS

n/a

On a media sharing
platform

n/a

By instant messaging

n/a

In a chatroom

n/a

By email

n/a

On a gaming website

n/a

In a gaming community n/a

Q43: Again, if you have received any messages of this kind, how
did it happen? (Multiple responses allowed).
Base: All children aged 11-16 who use the internet.

Table 41 examines the differences between mobileand non-mobile internet users in the way sexual
messages are received.
Table 44: Ways in which children have
received sexual messages in the past 12
months, comparing mobile and non-mobile
internet users (age 11+)
Smartphone
users

Tablet
users

Use neither

On a SNS

Q43: Again, if you have received any messages of this kind, how
did it happen? (Multiple responses allowed).
Base: All children aged 11-16 who use the internet.

Children who are smartphone users are more

likely to receive sexually suggestive
messages on SNS (8%) and by text

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Tablet users are as likely to experience

sexting on SNS (8%), but less likely than
smartphone users to receive sexual texts on
their mobile phones.

Comparison with the EU Kids Online data

(Livingstone et al., 2011) helps us advance some
observations: sexting has increased in Denmark
(from 16% to 22%), it has remained stable or
almost stable in Ireland (also 11% in 2010), Italy
(from 4% to 5%) and Romania (from 22% to 21%),
and has decreased substantially in Belgium
(from 18% to 11%), Portugal (from 15% to 5%) and
the UK (from 12% to 5%). The number of children
who have been bothered by sexually suggestive
messages received online or on their phones has
increased in all countries apart from Belgium,
Portugal and the UK (where it has dropped from
3% to 2% or has remained stable as in Portugal),
most notably in Denmark (from 4% to 10%) and
Romania (from 9% to 14%). While the numbers
overall are lower, the proportion of children who
said they were upset after this experience has also
doubled in Ireland (from 2% to 4%) and Italy
(from 1% to 2%). Therefore, urgent policy
initiatives are needed in countries where children
are more likely to be bothered by sexual messages.
Even in countries where the incidence of both risk
and harm is lower, it is of vital importance to
address the minority of children who are more
vulnerable to the harmful consequences of sexting.

6.4 Meeting new people

By text messages sent to phone

messages on their phones (5%).

One of the major anxieties regarding young

peoples online communication concerns what can
be referred to as the stranger danger, that is, the
idea that young people might meet someone
online, be persuaded to meet them offline and end
up being abused in the face-to-face encounter.
Indeed, previous research suggests that meeting
strangers can encompass a variety of
circumstances and experiences, which cannot be
assumed as universally problematic (Barbovschi et
al., 2012; Ito et al., 2009); at the same time, prior
studies show that the risk of being harmed from a

Net Children Go Mobile

face-to-face contact with someone met online is

low (Livingstone et al., 2011). One major reason lies
in the modes of online sociability, whereby children
tend to extend their online contacts by activating
latent ties (e.g. people they share friends or
locations with), rather than looking for people with
no connections with their offline worlds. Indeed,
most of the face-to-face meetings with contacts
first met online is with friends of friends and not
with complete strangers (Barbovschi et al., 2012).

Figure 49: Child (%) has been in contact with

someone not met face to face before, by
gender, age and SES

As for other online risks, therefore, the relationship

between risk and harm must be understood within
the broader social context in which it is embedded;
more specifically, within the patterns of online
communication and sociality, within the broader
online activities and also, within the broader social
context, including offline factors of vulnerability.
Therefore, the first step is to understand the
patterns of online communication and contact with
people met online, and second, to identify the
patterns of meeting offline with someone met
online.
Figure 49 shows the number of children who have
been in contact on the internet with people they
have never met face to face before, by gender, age
and SES:

Boys

Girls

9-10 yrs

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Low SES

Medium SES

High SES

All

100

Q37: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you ever had contact on the
internet (on all platforms/devices) with someone you had not
met face to face before? This could have been by email,
chatrooms, SNS, instant messaging or gaming sites.
Base: All children who use the internet.

One in four children (26%) have had

contact online with people they have never
met face to face.

While gender variations are weak, the age trend

is marked: contact with people met online
increases with age, ranging from 15% of
children aged 9-10 to 36% of teenagers
aged 15-16.

SES differences are also considerable, with

medium (32%) and higher SES (26%) children
being more likely to be in contact with people
never met before than the children from lower
income families.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 50: Child (%) has been in contact with

someone not met face to face before, by
country
Belgium

Denmark

Figure 51: Child has gone to an offline meeting

with, someone not met face to face before,
by gender, age and SES

Ireland

Italy

Portugal

Figure 51 how many children have gone to meet

someone offline they first met online, and whether
they were bothered by this experience.

% Yes, and I was very upset

% Yes, and I was a little upset
% Yes, but I was not at all upset

% No, I havent experienced this

Romania

All

Country variations are also noteworthy:

children in Denmark (49%) and Romania
(41%) are considerably more likely to be in
contact on the internet with someone they
havent met face to face. Contact with people
met online is less common in the other
countries, concerning one in five children in
Ireland (22%), Italy (22%), Belgium (19%),
and even less in the UK (17%). Just 11% of
Portuguese children include among their
online contacts people they have never met
offline.

Contact with people met online is not negative or

risky per se: rather, it often provides children with
an opportunity to share interests and hobbies (Ito
et al., 2009). Moreover, not every online contact
leads to an offline encounter, and more
importantly, not every face-to-face meeting with
someone met on the internet has harmful
consequences.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Girls 12 9

9-10 yrs 023

11-12 yrs 12 5

13-14 yrs 12 10

100

15-16 yrs 12 16

Boys 02 9

Low SES 13 9

Medium
03 12
SES

High SES 015

All 12 9

94
88
50

100

Q39: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you ever gone on to meet

anyone face to face who you had first met on the internet, and if
so, were you at all upset by what happened or wish that you had
not done it?
Base: All children who use the internet.

12% of children say they have met

someone face to face they first met on the
internet, and for 3% (one in four of whom
had such meetings) this made them very or
a little upset.

While there is almost no difference in the

number of girls and boys who went to such
meetings, girls are just a little more likely to
have had a negative experience.

Meeting online contacts offline increases

Net Children Go Mobile

with age, rising from 5% of the youngest to

19% of the oldest age group.

but just 1% of Italian and Belgian children who

went to such meetings have been bothered.
Conversely, no children in Portugal were
harmed. The 4% of Irish children have gone
to an offline meeting of this kind but half of
them were a little upset. Finally, meeting
online contacts offline is lowest in the UK (3%),
and for none of the respondents in this country
has it had any harmful consequences.

Children from lower income families (13%)

are twice as likely to go to an offline meeting
with an online contact than children from
wealthier homes (6%).

Figure 52: Child has gone to an offline

meeting with, someone not met face to face
before, by country
% Yes, and I was very upset
% Yes, and I was a little upset
% Yes, but I was not at all upset
% No, I havent experienced this
Belgium 01 9

Denmark 23 12

Ireland 022

Italy 01 9

Portugal 0 10

Romania 2 8
UK 03
All 12 9

Figure 53 and Figure 48 show the number of online

contacts children have gone on to meet offline14,
and confirm what has already been shown in Figure
51, that it is uncommon for children to go on to a
face to face meeting with online contacts. But those
who have done this have in most cases met only
one or two people. The number of people met
in this way varies by country and age. Older
children and children from medium or low SES
have gone on to meet more contacts than the
younger ones and those from higher SES. Children
in Denmark and Romania have met more online
contacts offline.

97
88
50

100

Q39: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you ever gone on to meet

anyone face to face who you had first met on the internet, and if
so, were you at all upset by what happened or wish that you had
not done it?
Base: All children who use the internet.

As for online contacts with people never met

face to face, the likelihood of an offline
encounter also varies substantially across
countries: Romanian children are more likely
to meet someone face to face they met online
(27%) and more likely to be bothered (10%);
going to an offline meeting with someone met
online is also common in Denmark (17%), but
harmful experiences are lower (5%). A total of
10% of Belgian, Italian and Portuguese
children go and meet their online contacts,

Note that 12% of children said that they have gone to

an offline meeting with an online contact, but only 10%
specified how many people they have met offline.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 53: Number of online contacts children

have gone on to meet offline, by gender, age
and SES

Figure 54: Number of online contacts children

have gone on to meet offline, by country
% None

% None

% One or two

% Three or more
Belgium

Boys

Girls

7 4

9-10 yrs

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

Denmark

Italy

Portugal

9 7

8 4

Medium
SES

6 6

All

41
64

100

Q40: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, how many people have you gone
on to meet face to face (who you had previously only met on the
internet)?
Base: All children who use the internet.

0
95

7 5

Low SES

All

8 6
99

High SES

Ireland

21
61

Romania

15-16 yrs

% Three or more

100

Q40: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, how many people have you gone
on to meet face to face (who you had previously only met on the
internet)?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Therefore, considering that the relationship

between risk and harm is complex and not
linear, even countries where meeting online
contacts offline is less common may benefit from
awareness-raising initiatives, as well as safety
programmes that promote a responsible
management of online contacts
There are many ways in which children get in touch
with people online that they then meet offline, as
shown in Table 45.
Table 45: Ways in which children first
contacted someone they later met offline, by
age

9-10

11-12

13-14

15-16

Age
All

By mobile phone calls

By text messages sent to

phone

On a SNS

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

On a media sharing
platform

By instant messaging

In a chatroom

By email

On a gaming website

Q41: If you have gone on to meet people face to face who you
met before just on the internet (never face to face), in what ways
did you get in contact with them for the first time? (Multiple
responses allowed).
Base: All children who use the internet.

Children get in touch with people met

online who they have later met offline
mainly on SNS (6%), by phone calls (3%) or
texts received on their mobiles (3%).

Age differences are notable: teenagers aged

15-16 are more likely to contact people met
online than other age groups, and tend to do so
on a SNS (13%), by phone calls (7%), texts
received on their mobiles (6%) or instant
messaging (3%).

Does the way children contact new people who

they will then meet offline change among
smartphone and tablet users? Table 43 shows that
mobile internet users are more likely to contact
people they will then meet offline through various
channels. More specifically, smartphone users are
more likely than both tablet users and non-users to
get in touch for the first time with people they will
later meet face to face on SNS, messages on their
phones and phone calls.

Use neither

Tablet users

Smart-phone
users

Table 46: Ways in which children first

contacted someone they met offline,
comparing mobile and non-mobile users

By mobile phone calls

By text messages sent to phone

On a SNS

Q41: If you have gone on to meet people face to face who you
met before just on the internet (never face to face), in what ways
did you get in contact with them for the first time?
Base: All children who use the internet.

6.5 Sexual images

Pornography, and more specifically, the assumed
harmful influence of pornography on children, is a
contested object of study. Public anxiety originates
from the belief that lack of censorship and
consequent ease of circulation of pornographic
content on the internet turns pornography from
under the bed into onto your screen practice
(Rovolis & Tsaliki, 2012, p. 173). However, the
ubiquity of sexual content on the internet has
been discussed in many studies (see, among
others, Ey & Cupit, 2011). The EU Kids Online project
revealed that only one in four children have come
across pornographic content, and just 14% have
accidentally or intentionally encountered sexual
images online (Livingstone et al., 2011). The data
also showed that, while seeing sexual images is
more common among boys and older teenagers,
younger children and girls are more likely to be
bothered from what they have encountered.
Overall, just one in three children who have been
exposed to sexual content online report being
upset after this experience, although cross-cultural
variation is considerable (ibidem). Based on these
findings Rovolis and Tsaliki concludes that, as
cultural studies-oriented approaches have been
arguing for some time (Attwood & Smith, 2011;
Buckingham & Bragg, 2004), the concern for the
negative effect of pornography is exaggerated in
media panics.
Drawing on the EU Kids Online methodology,
questions about pornography were introduced in
the following way: In the past year, you will have
seen lots of different images pictures, photos,
videos. Sometimes, these might be obviously sexual
for example, showing people having sex, or naked
people in sexy poses.15 You might never have seen
15

The original text in the EU Kids Online questionnaire stated: In

the past year, you will have seen lots of different images
pictures, photos, videos. Sometimes, these might be obviously
sexual for example, showing people naked or people having
sex. We changed it into naked people in sexy poses because
cognitive testing and researchers experience suggested that
naked images are not necessarily associated with pornographic

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

anything like this, or you may have seen something

like this on a mobile phone, in a magazine, on the TV,
on a DVD or on the internet, on whatever device you
use to go online.

Figure 55: Child has seen sexual images online

or offline in the past 12 months, by gender,
age and SES
% Yes, and I was very upset

% Yes, and I was a little upset

Figure 55 shows how seeing sexual images on and

offline varies by gender, age and SES.

% Yes, but I was not at all upset

% No, I havent experienced this

Overall, 28% of children say that they have seen

sexual images in the past 12 months, whether
online or offline.

Boys 3 6

7 11 12

Girls

Seeing sexual images is partially related to

gender with 30% of girls who have reported
this experience against 27% of boys and more
strongly related with age: 44% of older
teenagers have seen sexual images in the
past 12 months compared to 14% of
younger children.

9-10 yrs 3 5 6

11-12 yrs

55 8

13-14 yrs 4 12
15-16 yrs

82
17

6 10

Low SES 4 8

Exposure to sexual images is more common

among middle class children.

Medium
SES

7 8

High SES 4 10

5 8

All

100

Q35: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you seen anything of this

kind, and if so, how upset were you by what you saw?
Base: All children who use the internet age 11-16.

material in all countries.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

While overall one in three children have

experienced sexual content on or offline, 13%
of children (more or less half of those who
encountered sexually explicit images) were
bothered by this experience.

While, as we have seen, girls and boys are

almost equally exposed to sexual images, girls
are more likely to be very (7%) or a little
(11%) upset by what they have seen.

The relation between risk and harm varies

by age: two thirds of children aged 9-10 who
had seen sexual content report being bothered
by this; half of the girls and boys aged 11-12
and 13-14 years old have been bothered; while
just one in three children who are 15-16 years
old report being upset.

Net Children Go Mobile

therefore, that British children are more

likely to be bothered by what they have seen.
Portugal is a notable exception: exposure to
sexual content is on average (27%) and just one
in three children have been upset.

Medium or higher SES children are more likely

to be bothered by what they have seen.

Figure 56: Child has seen sexual images online

or offline in the past 12 months, by country
% Yes, and I was very upset
% Yes, and I was a little upset
% Yes, but I was not at all upset
% No, I havent experienced this

Portugal 3 4

5 8

73
69
83

100

Q35: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you seen anything of this

kind, and if so, how upset were you by what you saw?
Base: All children who use the internet age 11-16.

On television, film

On a video sharing
platform

On a photo sharing
platform

By pop-ups on the
internet

On a SNS

By instant messaging

In a chatroom

By email

On a gaming website

UK 4 6 7
All

In a magazine or book

10 11 10

Romania

All

Ireland 2 6 13

Italy 1 8

15-16

Denmark

Age

13-14

6 7 15

Table 47: Ways in which children have seen

sexual images, by age

11-12

Belgium

Table 47 shows the ways in which children have

seen sexual images by age:

9-10

Children in different countries have different

likelihoods of experiencing sexual content: the
greatest exposure to sexual images is
among children in Denmark (52%) and
Romania (31%). Lower exposure than the
average is reported in Italy (23%), Ireland
(21%) and the UK (17%).
The relation between risks and harm varies
across countries: while Denmark has the
highest incidence of exposure, less than half of
Danish children who have seen sexual content
report being upset (24%). In the other
countries, although the overall experience of
sexual content is lower, the proportion of
children who report harm is higher than in
Denmark, ranging from 21% of Romanian
children, to 13% in Belgium, 10% in the UK,
9% in Italy and 8% in Ireland. It appears,

Q36: If you have seen images of this kind, how did it happen?
(Multiple responses allowed).
Base: All children who use the internet.

Television and films (11%) are still the

most common way of seeing sexual images,
followed by SNS (7%), pop-ups on the
internet (7%), or video sharing platforms
(5%).

Although the trend for increasing exposure with

age is strong, it does not vary much by medium,
the only difference being that the youngest are
more likely to have this experience on video
sharing platforms or pop-ups compared to
SNS. Overall, as children grow older, they
are more likely to see sexual images across
all media.

Table 48 shows how the way children are exposed

to sexual content varies across mobile and nonmobile internet users: overall, smartphone users

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

On a SNS

Table 49: Child has seen potentially harmful

user-generated content on websites in past 12
months, by age (age 11+)
Age

Q36: If you have seen images of this kind, how did it happen?
(Multiple responses allowed).
Base: All children who use the internet.

To sum up, exposure to sexual images continues to

be a rather common experience offline and online.
While older children, boys and children living in
countries where this experience is more common
are generally more resilient, younger children, girls
and children in countries where seeing sexual
content affects only a minority of children are
usually more vulnerable to the harmful
consequences of sexual content.

6.6 Other inappropriate

content
Social media enable an unprecedented circulation
of user-generated content (UGC). While the creation
and sharing of content is a primary opportunity of
the so-called Web 2.0, and an important
component of digital literacy, some UGC is arguably
problematic: content that promotes eating
disorders; self-harm behaviour and drug
consumption, along with online materials that
promote discrimination and violence against
certain groups are among the main examples of
negative user-generated content (NUGC). While
there is some evidence that exposure to NUGC is a
rather
common
experience
for
children
(Livingstone et al., 2011), it has received less
attention among policy makers and researchers
than bullying, sexting, meeting strangers or
Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

% seen websites in past

12 months where
people...

15-16

By pop-ups on the internet

Table 49 shows what kind of problematic content

children have come across, and how this varies by
age.

13-14

On television, film

We asked children: In the past 12 months, have you

seen websites where people... For ethical reasons,
this question was not addressed to 9- to 10-yearolds.

11-12

Use neither

Amongst
tablet users

Amongst
smartphone
users

Table 48: Ways in which children have seen

sexual images, comparing mobile and nonmobile internet users

pornography.

9-10

are more exposed to sexual content offline and

online than children who dont use smartphones
or tablets to go online, and more likely to see sexual
images on the internet than tablet users.

All

Discuss ways of physically

harming or hurting
themselves

n/a

Discuss ways of
committing suicide

n/a

Discuss ways of being very

skinny, anorexic or bulimic

n/a

Publish hate messages

that attack certain groups
or individuals

n/a

Talk about or share their

experiences of taking
drugs

n/a

Has seen any such

material at all on websites

n/a

Q44: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you seen websites where

people discuss
Base: All children who use the internet aged 11-16.

Overall, 25% of children report seeing

potentially harmful UGC online indicating that
exposure to NUGC has increased (it was 21% in
2010 considering only these countries).

Across all age groups, children encounter

hate and discriminatory messages (20%)
and anorexic or bulimic content (13%)
more than they do self-harm sites (11%) or
sites where people share their experiences with
drugs (10%). Although a smaller percentage, it
is nevertheless noteworthy that 6% encounter
suicide sites.

Seeing negative UGC increases with age:

Net Children Go Mobile

16% of children aged 11-12 have encountered

one or more of the NUGC Table 49 compared
with 34% of those aged 15-16.

6.7 Other risks

Other risks include: commercial, such as losing
money by being victims of online fraud; technical,
namely, viruses and malicious software; and risks
connected to the misuse of personal
information. The latter comprise of having an
email account or SNS profile hacked or violated (as
in Facebook rape, or Frape); the misuse of
personal information and photos by people
pretending to be the victim (e.g. through the
creation of fake profiles); and people pretending
to be someone else or catfishing. While the
literature on this issue remains sparse, there is
some evidence that the misuse or abuse of
personal data deserves attention. The EU Kids
Online data show that 9% of children aged 11-16
have experienced one or more of the three forms of
personal data misuse investigated, with someone
using the childs password or pretending to be
them the most common experience. Similarly, the
qualitative fieldwork currently carried out by the
Net Children Go Mobile researchers indicates that
risks related to personal data and damages to one's
reputation are among the major concerns of
children.

cheated on the internet

Somebody used their
password/used their
phone, accessed their
phone to access
information or to pretend
to be them

Experienced one or more

of the above

Q45: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, has any of the following happened

to you on the internet/on your smartphone/mobile phone?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Viruses are a risk encountered by one in five

children, and one that increases with age,
ranging from 17% of younger children to 27% of
older teenagers. By contrast, getting a virus on
a smartphone has been reported by only a
minority of children (3%), although it is more
common in the oldest age group.

Among risks associated with personal data

misuse, children are more likely to
experience privacy-related risks on their
smartphones (e.g. people accessing their
personal information or pretending to be
them). Although just a minority of children are
exposed to this risk (5% overall), this rises to
9% of teenagers aged 15-16.

Having someone using their information in a

way they did not like or losing money after
being cheated on the internet are less
common, perhaps suggesting that children
have learned how to prevent these problematic
situations.

We can observe a marked trend in age, with

older teenagers being exposed more to all the
risks we asked about.

Table 50 shows the distribution of other risks across

age groups:
Table 50: Child has had other negative online
experiences in the past 12 months, by age

9-10

11-12

13-14

15-16

Age
All

Somebody used personal

information in a way they
didnt like

The computer got a virus

The mobile
phone/smartphone got a
virus

lost money by being

% of children who
experienced

While the data presented in Table 47 are somewhat

comforting, we must not underplay the relevance of
risks associated with personal data misuse: as the
qualitative material we are collecting shows,
children seem particularly sensitive to privacy
issues.

6.8 Responding to risks

Most online experiences do not prove harmful, even
because children do not perceive them as

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Table 51 shows how likely children are to talk about

their negative online experiences with various
people: mothers (71%), friends (57%) and

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Rather likely

Rather unlikely

Very unlikely

Does not apply

Mother

Brother or sister

Other relatives

Friends

Teachers

Someone whose job is

to help children

Another trusted adult

Q48: If you were to experience something on the internet or

when you were online from different devices that bothered you
or made you upset, how likely or unlikely is it that you would
talk with the following people?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Table 52 shows how the likelihood of children

talking to someone after a negative online
experience varies across age groups and by gender:

Table 52: Children who are very likely to talk

about things that bothered them on the
internet, by age and gender
13-16 years
Girls

9-12 years

Boys

Therefore, we asked children, If you were to

experience something on the internet or when you
were online from different devices that bothered you
or made you upset, how likely or unlikely is it that you
would talk with the following people?

Father

%...

Girls

In this chapter we focus on communicative

responses to online risks. Indeed, prior research has
proved that children who receive greater support
from their peers are more resilient to online
negative experiences, and both parents and
teachers are in a position to mediate childrens
online resilience, provided that they engage in
actively mediating childrens online activities and
safety (Vandoninck et al., 2013).

Table 51: How likely it is for children to talk

about things that bothered them on the
internet
Very likely

Responding to online risks by seeking support from

social networks is the most common coping
strategy adopted by children, although in most
cases they tend to combine two strategies
(Livingstone et al., 2011).

fathers (54%) represents the sources of social

support to whom children are very or rather
likely to turn to when they had any online
experience that made them feel upset. By contrast,
the majority of children say it is very or
rather unlikely that they would talk to
teachers (64%) or youth workers (59%) and
other adults whose job it is to help children when
they have a negative online experience.

Boys

dangerous or problematic (Livingstone et al., 2012;

Vandoninck, dHaenens & Roe, 2013). However,
when they encounter a negative experience on the
internet, children engage in a set of strategies to
adapt to the problematic situation and to reduce
emotional and psychological stress. Online coping
can be defined as internet-specific problemsolving strategies children adopt after a
negative experience online (Vandoninck et al.,
2013, p. 61). The EU Kids Online survey (Livingstone
et al., 2011) identified three main coping strategies:
passive responses, that include fatalistic (stop
using the internet for while) and self-accusatory
responses (feeling guilty about what happened);
proactive responses (such as reporting
inappropriate content and contact, blocking the
unwanted contact, etc.); and communicative
responses (talking with parents, peers, teachers or
other trusted adults about what happened).
Learning how to cope with negative experiences in
an effective way and which are the most effective
responses for any particular situation is part of the
process of building resilience (Vandoninck et al.,
2013).

%...

All

Father

Mother

Net Children Go Mobile

Brother or sister

Other relatives

Friends

Teachers

Someone whose job is to

help children

Another trusted adult

Figure 57: Children (%) who are very likely to

talk to at least one person about things that
might bother them on the internet, by gender,
age and SES
Boys

Q48: If you were to experience something on the internet or

when you were online from different devices that bothered you
or made you upset, how likely or unlikely is it that you would
talk with the following people?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Younger children are more likely to talk to

their parents than anyone else, with both
girls and boys more likely to seek support from
mothers.
The importance of parents as the primary
source of social support in case of
experiencing something upsetting on the
internet decreases with age: teenagers are
more likely than younger children to seek
support from their peers. However, there are
important variations by gender. Teenage girls
are more likely to talk with their friends
and still more likely to turn to their
mothers. Conversely, teenage boys continue to
seek support from parents than friends.
While children are not generally used to talking
with their teachers, younger boys and girls are
more inclined to indicate teachers as a very
likely source of support. Younger girls also put
more trust in youth workers, counsellors, etc.

Girls

9-10 yrs

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Low SES

Medium SES

High SES

All

100

Q48: If you were to experience something on the internet or

when you were online from different devices that bothered you
or made you upset, how likely or unlikely is it that you would
talk with the following people? (% who say they are very likely to
talk to at least one of those named in Table 51.)
Base: All children who use the internet.

Gender
and
age
differences
are
considerable: younger children (72%) and girls
(73%) are more likely than boys (61%) and
teenagers (63% and 65%) to talk with at least
one person about what bothers them on the
internet.

SES variations are also noteworthy: children

from lower income families are much more
likely to seek support from someone when they
have a negative experience on the internet.

Figure 57 shows that 67% of children are likely to

talk with at least one person when they have a
negative online experience:

Figure 58: Children (%) who are very likely to

talk to at least one person about things that

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

might bother them on the internet, by country

Belgium

Denmark

Ireland

Italy

Portugal

Romania

All

100

Q48: If you were to experience something on the internet or

Country variations are also pronounced, with

Portuguese and Belgian children who are
considerably more likely to look for social
support. By contrast, children in Denmark
are the least likely to do so.

These findings suggest that parents and peer

mediation are valued by children and should be
promoted within policy initiatives. However one in
three children is still not likely to ask for support
from parents or peers. Policy makers should aim at
ensuring that all children, across all countries, find
social support of any kind when they need it.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

As research on mobile communication has shown,

we do not assume that perpetual contact (Katz &
Aakhus, 2002) is positive per se or unproblematic;
rather, it may lead to overdependence and a feeling
of entrapment (Hall & Baym, 2012). Equally we do
not exclude excessive and compensatory uses of
mobile devices as a means of escaping from
psychological vulnerabilities. Rather, we prefer to

Mobile communication has become an integral

part of our social ecology (Ling, 2012), bringing
about notable benefits for example, always being
in contact with family and friends, easier
management of everyday life activities and
mobility, better employment of otherwise dead
time, etc. as well as some negative consequences
more stress, and the pressure to be always on.
Therefore, we wanted to measure what, if ever,
changes are associated with smartphones in
childrens perception. Table 53 shows how true
children think a set of items are:
Table 53: Managing the complexity of
everyday life
Very true

The issue of addiction is even more problematic

when we turn to mobile phones. Mobile
communication has indeed become a taken-forgranted condition of our social ecology (Ling, 2012):
being accessible to our intimate friends and
relatives is not only part of the social expectations
we form of one another, but also informs our sense
of personal security. Moreover, being able to access
the internet on the move helps manage a variety of
tasks, including using maps, accessing information
in real time, re-arranging meetings on the fly, etc.

7.1 Managing the complexity of

everyday life

A bit true

The fear that children might lose control over their

use of new media is a key component of media
panics over the internet and mobile phones.
Moreover, internet addiction has become an
important field of research, as well as a debated
issue on the policy agenda. While previous research
framed internet addiction as an impulse-control
disorder that can be assimilated to other
pathological conditions such as gambling, more
recent studies adopt a compensatory model of
internet use, whereby some individuals turn to the
internet as a way of escaping from their problems
and to compensate for psychological difficulties
(Kardefeldt-Winther, 2014). So not all symptoms of
internet addiction would necessarily be an
indicator of a psychological problem; rather, what
researchers, policy makers and the public treat as
excessive internet use may signal a new way of
life characterised by the embeddedness of the
internet in everyday life and novel modes of
communication and entertainment, which adults
normatively sanction as pathological behaviour
(Kardefeldt-Winther, 2014).

Not true

7. Dependence and
overdependence

speak of dependence and overdependence, to

suggest that the boundary between intensive and
pathological uses of the internet is negotiable and
must be contextualised, taking into account
individual experiences and vulnerabilities. This
expression also helps us recognise the positive
consequences of a strong embeddedness of mobile
media into everyday life.

%
Since I have had a smartphone I find it
easier to organise my daily activities

Thanks to my smartphone I feel more

connected to my friends

Thanks to my smartphone I feel more

connected to my family

Thanks to my smartphone I feel safer

Since I have had my smartphone I feel I

have to be always available to family and
friends

Thanks to my smartphone it is easier to

do my homework and class assignments

Thanks to my smartphone I feel less

bored

Q50: How true are these of you?

Base: All children who own or have for their own use a
smartphone.

Feeling less bored is the most notable

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Feeling connected to parents and other family

members is also an important, although less
common, consequence associated with
smartphones: over half of the children claim
that it is a bit (36%) or very (21%) true
that they feel more connected to their
family.
This increased opportunity to keep in touch
with ones social circles not only through SMS
and phone calls, but also instant messaging
and SNS, also has a notable side effect, that is,
overdependence: three out of four children
(72%) think it is true that Since I have had
my smartphone I feel I have to be always
available to family and friends.
Two out of three children believe that
smartphones help them organise their
daily activities.

%...

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

All

Since I have had a

smartphone I find it
easier to organise my
daily activities

Thanks to my
smartphone I feel more
connected to my friends

Thanks to my
smartphone I feel more
connected to my family

Thanks to my
smartphone I feel safer

Since I have had my

smartphone I feel I have
to be always available to
family and friends

Thanks to my
smartphone it is easier
to do my homework and
class assignments

Thanks to my
smartphone I feel less
bored

Q50: How true are these of you?

Base: All children who own or have for their own use a
smartphone.

Age differences are more notable than gender

differences: teenagers are more likely to
agree with each of the statements except for
the feeling of perpetual contact with family experienced especially by younger boys - and
the feeling of greater personal safety experienced especially by younger girls.

Indeed, social connectivity afforded by mobile

communication is where the major difference
between children and teenagers is played out:
teenagers are almost twice as likely to
think of smartphones as tools that
facilitate a stronger connection with the
peer group.

Curiously, however, the gap between younger

children and teenagers is reduced when it
comes to the sense of being required to be

Over half of the children who own

smartphones also agree that smartphones
improve their sense of personal safety, and
help them do their homework.

Table 54 shows how agreement with statements

regarding the role of smartphones in childrens

13-16 years
Girls

9-12 years

Boys

The second statement children agree with

relates to social access to peers: most
children think it is a bit (39%) or very
(42%) true that they feel more connected
to their friends thanks to smartphones. This
confirms that for children, contact with peers
represents the main motivation for adopting
mobile communication.

Table 54: Managing the complexity of

everyday life, by age and gender

Girls

everyday life varies by age and gender:

Boys

consequence of smartphones: the majority of

children agree a bit (43%) or a lot (41%) with
this statement.

Net Children Go Mobile

always accessible to parents and friends: both

children aged 9-12 and teenagers aged 1316 associate smartphones with the
pressure to be always on.

7.2 Excessive use of the

internet and smartphones
In order to explore excessive internet use and to
ensure comparability with the EU Kids Online 2010
survey, the same questions were asked to children
to measure potential conflict of internet use with
other activities and the experience of unsuccessful
attempts to reduce time spent on the internet, as
shown in Figure 59.

The measure of excessive internet use that

children are more likely to experience very or
fairly often is spending time online
without being really interested in it (20%),
followed by the feeling of spending less time
than appropriate with family, friends or
doing homework (18%), the perceived
incapacity to reduce time spent online (16%),
and feeling bothered when not able to be
online (15%).

Encouragingly, three out of four children have

never experienced going without sleeping or
eating because they were online.

A single experience associated with excessive

internet use is not sufficient to measure
problematic behaviour.

Figure 59: Excessive use of the internet among children

% Very or fairly often

% Not very often

% Never or almost never

100
80
60
40

20
0

61
20

58
18

Gone without eating Felt bothered when I Caught myself surfing Spent less time than I Tried unsuccessfully
or sleeping because
cannot be on the when I am not really should with family, to spend less time on
of the internet
internet
interested
friends or doing
the internet
schoolwork because
of the internet
Q46: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, how often, have these things happened to you?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Figure 60 shows the percentage of children, out of

all the children, who answer fairly or very often to
two or more of the five experiences of excessive
use, by gender, age and SES:

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

economic backgrounds are more likely to

experience two or more forms associated with
excessive internet use than children of lower
income homes.

Figure 60: Child (%) has experienced two or

more forms of excessive internet use fairly or
very often, by gender, age and SES
Boys

Girls

9-10 yrs

Figure 61: Child (%) has experienced two or

more forms of excessive internet use fairly or
very often, by country

11-12 yrs

Belgium

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Ireland

Italy

Medium SES

Portugal

High SES

Romania

All

100

Q46: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, how often, have these things

happened to you? The graph shows the percentage of children
who answer fairly often or very often to at least two of the five
statements in Figure 59.
Base: All children who use the internet.

Denmark

Low SES

One in five children have experienced at

least two behaviours or feelings associated
with excessive internet use, with little gender
differences.
Age variations are more marked, ranging from
8% of 9- to 10-year-olds to 30% of 15- to 16year-olds. That older teenagers are more likely
to report two or more experiences of excessive
use is no surprise since, as we have seen, the
overall use of the internet as well as the
number of activities taken up also increases
with age. And as the variety of activities done
online multiplies, consequently, one gets more
likely to be overdependent.
Excessive internet use varies also according to
SES: children of medium or higher socio-

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

11
16
24
29

All

100

Q46: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, how often, have these things

happened to you? The graph shows the percentage of children
who answer fairly often or very often to at least two of the five
statements in Figure 59.
Base: All children who use the internet.

Differences
between
countries
are
considerable, ranging from 11% of children
who report two or more experiences of
excessive use in Italy to 29% in the UK.
Countries can be grouped into two categories:
Belgium, Italy and Portugal are below the
average, whereas children in Denmark, Ireland,
Romania and the UK, are more likely to
experience two or more forms of
overdependence to the internet.

Smartphones are portable, always at hand devices

to access the internet, which could make the
experiences of dependence and overdependence
even more diffused, as shown in Figure 62:

Net Children Go Mobile

statement I have tried unsuccessfully to spend

less time using my phone.

One in two children agree with the statement

I have felt a strong need to check my phone
to see if anything new has happened very or
fairly often.

Around one in three children have reported

feeling very or fairly often bothered
when they could not use their phone
because the battery was out of power or they
were in a dead zone, or using their phone in
places where it was not appropriate.

The feeling of neglecting family, friends and

school activities has been experienced very or
fairly often by one in four children, as much as
the experience of using the phone while not
really interested in it.

Children are least likely to agree with the

These first findings suggest that children are more

likely to develop an overdependent attitude
towards their smartphones because of its
features: first, like mobile phones before them,
smartphones are perceived among children and
adolescents as extensions of their body, that
can be easily stored in a pocket and carried around
all the day long (Vincent & Fortunati, 2009); and
second, they support a new mode of
communication called connected presence
(Licoppe, 2004), associated with a feeling of
perpetual contact with friends and family. For these
reasons, it is understandable that children feel
uncomfortable when they cannot check their
phones, or tend to check them every once in a
while
when
they
can
do
so.

Figure 62: Excessive use of smartphones among children

% Very or fairly often

% Not very often

% Never or almost never

100
80
60
40
20
0

50
27

I have felt
I have caught
I have felt a
I have spent less I find myself using I have tried
bothered when I myself doing
strong need to time than I should my phone even in unsuccessfully to
could not check
things on my
check my phone
with either
places/situations spend less time
my smartphone smartphone that I to see if anything family, friends or where it is not using my phone
was not really
new has
doing schoolwork appropriate
interested in
happened
Q49: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, how often, have these things happened to you?
Base: All children who own or have for their own use a smartphone.

Figure 64 shows the percentage of children, out of

all the children, who answer fairly or very often to
two or more of the five experiences of
overdependence, by gender, age and SES:

Overall, 48% of have reported two or more

experiences associated with dependence
and
overdependence
on
their
smartphones, with little gender or SES
differences.

Overdependence increases with age, with

just 20% of the youngest children experiencing

two or more of the items measured, compared
to 61% of teenagers aged 15-16. This is no
surprise, given that use increases with age, and
that dependence on mobile devices is
associated with dependence on mobile
communication and anywhere, anytime social
access to the peer group, which, as known,
increases through adolescence.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 63: Child (%) has experienced two or

more forms of excessive smartphone use
fairly or very often, by gender, age and SES

Figure 64: Child (%) has experienced two or

more forms of excessive smartphone use
fairly or very often, by country

Boys

Belgium

Girls

Denmark

Ireland

9-10 yrs

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

Italy

15-16 yrs
47

Medium SES

Portugal

Low SES

Romania

All

High SES

All

100

Q49: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, how often, have these things

happened to you? The graph shows the percentage of children
who answer fairly often or very often to at least two of the six
statements in Figure 59.
Base: All children who own or have for their own use a
smartphone.

100

Q49: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, how often, have these things

Country variations are considerable:

children in the UK (65%), Portugal (57%)
and Italy (50%) are more likely than children
in other countries to agree with two or more
statements among the five proposed. We
cannot simply assume that British, Italian and
Portuguese children are at risk of excessive use
of smartphones. Rather, to understand these
cultural differences, we should contextualise
variations in overdependence on smartphones
within different cultures of childhood for
example, different constructions of childrens
leisure time, and different gradations of the
bedroom culture (Livingstone & Bovill, 2011) and within different patterns of domestication
of mobile communication.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

8. Mediation
The perspective on risks and opportunities of the
internet adopted in this study assumes that
childrens online experiences are contextualised
within intersecting socio-cultural, technological
and political spheres. Family, peer cultures and the
school context are all influential sources of
mediation of childrens internet use, whose
relevance has been widely recognised within policy
debates.
Parents have been especially valued for their role
in regulating the benefits and risks of the internet
for children, primarily within regulatory approaches
that promote empowerment and self-regulation
(Mascheroni et al., 2013). The role of teachers has
also been welcomed, particularly as compensation
for parents low digital literacies in countries with
persisting inequalities in adults access to the
internet. Schools are then assumed to be strategic
sites of e-safety education (ONeill & Laouris, 2013).
Finally, research has argued that the importance of
online and mobile communication in childrens
everyday life is associated with a growing influence
of peer culture in childrens socialisation (Pasquier,
2005), against a declining role of both parents and
teachers. Researchers emphasise the positive
outcomes of peer exchanges, namely, practical
guidance and sharing of experience, and policy
makers have increasingly recognised the rights of
children to be actively involved in the discussion of
internet safety issues, and in awareness-raising
initiatives (Barbovschi & Marinescu, 2013).
Since teachers attitudes towards the internet and
their engagement in different forms of mediation is
also related to schools policies regarding the
internet, wifi networks and use of smartphones, we
treat teachers mediation in a separate chapter on
schools (see Chapter 9).

8.1 Parents
The EU Kids Online survey (Livingstone et al., 2011;
Mascheroni et al., 2013) proposed five main
categories of parental mediation:
1) Active mediation of internet use, where
parents engage in activities such as talking about
internet content while the child is engaging with it,
and sharing the online experience of the child by
remaining nearby.
2) Active mediation of internet safety, where the
parent promotes safer and responsible uses of the
internet.
3) Restrictive mediation, which involves setting
rules that limit and regulate time spent online,
location of use and online activities.
4) Technical restrictions, that is, the use of
software and technical tools to filter, restrict and
monitor childrens online activities.
5) Monitoring or checking the record of online
activities.
The EU Kids Online findings have shown that,
among the five parental strategies examined, only
active mediation of internet use and restrictions are
associated with lower risk and harm (Drager &
Livingstone, 2012; Mascheroni et al., 2013).
However, restrictive measures are also likely to
undermine childrens digital literacy; indeed,
restrictions on use and opportunities are the most
effective but destructive (in terms of resilience
building) means of reducing risks (Livingstone et
al., 2012, p. 331).
Research on parental mediation of childrens media
use has shown that not all the strategies parents
used to regulate childrens television viewing could
be adapted to the internet, which requires instead
more innovative strategies (Clark, 2012; Livingstone
& Helsper, 2008; Mendoza, 2009). Similarly, we
assume that not all the strategies of parental
mediation so far adopted in the regulation of
internet use can be enacted regarding the use of
smartphones. Mobile devices are usually perceived
as more personal media, and have smaller screens.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

For these reasons, some of the strategies usually

adopted by parents to regulate their childrens
internet use may be hindered. Monitoring in
particular is likely to be more difficult, if not
impossible.
Therefore, in this chapter, we focus mainly on the
active mediation of internet use and safety,
restrictions that apply to the internet in general and
to mobile devices more specifically, and the use of
technical restrictions on both computers and
smartphones.
Table 55 shows the different forms of active
mediation of internet use, as reported by
children, and variations by age and gender:
Table 55: Parents active mediation of the
childs internet use, by age and gender

Gender, age and SES variations are also presented

in Figure 65, which shows the number of children
whose parents engage in at least two forms of
active mediation of internet use:

Girls

%...

Boys

All

Talk to child about what

they do on the internet

Sit with child while they

use the internet

Stay nearby when child

uses the internet

Encourage child to
explore and learn things
on the internet on their
own

Do shared activities
together with child on
the internet

Girls

9-10 yrs

11-12 yrs

Active mediation is structured by age, with

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

15-16 yrs

Low SES

Two out of three parents talk to their

children about what they do on the
internet (66%), making this the most popular
way to actively mediate childrens internet use.
Second most popular is staying nearby while
children are online (58%). Other strategies, such
as sitting with the child while online, doing
shared activities together or encouraging
children to explore and learn things on the
internet, are adopted by around four out of ten
parents.

13-14 yrs

Q53: Does your parent/do either of your parents sometimes

Base: All children who use the internet.

Gender differences within the same age group

are smaller. However, if we look at the three
most popular mediation strategies of this kind talking about the child's online activities,
staying nearby or sitting with the child while
she uses the internet - teenage girls are far
more mediated than boys.

Figure 65: Parents active mediation (%) of

the childs internet use, by gender, age and
SES

13-16 years
Boys

Girls

Boys

9-12 years

parents doing considerably more active

mediation of younger childrens use of the
internet.

Medium SES

High SES

All

100

Q53: Does your parent/do either of your parents sometimes

The graph shows the percentage of children who say yes to at
least two of the items in Table 55.
Base: All children who use the internet.

The majority of parents (68%) engage in at

least two forms of active mediation of
internet use, according to their children.

Net Children Go Mobile

Parents' engagement in forms of active

mediation varies also across SES, with
parents from middle or higher SES being more
engaged in actively mediating their children's
internet use.

Figure 66: Parents active mediation (%) of

the childs internet use, by country
Belgium

Denmark

Ireland

Italy

Portugal

%...

13-16 years

All

Helped child when

something was difficult to
do or find on the internet

Explained why some

websites were good or bad

Suggested ways to use the

internet safely

Suggested ways to behave

towards other people
online

Helped child in the past

when something bothered
them on the internet

In general, talked to child

about what to do if
something on the internet
ever bothered them

68% of parents helped their children when

something was difficult to do or find on the
internet, and suggested how to behave
with others online.

Equally popular are two other strategies:

according to children, 66% of parents
explained why some websites were good or
bad, or suggested safer internet uses.

Other strategies, such as talking to children

about negative online experiences, or helping
them when something had bothered them
online, are only adopted by 57% and 41% of
parents respectively.

Age and gender patterns are similar to those

observed with respect to active mediation of
internet use (Table 52): younger children and

100

Q53: Does your parent/do either of your parents sometimes

The graph shows the percentage of children who say yes to at
least two of the items in Table 55.
Base: All children who use the internet.

9-12 years

All

Table 56: Parents active mediation of the

childs internet safety, by age and gender

Q54: Has your parent/have either of your parents ever done any
of the following things with you?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Romania

Parents are more likely to engage in active

mediation of childrens internet safety, as
shown in Table 56:

Girls

Age differences are even more consistent;

while 83% of parents whose children are 9-10
years old engage in two or more strategies of
active mediation of internet use, just 55% of
parents of older teenagers do so.

Boys

with children's online activities by Danish and

Romanian parents may be linked to higher
number of children in these countries who
claim more online skills than their parents.

Girls

Gender differences are noticeable, with girls

receiving more active mediation by their
parents.

Boys

Country variations are smaller, but still

considerable: parents in Portugal (74%) and
the UK (72%) are more likely to actively
mediate their childrens internet use than
parents in Denmark (61%), Belgium (66%) and
Romania (65%). Irish (71%) and Italian parents
(68%) are average. Lower active engagement

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

teenage girls are more mediated than older

boys. However, the difference between the two
age groups is smaller than in the case of active
mediation of internet use.

compared to just 68% of older teenagers.

Figure 67 shows the number of children whose

parents engage in at least two forms of active
mediation of internet safety:
Figure 67: Parents active mediation (%) of
the childs internet safety, by gender, age and
SES
Boys

Again, SES variations are also remarkable:

children from wealthier homes are more likely
to receive two or more forms of active
mediation of internet safety by their parents.
Lower active mediation of internet safety by
lower income parents may well depend on
lower rates of internet use among low SES
parents.

That active mediation of internet safety is also

related to parents' own familiarity with the internet
is confirmed by country variations, as shown in
Figure 68.

Girls

9-10 yrs

11-12 yrs

Belgium

13-14 yrs

Denmark

Figure 68: Parents active mediation (%) of

the childs internet safety, by country

15-16 yrs

Ireland

Low SES

Italy

Medium SES

High SES

All

72
80
87

Portugal

Romania

100

Q54: Has your parent/have either of your parents ever done any
of the following things with you? The graph shows the
percentage of children who say yes to at least two of the items
in Table 56.
Base: All children who use the internet.

Most parents (77%) engage in two or more

forms of active mediation of internet
safety.

Gender variations are considerable, with

parents mediating girls more.

Equally, active mediation of internet safety

is structured by age: around 80% of parents
of children aged 9-14 mediate childrens online
safety in at least two of the forms of mediation,

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

All

100

Parents in Ireland (87%) and the UK (86%)

are more likely to engage in two or more
forms of mediation of childrens internet
safety. Active mediation of children's online
safety is lowest in Portugal and Romania
(68%), countries where parents are least likely
89

Net Children Go Mobile

to be internet users and smartphone or tablets

owners compared to the other countries.
Parents in Denmark and Italy are average, while
parents in Belgium tend to engage less in this
form of mediation.

children to watch video clips online.

As already noted regarding other mediation

strategies, restrictions apply especially to
younger children. Just one in two parents
dont allow children aged 9-12 to have a
profile on SNS.

Gender differences are smaller, but teenage

girls are more likely to be restricted when it
comes to sharing personal information on the
internet, purchasing apps and using locationtracking services.

Table 57: shows what kind of restrictive measures

parents are likely to adopt, by age and gender:
Table 57: Parents restrict childs internet use,
by age and gender
Boys

Girls

13-16 years

Download music or films

from the internet

Watch video clips on the

internet

Have own social

networking profile

Give out personal

information to others on
the internet

Upload photos, videos

or music to share with
others

Download free apps

Purchase apps

Use instant messaging

%...

Girls

Boys

9-12 years

All

Figure 69 shows the number of parents who adopt

at least two forms of restriction, by gender, age and
SES.
Figure 69: Parents restrictive mediation (%)
of the childs internet use, by gender, age and
SES
Boys

Girls

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Low SES

The most common restrictive measure parents

adopt, according to their children, applies to
purchasing apps, followed by disclosing
personal information, which 62% and 60%
of children respectively say they are never
allowed to do.

Medium SES

High SES

All

59% are not allowed to register their

geographical position. This suggests that
restrictive mediation of smartphone use is
quite diffused among parents.

Other rules are adopted by one in three parents

or less, the least common being not allowing

9-10 yrs

Q55: For each of these things, please tell me if your parents

CURRENTLY let you do them whenever you want, or let you do
them but only with permission or supervision, or NEVER let you
do them.
Base: All children who use the internet.

100

Q55: For each of these things, please tell me if your parents

CURRENTLY let you do them whenever you want, or let you do
them but only with permission or supervision, or NEVER let you
do them. The graph shows the percentage of children who say
can never do this to at least two of the items in Table 57.
Base: All children who use the internet.

Restrictive mediation is less common than

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Gender and SES differences are small, with girls

and lower SES children being more likely to
have rules regarding internet use.

Figure 70: Parents restrictive mediation (%)

of the childs internet use, by country
Belgium

Denmark

Italy

All

Girls

Parental controls or
other means of keeping
track of the websites
visited

A service or contract
that limits the time child
spends on the internet

Software to prevent
spam, junk mail, viruses

Overall, the findings are consistent with what

has already been noted in prior studies, such as
the EU Kids Online 2010 survey (Livingstone et
al., 2011), that point to technical mediation
as the least favoured mediation strategy by
parents.

The most common form of technical mediation

is using software to prevent viruses and
spam (51%). The major form of technical
intervention, therefore, does not relate to safety
concerns but rather to security.

Parental controls are less common: used by

one in four parents. Finally, just 13% of
parents adopted software that limits the time
the child spends on the internet.

Overall, parents of younger children are slightly

more likely to adopt software to regulate their
childrens internet use.

All

Parental controls or
other means of blocking
or filtering some types of
website

Romania

100

Q55: For each of these things, please tell me if your parents

%...

Portugal

13-16 years

Q56: As far as you know, does your parent/do your parents make
use of any of the following for the computer that you use the
MOST at home?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Ireland

9-12 years

Boys

Restrictive
measures
are
strongly
structured by age: youngest children (90%)
are more than twice as likely to be restricted in
their online activities than older teenagers
(41%).

Table 58: Parents technical mediation of the

childs internet use, by age and gender
Girls

Table 58: shows the use of parental controls and

other technical tools to restrict and monitor
childrens internet use, by age and gender:

Boys

active mediation of childrens internet use or

online safety: according to the children, 65% of
parents adopt two or more forms of
restrictive mediation.

When looking at country differences, again

children in Portugal (77%), Belgium (76%)
and Ireland (75%) are more restricted than
their peers in Denmark (23%). Italy (67%), the
UK (67%) and Romania (63%) are a little above
or below the average.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

As shown in Figure 71, just one in four parents

adopt at least two forms of technical
mediation, according to their children:
Figure 71: Parents technical mediation (%) of
91

Net Children Go Mobile

the childs internet use, by gender, age and

SES

Figure 72: Parents technical mediation (%) of

the childs internet use, by country

Boys

Belgium

Girls

Denmark

9-10 yrs

Ireland

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Low SES

Medium SES

Italy

Portugal

23
8

All

Romania

High SES

100

Q56: As far as you know, does your parent/do your parents make
use of any of the following for the computer that you use the
MOST at home? The graph shows the percentage of children who
say yes to at least two of the items in Table 58.
Base: All children who use the internet.

While gender differences are small, parents of

younger children, especially those aged 11-12
years old, are more likely to adopt at least two
forms of technical mediation than parents of
teenagers aged 15-16.

Higher income parents are more likely to

adopt parental controls or other technical
mediation of children's internet use.

100

At the same time, country variations are

considerable: technical mediation is more
likely to be adopted by British (45%) and Irish
(44%) parents, and least common in Denmark
(12%) and Romania (8%). One in three parents
in Belgium, and one in five parents in Italy and
Portugal employ software to restrict their
childrens internet use.

Table 59 shows the use of technical mediation -that

is parental controls and other software - to regulate
childrens smartphone use, by age and gender:

Table 59: Parents technical mediation of the

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

childs smartphone use, by age and gender

Girls

13-16 years
Boys

Girls

Boys

9-12 years

%...

All

Parental controls or other

means of blocking or
filtering some types of
websites

Parental controls that

filter the apps child can
download

A service or contract that

limits the time child
spends on the internet

Software that limits the

people child can be in
touch with

Parents are even less likely to engage in

any form of technical mediation to restrict
activities on smartphones: none of the four
strategies asked about is practised by more
than one in five parents.
Younger children tend to be more restricted by
means of technical tools than teenagers.

Figure 73 shows the number of parents who,

according to their children, adopt two or more
forms of technical mediation on childrens
smartphones, by gender, age and SES:

Overall, just one in ten parents (14%)adopt

two or more technical tools to restrict their
childrens use of smartphones.

Gender and age differences are smaller

compared to the other mediation strategies
analysed in this section: overall, boys and
children aged 11-12 years old are slightly more
likely to be restricted by means of software
installed on their smartphones.

Both higher and lower SES children are

more likely to have parental controls or any
other technical mediation tool installed on
their phone, compared to children from
medium SES.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Boys

Girls

9-10 yrs

Q57: Are any of the following installed on your smartphone?

Base: All children who own or have for their own use a
smartphone.

Figure 73: Parents technical mediation (%) of

the childs smartphone use, by gender, age
and SES

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Low SES

Medium SES

High SES

All

100

Q57: Are any of the following installed on your smartphone? The

graph shows the percentage of children who say yes to at least
two of the items in Table 59.
Base: All children who own or have for their own use a
smartphone.

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 74: Parents technical mediation (%) of

the childs smartphone use, by country
Belgium

Denmark 2
Ireland

Italy

Portugal

Romania

mediation of internet use and restrictive mediation.

Is the differential adoption of various mediation
strategies influencing how much parents know
about what their children do on the internet? Figure
75 shows how much parents know about their
childrens internet use, according to the children, by
gender, age and SES:

Figure 75: How much the child thinks their

parents know about what they do on the
internet, by gender, age and SES
% A lot

All

100

Girls

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Comparing all forms of mediation parents engage

in, we can conclude that parents in Ireland and
the UK are more likely to engage in both active and
technical mediation. Romanian children are the
least likely to receive any form of mediation of their
use of the internet, except from restrictions. Danish
parents score lower than Romanian parents when
it comes to restrictive and technical mediation, but
tend to engage more in active mediation of safer
internet use. Similarly, of the types of mediation
asked about, Italian and Portuguese parents
favour active and restrictive mediation over
parental controls, with some differences: according
to children, Italian parents are more engaged in
forms of active mediation of internet safety, while
Portuguese parents score higher on active

% Nothing

11-12 yrs

The number of parents who adopt at least two

measures of technical mediation on childrens
smartphones rises to one in four British
parents, and is least in Denmark (2%).

% Just a little

Boys

9-10 yrs

Q57: Are any of the following installed on your smartphone? The

graph shows the percentage of children who say yes to at least
two of the items in Table 59.
Base: All children who own or have for their own use a
smartphone.

% Quite a bit

24
36

Medium
SES

High SES

All

36
0

37
37

18
28

Low SES

13 4

29
34
35
41

36
50

6
100

Q51: How much do you think your parent(s) knows about what
you do on the internet? Would you say a lot, quite a bit, just a
little, or nothing?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Overall, three out of four children think

their parents know a lot (36%) or quite a
bit (36%) about what they do on the internet,
with no gender differences..

Age variations are more pronounced, ranging

from 83% of 9-10 year-olds to 62% of 15-16
year-olds who claim their parents know what

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

they do on the internet.

Children from higher income (78%) homes are

more likely to say their parents know what they
do online.

Figure 76: How much the child thinks their

parents know about what they do on the
internet, by country
% A lot

% Quite a bit

Belgium

% Just a little

Denmark

36
40

Ireland

12 4

31
26

All

17 1

Romania

Portugal

16 5
37

Italy

% Nothing

27
36
50

6
12

and Belgium (44%) the first two being also

the countries where parents engage in more
mediation overall lead. Countries where
children are less mediated are also the
countries where the lowest proportion of
children think their parents know a lot or
quite a bit about what they do on the internet.
Figure 77 and Figure 78 show how much parents
know about childrens smartphone use, by gender,
age and country. While it clearly follows the same
patterns observed about knowledge of online
activities with girls, younger children and children
in Belgium, Ireland, Italy and the UK more likely to
say that their parents are informed about what they
do on their smartphones generally parents
knowledge of what their children do on their
smartphones (68%) is lower than their
knowledge regarding the internet (72%),
suggesting that smartphones are perceived as
more private media.
Figure 77: How much the child thinks their
parents know about how they use their phone,
by gender, age and SES

% A lot

Boys

100

Girls

Q51: How much do you think your parent(s) knows about what
you do on the internet? Would you say a lot, quite a bit, just a
little, or nothing?
Base: All children who use the internet.

The perception of parents being informed

about their online activities varies consistently
across countries, in a way that can be
associated with trends regarding parental
mediation strategies. Although it is not the
country where more mediation is exercised by
parents, Italy is the country where the highest
number of children (84%) think their
parents know a lot (32%) or quite a bit
(52%) about what they do on the internet. If we
look just at the likelihood that parents are
very informed about their childrens online
activities, then Ireland (46%), the UK (46%)

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

% Just a little

28
22

15-16 yrs

7
19

19
28

Medium
SES

High SES

All

41
37
50

3
6
6
11

Low SES

11-12 yrs

% Nothing
26

9-10 yrs

13-14 yrs

% Quite a bit

7
10

25
21

5
7
100

Q52: How much do you think your parent(s) knows about how

Net Children Go Mobile

Belgium

Denmark

% Just a little

41
33

Italy

20
36

Ireland

31
49

23
19

Explained why some websites

were good or bad

Suggested ways to use the

internet safely

Suggested ways to behave

towards other people online

Helped in the past when

something bothered child on
the internet

In general, talked about what

to do if something on the
internet ever bothered them

Romania

All

37
50

7
100

Q52: How much do you think your parent(s) knows about how
you use your phone/smartphone? Would you say a lot, quite a
bit, just a little, or nothing?
Base: All children who own or have for their own use a
smartphone.

Q58: Have your friends ever done any of these things? Please say
yes or no to each of the following
Base: All children who use the internet.

In general, peers are more likely to mediate

in a practical way, helping each other to do
or find something (66%).

By contrast, they are less likely to give safety

advice or to help peers in coping with a
negative online experience. Around one in
three children engage in the other forms of
active mediation of internet safety asked about.

Table 60 also shows that, in general, teenagers

are more likely to receive support from
their peers.

8.2 Peers
Support from peers is positively associated with
online opportunities and digital literacy; especially
for younger children, friends are often the main
reason for taking up creative and interactive
activities such as social media and blogging
(Kalmus, von Felitzen, & Siibak, 2012). The effects of
peer mediation on online risky and harmful
experiences are, instead, less clear: the EU Kids
Online findings suggest that peer mediation is more
likely to follow after negative experiences (ibidem).

All
53

%...
60

13-16 years

Helped when something was

difficult to do or find on the
internet

Portugal

9-12 years

% Nothing

Girls

% Quite a bit

Table 60: Friends active mediation of childs

internet safety, by age and gender
Boys

% A lot

Table 60 shows how peers engage in active

mediation of childrens internet safety, by age and
gender:

Boys

Figure 78: How much the child thinks their

parents know about how they use their phone,
by country

Here we investigate how children perceive their

peers to engage in forms of active mediation of
internet safety.

Girls

you use your phone/smartphone? Would you say a lot, quite a

bit, just a little, or nothing?
Base: All children who own or have for their own use a
smartphone.

Figure 79 shows how the percentage of children

who say that their friends engage in two or more
forms of active mediation of internet safety varies
by gender, age and SES:

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 79: Friends active mediation (%) of

childs internet use, by gender, age and SES
Boys

Figure 80: Friends active mediation (%) of

childs internet use, by country

Girls

Belgium

9-10 yrs

Denmark

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Low SES

Ireland

Italy

Portugal

Romania

Medium SES

57
All

High SES

All

100

Q58: Have your friends ever done any of these things? Please say
yes or no to each of the following... The graph shows the
percentage of children who say yes to at least two of the items
in Table 60.
Base: All children who own or have for their own use a
smartphone.

51% of children report their peers support

them by engaging in at least two forms of
active mediation of internet safety.

As has already emerged from data presented in

Table 60, girls and teenagers are more likely
to receive at least two forms of peer
support than boys and younger children.

Similarly, middle and lower SES children are

more likely to report being supported by their
friends in two or more ways.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

100

Interestingly, country variations suggest that

peer support may compensate for lower
parental engagement. Indeed, children are
more likely to say that their friends engage in
two or more forms of mediation of internet
safety in Romania (68%) and Denmark (57%),
countries where children are less likely to
receive mediation by parents. Conversely, in
Belgium, Ireland, Italy and the UK, less than half
the children report that their friends support
them in at least two ways. The case of Portugal
is uncharacteristic, for in this country children
are more likely to receive active mediation of
internet use from both their parents and peers.

Net Children Go Mobile

9. Mobile internet
in schools

asked children if wifi connectivity was available in

their schools, although not necessarily accessible
to students, as shown in Figure 81:
Figure 81: Availability of wifi at school, by
gender, age and SES
% Wifi is available though not always to students

Within policy discourses, education is attributed a

strategic role among various sources of internet
safety: school, it is argued, can complement
parental mediation by also providing basic access
to internet safety to children whose parents are
not
sufficiently
informed
or
competent.
Consequently, schools and teachers are invested
with more responsibilities and challenges that they
are not always prepared to address. In order to fulfil
their role and promote childrens digital literacy,
schools need to be equipped with ICT and integrate
digital technologies in the teaching and learning
processes. Moreover, the introduction of internet
safety in educational curricula should go beyond
dont do lists, as overprotective measures in
schools have proven detrimental to the take-up of
online opportunities (ONeill & Laouris, 2013).
To provide a comprehensive picture of how
teachers and schools can mediate childrens use of
the internet, we examined two aspects: school
provision of wifi networks and rules regarding
childrens use of smartphones in school, as an
indicator of the general attitude towards new
technologies in the educational system; and
teachers engagement in various mediation
strategies namely, active mediation of internet
safety, restrictions on internet and smartphone use,
and promotion of positive school-related uses of
the internet and smartphones.

9.1 Availability of and rules

about wifi in schools
As we have seen, the number of children who
access the internet every day in school varies
considerably, from 61% of Danish children to 7% in
Ireland and 8% in Italy. These inequalities are the
outcome of different stages of the digitisation of
schools and learning processes. As a measure of
the technological infrastructures of schools, we

% Wifi is not available

% Don't know
Boys

Girls

9-10 yrs

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

32
21
25

Low SES

13
8

5
14

Medium
SES

High SES

All

100

Q60: Is wifi available at your school, and if so, are the students
allowed to use it?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Overall, two thirds of schools have wifi

networks, according to the children: 64% of
respondents say a wifi network is available in
their school, while 22% say it is not available.

Age differences are considerable, suggesting

that wifi networks are more common in
secondary schools (up to 74% of children
aged 15-16 say there is wifi connectivity at
school) than in primary schools (where
availability drops to 44%).

As with internet access in school in general (see

Figure 1), lower SES children are
considerably less likely to be provided with
wifi networks in school.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

gender: girls are more likely to be denied

access to wifi but, at the same time, slightly
more likely to access it with no restrictions. On
the contrary, boys are more likely to be granted
access with some restrictions, and to have
hacked the password.

Figure 82: Availability of wifi at school, by

country
% Wifi is available though not always to students
% Wifi is not available
% Don't know
Belgium

Denmark

Ireland

Portugal

12
17

All

100

Q60: Is wifi available at your school, and if so, are the students
allowed to use it?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Country variations show that availability of

wifi networks in schools does not necessarily
mirror use of the internet in school by children.
Indeed, it is above average in Denmark,
Ireland and Portugal, where 85%, 76%, and
73% of children say wifi is available in their
school; average in the UK (64%); lower in Italy
(57%) and Belgium (51%); and lowest in
Romania (42%), where the number of children
who dont know if wifi is available in school is
also well above average.

Figure 84 shows whether students are allowed to

access wifi networks in school, by gender, age and
SES. Overall, one in three children say they are
not allowed to access the schools wifi network;
8% are not allowed to use it but have hacked the
password; 42% can access the wifi network with
some restrictions, and just 16% are free to use it
without any restrictions.

Children from less advantaged families are also

more likely to be denied the access to the
school's wifi network and to have hacked the
password.

31
73

Romania

Access to wifi networks slightly increases with

age, with 30% of teenagers not allowed to
access the schools wifi network compared to
39% of 9- to 10-year-olds.

4 11

Italy

Figure 83: Accessibility of wifi to students at

schools where wifi is available, by gender, age
and SES
% Not allowed
% Not allowed but we hacked the password
% Allowed but with some restrictions
% Allowed and no restrictions

Boys

Girls

9-10 yrs

11-12 yrs

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Low SES

Medium
SES

High SES

All

34
0

46
9

8
50

100

Q60: Is there Wifi available at your school, and if so, are the
students allowed to use it?
Base: All children who say wifi is available at school.

Access to wifi in schools varies somewhat by

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Country differences show that access to wifi

is unevenly distributed: access with some or
no restrictions involves the great majority of
Danish children (92%), a consistent number
of children in Portugal (72%) and the UK
(59%), a lower but still substantial number of
children in Ireland (49%), Belgium (42%) and
Romania (42%), and a much smaller number
of children in Italy (28%). Italian, Portuguese
and Romanian children are more likely to say
that they have hacked the password (13%) of
the school network in order to access wifi.

in school
Smartphone use in schools also tends to be
regulated, as shown in Figure 85:
Figure 85: Rules about smartphone use at
school, by gender, age and SES
% Not allowed
% Allowed but with some restrictions
% Allowed and no special restrictions
Boys

Figure 84: Accessibility of wifi to students at

schools where wifi is available, by country

Girls

% Not allowed

9-10 yrs

% Not allowed but we hacked the password

% Allowed but with some restrictions

29
76

11-12 yrs

15
14

10
14

% Allowed and no restrictions

Belgium
Denmark

52
53

Ireland

Italy

Romania

12
45
34

All

58
42
50

16
100

Q60: Is there Wifi available at your school, and if so, are the
students allowed to use it?
Base: All children who say wifi is available at school.

9.2 Rules about smartphones

100

Medium
SES

High SES

All

Low SES

15-16 yrs

59
16

13-14 yrs

Portugal

100

Q61: Are students allowed to use their smartphones when at

school?
Base: All children who use the internet.

54% of children are not allowed to use their

smartphone at school, one in three say they can
use it with some restrictions and just 14% report
that they can use their phones with no restrictions.
Gender, age and SES differences matter:

A smaller percentage of girls (44%) are allowed

to use their smartphone in schools with some
(29%) or no restrictions (15%), compared to
boys (49%).

Smartphone use in schools increases with

age: younger children are least likely to be
allowed to use their smartphones in schools,
while 62% of 15- to 16-year-olds are allowed to

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

use their phones in school, with restrictions or

not.

% Not allowed
% Allowed but with some restrictions
% Allowed and no special restrictions
Belgium

Denmark

Ireland

Italy

13 0

Portugal

Romania

24
67

12
33

54
0

2
12

All

31
50

4
15

Teachers engage in a variety of mediation activities,

including providing practical guidance and
restrictions (Table 61). 61% of teachers made
rules about what students are allowed to do on
the internet at school, and little more than half
(54%) assist students in doing or finding things
on the internet. One in two teachers also
engage in mediation of childrens internet
safety, by explaining why some websites are good
or bad (56%), suggesting ways to use the internet
safely (56%) or how to behave with others on the
internet (51%). According to children, teachers are
also likely to talk to them about their online
activities (49%), or about what they should do after
a negative online experience (40%); they are least
likely to help children cope with a bothering
experience (23%), but we must not forget that
children themselves are not likely to talk to
teachers when they have such experiences.

100

Q61: Are students allowed to use their smartphones when at

school?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Country differences are also considerable:

87% of Irish children, 74% of Italian peers, 70%
of children living in Belgium, and 63% of
children in the UK are banned from using their
smartphones in school. By contrast, 70% of
Danish children are allowed to use
smartphones with no restrictions, and 67% of
Portuguese children are allowed to use
smartphones with some restrictions. In
Romania, 58% can use their phones, with
restrictions (46%) or without (12%). These

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Table 61: Teachers active mediation of childs

internet use, by age and gender
9-12 years
Boys

Gender and age differences are small. We

can observe, however, that teenage girls
generally receive more mediation of internet
safety than boys and younger children.

%...

13-16 years
Girls

Figure 86: Rules about smartphone use at

school, by country

9.3 Teachers mediation and

learning opportunities

Boys

SES variations are also noteworthy: lower SES

children are more likely to be denied use of
smartphones in school (57%) and the least
likely (10%) to use smartphones with no
restrictions at all.

Girls

differences are mirrored in country variations in

how teachers integrate the internet and
smartphones in learning activities (See Figure
90).

All

101

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 87: Teachers active mediation (%) of

childs internet use, by gender, age and SES

Talked about what to do

on the internet

Made rules about what

can be done on the
internet at school

Helped when something

was difficult to do or
find on the internet

Explained why some

websites were good or
bad

9-10 yrs

Suggested ways to use

the internet safely

11-12 yrs

Suggested ways to
behave towards other
people online

13-14 yrs

Helped in the past when

something bothered
child on the internet

15-16 yrs

In general, talked about

what to do if something
on the internet ever
bothered them

Boys
Girls

Figure 87 shows how teachers mediation

measured by the number of teachers who engage
in at least two activities varies by age, gender and
SES. Overall, 69% of teachers engage in two or
more activities to mediate students internet
use.
Gender differences can be observed, with
girls being more mediated than boys, as
already observed in Table 61.

Teachers mediation increases with age,

and reaches a peak in adolescence, with
teenagers receiving more mediation than
younger children.

Again, lower SES children are disadvantaged

when it comes to both teachers' mediation and
use of the internet and smartphones in school,
as we have seen.

102

60
68

Low SES

Q59: Have any teachers at your school ever done any of these
things?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Medium SES

High SES

All

100

Q59: Have any teachers at your school ever done any of these
things? The graph shows the percentage of children who say
yes to at least two of the items in Table 61.
Base: All children who use the internet.

Figure 87 shows how mediation that children

receive in schools varies across countries:

Country variations are considerable: the

majority of Irish (89%) and UK teachers (80%),
and two out of three Danish teachers (74%)
mediate childrens internet use in at least two
ways. Teachers' mediation is slightly above
average in Portugal (70%). By contrast, the
number of teachers engaged in at least two of
the mediation activities measured is lower than
average in Belgium (65%) and Romania (62%),
and drops in Italy (44%).

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Figure 88: Teachers active mediation (%) of

childs internet use, by country

Table 62: Use of the internet and

smartphones at school
At least every
week

Never or
almost never

Denmark

Daily or
almost daily

Several times
each day

Belgium

shows how frequently teachers have encouraged

students to use the internet and smartphones in
learning activities, according to children:

Use the internet to do

research for school
assignments

Collaborate with other

students over the internet

Use smartphones for

assignments in class

Ireland

Italy

Portugal

Romania

Q62: If you think about your school how often do the teachers
want students to do these things?
Base: All children who use the internet.

All

Two out of three children report being

encouraged by their teachers to use the
internet to do research for school assignments
at least every week; however, just 26% of
children report this happens every day.

One in three children report being encouraged

to collaborate with other students on the
internet at least every week.

Far less common is being encouraged to use

smartphones for assignments in class.

100

We can draw some interesting conclusions at this

point, comparing restrictions on the use of wifi
networks with teachers engagement. In some
countries, such as the UK and Ireland, the more
children are restricted in using wifi and their
smartphones, the more they are mediated.
However, the relationship between rules regarding
smartphones and wifi and mediation by teachers is
not always so straightforward: on one side,
allowing internet use in school does not necessarily
mean encouraging unsupervised use - Danish
students are the least restricted in their access to
the internet and smartphones in school but are also
likely to report teachers mediation; on the other
side, more restrictions do not necessarily mean
more mediation - Italian children are usually highly
regulated but poorly mediated.
Beyond active mediation of children's internet
safety, teachers may also encourage positive uses
of the internet by promoting use of the internet and
smartphones in school-related activities. Table 62
Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Figure 89 shows how the number of children whose

teachers promote every day the use of the internet
and smartphones for school assignments varies by
gender, age and SES:

Boys are slightly more likely to be encouraged

to use the internet and smartphones for schoolrelated activities than girls.

The integration of the internet and

smartphones into the learning process
substantially increases with age.

SES variations are also considerable, with a

huge gap between lower and higher SES in
children in the use of the internet for school
work. The gap is smaller, if not existent, for the
other two activities, which are very low in every
103

Net Children Go Mobile

category.

Figure 90: Students who use the internet or

smartphones daily at school, by country

Figure 89: Students who use the internet or

smartphones daily at school, by gender, age
and SES

% Use smartphones for assignments in class

% Collaborate with other students over the internet
% Use the internet to do research for school

% Use smartphones for assignments in class

4
11
14
13
8

Belgium

% Collaborate with other students over the internet

% Use the internet to do research for school

Denmark

7
14
27
5
12
24
3
6
10
4
8
19
7
15
30
10
21
40
6
14
22
7
12
26
6
13
31
6
13
26

Boys
Girls
9-10 yrs
11-12 yrs
13-14 yrs
15-16 yrs
Low SES
Medium SES
High SES
All

Ireland

20
6
13
19
4
19
25
9
20
27
4
12

All

6
13

Italy
Portugal
Romania

100

Q62: If you think about your school, how often do the teachers
want students to do these things?
Base: All children who use the internet.

100

Q62: If you think about your school, how often do the teachers
want students to do these things?
Base: All children who use the internet.

Figure 89 examines how use of the internet and

smartphone for school activities varies across
countries.

104

1
6

Country variations are also considerable:

although still marginal, the use of smartphones
in daily class activities is promoted especially in
Danish (13%) and Romanian (9%) schools. Use
of the internet for school activities is
particularly encouraged in the UK (40%) and
Denmark (34%). Portuguese and Romanian
children are more likely than the average to be
encouraged to collaborate with other students
over the internet. Overall, the integration of new
technologies in learning activities in Belgium,
Ireland and Italy is quite poor. As anticipated,
these differences are grounded in different
rules regarding the use of the internet and
smartphones at school.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

13-14 yrs

15-16 yrs

Daily internet use at school

Has a profile on SNS

Has a profile on media sharing

platform

Daily contact with parents on

SNS

Daily contact with friends on SNS

How old when first used the

internet

7.0

7.9

9.0

9.7

8.5

Average number of skills related

to internet use

1.9

4.9

7.1

8.7

5.9

Daily internet use at home

(bedroom or elsewhere)

All

For the exact questions, see earlier sections and definitions at

the end of this chapter.
Base: All children who use the internet.

Table 64: Summary of childrens access, use,

activities and skills, comparing mobile and
non-mobile users
Daily use of mobile
devices
Neither

Locations of access and use. Ways of going online

are diversifying with the diffusion of mobile media.
Smartphones in particular are becoming an integral
part of the media ecologies that children inhabit:
among all the devices asked about, smartphones
are the devices that children are more likely to own
(46%) and use to go online at least daily in all the
contexts we examined (Table 4). Despite being the
devices most likely to be used on the move,
however, smartphones are mainly used at
home, more often in the privacy of the childs
own bedroom. As shown in Table 63, 79% of
children use the internet daily at home: domestic
access to the internet (in own bedroom or
elsewhere at home) increases with age, rising from
56% of 9-10 year-olds to 92% of older teenagers.
Mobile internet users are much more likely to
use the internet at home every day (95%) than
children who dont use smartphones or tablets
to go online (62%). These findings suggest that
the internet is more thoroughly embedded in the
lives of children who have access to mobile devices
to go online. Second, the home is still a strategic
site for raising awareness on online risks and for
promoting safer and responsible uses of the
internet. However, as we have seen, smartphones
and tablets in general are personal, portable media
which are thoroughly and seamlessly integrated
into childrens and their parents everyday life.

Tablets

Tables 63 and 64 provide an overview of locations

of use, age of first internet use, online activities and
skills by age, and mobile versus non-mobile
internet use.

11-12 yrs

10.1 Access, usage,

opportunities and skills

9-10 yrs

In this chapter, we provide an overview of the main

findings presented throughout the report, and try to
address the main research questions: what, if
anything, is specific to mobile internet users? Does
the use of mobile devices to go online pose more or
fewer risks to children?

Age

Smartphones

10. Conclusions

Table 63: Summary of childrens access, use,

activities and skills, by age

Daily internet use at home

(bedroom or elsewhere)

Daily internet use at school

Has a profile on SNS

Has a profile on media sharing

platform

Daily contact with parents on

SNS

Daily contact with friends on

SNS

How old when first used the

internet

8.4

7.9

8.7

8.5

Average number of skills

related to internet use

8.0

6.8

4.2

5.9

All

For the exact questions, see earlier sections and definitions at

the end of this chapter.
Base: All children who use the internet.

Consequently,

the

increasingly

privatised
105

Net Children Go Mobile

conditions of internet use are likely to inhibit or

challenge
established
parental
mediation
strategies such as active mediation of childrens
online experiences. Therefore, parents, more than
ever, need to communicate with children about
their online experiences. Moreover, it is of vital
importance that when industries, governments,
policy makers, NGOs, researchers and other
stakeholders cooperate to build a better internet
for children, they should prioritise goals such as
content classification, age-appropriate services and
privacy settings, and easy and robust reporting
mechanisms on mobile devices and services. These
tools can complement parental mediation, while
empowering and protecting children.
School is the second most common location of
internet access; however, use of the internet in
school is unevenly distributed across the five
countries surveyed, and overall just 21% of
respondents reported using the internet at
school everyday. Access at school is also
structured by age, with older teenagers (34%) five
times more likely than younger children (7%) to use
the internet at school everyday. Smartphone
users (40%) and tablet users (35%) are far
more likely than non-mobile internet users
(6%) to access the internet daily at school.
Despite these considerable variations, the
importance of schools as places to engage children
in online safety education cannot be underplayed,
especially in those countries where parents are less
likely to be internet and smartphone users
themselves, such as Romania. Schools also provide
the chance to engage children in forms of peer
mediation.
Age of first internet use. Table 63 also shows that
the age when children start to go online is
dropping, with younger children being around
seven when they first used the internet; children
who use smartphones and tablets to go online
were slightly younger when they started to use the
internet (Table 64). These findings and those
presented in Figure 7 earlier show that children go
online at even younger ages from a variety of
devices. Beyond children who are given a
smartphone at the age of eight, younger children
are also likely to borrow a tablet computer from
their parents or older siblings. It is therefore

106

important to ensure age-appropriate settings and

contents on all devices.
Activities. Comparison of online activities across
time (Table 14) has shown that social networking,
entertainment on media sharing platforms and
sharing content with others are on the rise.
Table 63 shows that two out of three children have
at least one profile on a SNS, and one in three have
a profile on a media sharing platform such as
YouTube or Instagram; the age trend is marked in
both social media items, suggesting that, at least in
some countries (see also Table 17), under-age use
of SNS is dropping. It is not clear at this stage
whether this is the outcome of awareness-raising
campaigns targeting parents and consequent
parental mediation, or of media panics. However,
the findings suggest that there is potential for
reducing under-age use of SNS even in countries
where parents are less familiar with the internet.
Table 64 shows that the differences between
mobile and non-mobile internet users in the
use of SNS and media sharing platforms are
considerable: 89% of smartphone users and 75%
of tablet users have at least one profile on a social
network platform compared to just half of the
children who use neither of the mobile devices to
go online; similarly, 53% of smartphone users and
47% of tablet users report having a profile on a
media sharing platform, compared to 17% of nonmobile internet users. Given that smartphones and
tablet users are more likely to use SNS and to share
media content on the internet, we can therefore
assume a correlation although not a causal
relationship between mobile-convergent media
and online participatory activities.
Communication. Three out of four children use
SNS to keep in touch with their friends on a daily
basis, while just one in ten is in contact with
parents every day. Daily contact with friends on
SNS increases with age, reaching a peak of 85% of
older adolescents; by contrast, contact with
parents is higher among 11- to 12-year-olds.
Smartphone and tablet users are more likely
than non-users to be in daily touch with both
friends and parents on SNS.
Skills. On average, children claim half (5.9) of the
12 internet skills we asked about (see also Figure

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Online risky experiences do not necessarily

result in harm, as reported by children. Rather,
prior research showed that children who encounter
more risks online are not necessarily those who
experience more harmful consequences. On the
contrary, they are usually more skilled and develop
more resilience (Livingstone et al., 2011, 2012).
Risks. For the purpose of comparing and
summarising the findings presented throughout
this report, Table 65 reviews the incidence of risk
online by age for each of the risks included in the
survey. Table 66 compares the incidence of risks
among mobile internet users and non-mobile
internet users.
The most common risk of childrens internet
use is seeing sexual images on- or offline
experienced by 28% of 9- to 16-year-olds.
Table 65: Summary of childrens negative
online experiences, by age
% in past 12 months

Age

15-16 yrs

10.2 Risks and harm

13-14 yrs

From the brief overview of data on access, usage,

activities and skills, we can conclude that these
findings are supportive of the usage
hypothesis: the more children use the
internet, the more opportunities they take up
and the more skills they develop. Smartphone
and tablet users use the internet more, both at
home and school (as well as in all the locations
asked about), are more likely to engage in the
activities we measured and claim nearly twice as
many skills as children who dont use mobile
devices to go online.

11-12 yrs

37). The average number of skills is strongly

structured by age, ranging from two skills claimed
by 9- to 10-year-olds to over eight skills among 15to 16-year-olds. Variations between mobile and
non-mobile internet users are also consistent: while
smartphone users claim 8 skills on average, and
tablet users slightly less (6.8), children who use
neither smartphones nor tablets to go online
claim just 4 skills.

9-10 yrs

Net Children Go Mobile

Treated in a hurtful or nasty way

online or offline

Experienced any form of

cyberbullying

Treated others in hurtful or nasty

way online or offline

Treated others in hurtful or nasty

way using internet or mobile
phones

Received sexual messages

(only 11+)

n/a

Had contact with someone not

met face to face before

Gone to a face-to-face meeting

with someone only met online
before

Seen sexual images online or

offline

Seen any type of harmful usergenerated content on websites

(only 11+)

n/a

Have had other negative online

experiences

Excessive internet use (two out

of five items)

For the exact questions, see earlier sections and definitions at

the end of this chapter.
Base: All children who use the internet.

Almost as common is communicating online

with someone the child has not met face to
face before, characteristic of 26% of 9- to 16-yearolds. As already noted, however, such
communication is also an opportunity for children
to make new friends beyond the constraints they
experience offline (such as those associated with
disadvantaged socio-economic background).

Table 66: Summary of childrens negative

online experiences, comparing mobile and
non-mobile users
% in past 12 months

Daily use of
mobile devices

107

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

All

Net Children Go Mobile

Sma
rtpho
nes
Tabl
ets
Neit
her

five behaviours we associated

dependence on the internet.

Treated in a hurtful or nasty way

online or offline

Experienced any form of

cyberbullying

Treated others in hurtful or nasty way

online or offline

Treated others in hurtful or nasty way

using internet or mobile phones

Received sexual messages

(only 11+)

Had contact with someone not met

face to face before

Gone to a face-to-face meeting with

someone only met online before

Seen sexual images online or offline

Seen any type of harmful usergenerated content on websites (only

11+)

Have had other negative online

experiences

Excessive internet use (two out of five

items)

For the exact questions, see earlier sections and definitions at

the end of this chapter.
Base: All children who use the internet.

Seeing potentially negative user generated

content [UGC] (concerned with hate, pro-anorexia,
self-harm, drug taking or suicide), is the third
most common risk, reported by 25% of children
aged 11-16.

with

over-

Last, and least common, are receiving sexually

suggestive messages (12% of 11-16 year-olds)
and going to meetings offline with people first
met online (11% of 9-16 year-olds).
All risks - except bullying others - increase with age,
and among smartphone and tablet users. This
supports the so-called more opportunities,
more risks hypothesis: older users and
smartphone and tablet users benefit from more
online opportunities, but are also exposed to more
risks.
Harm. Risk refers to the probability of harm, while
the severity of harm has been judged by children
who reported being upset for what they had seen or
experienced on the internet. Table 67 summarises
the number of children who have been bothered by
online risky experiences, by age, while Table 68
shows the differences between mobile internet
users and children who dont use smartphones or
tablets to go online.
Overall 17% of children said they had seen or
experienced something on the internet that
had bothered them.

Rather less (24%) is the number of children who

experienced other risks online, such as viruses
or personal data misuse.

As already noted in the EU Kids Online survey,

bullying is still the most harmful risky
experience: two out of three children who have
been bullied on- or offline claim they have been
very or a bit upset.

Similarly, 23% of children aged 9-16 report

being bullied on or offline. The number of
children who reported any form of cyberbullying
on the internet or through mobile phones is,
however, 12%.16

Sexual risks are the second most bothering of the

experiences: less than half of the children who
have received sexual messages and of those
who have seen sexual content of any kind (onand offline) have been bothered.

A total of 21% had experiences of at least two of the

Last, meeting online contacts offline is the least

common risky experience, and one that bothers the
least: just one in three children who have gone to
such meetings were upset from what happened.

108

Age trends are less clear compared to incidence of

risks: both younger children (19%) and those aged
13-14 (18%) are more likely to be harmed by
bullying. This finding is consistent with prior

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

research, confirming that younger children are

usually more vulnerable to harmful consequences,
and that the transition from pre-adolescence to
adolescence marks a time of increased bullying.
Teenagers are more vulnerable to sexting and
sexual images.
The incidence of harm among smartphones and
tablet users follows an interesting pattern: generally
smartphone users (24%) and tablet users
(25%) are more likely to say that they have
seen or experienced something on the internet
that bothered them. However, this increased
exposure to bothering experiences does not
necessarily imply more harmful experiences:
while tablet users report lower harm or equal to
what is seen as average, smartphone users are just
slightly more likely than average to report harmful
consequences from bullying, sexual messages and
sexual images.
Table 67: Summary of childrens harmful
experiences online, by age

15-16 yrs

13-14 yrs

11-12 yrs

9-10 yrs

Age

All

% in past 12 months
Have seen or experienced
something on the internet that has
bothered them

Treated in a hurtful or nasty way

online or offline and been upset

Received sexual messages and

been upset (only 11+)

Gone to a face-to-face meeting and

been upset

Seen sexual images and been upset

For the exact questions, see earlier sections and definitions at

the end of this chapter.
Base: All children who use the internet.

them
Treated in a hurtful or nasty way
online or offline and been upset

Received sexual messages and been

upset (only 11+)

Gone to a face-to-face meeting and

been upset

Seen sexual images and been upset

For the exact questions, see earlier sections and definitions at

the end of this chapter.
Base: All children who use the internet.

10.3 Mediation
Finally, Tables 68 and 69 summarise findings
regarding parents and peer mediation. These
findings suggest that parents engage more in
active mediation of internet safety (77%),
which makes it the most common intervention by
parents, followed by active mediation of internet
use (68%) and restrictions (65%). Compared to the
EU Kids Online data (2010) parental mediation of
children's online safety is increasing, while active
mediation of internet use and restrictions are less
often adopted by parents. Technical restrictions are
still the least favoured mediation activities,
adopted by just one in four parents. One in two
children say they receive mediation from their
friends, and 67% are very likely to talk to at least
one person when they have negative online
experiences.

Table 69: Summary of mediation, by age

Smartphones

Tablets

Neither

% in past 12 months

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

15-16 yrs
All

% in past 12 months

Daily use of
mobile devices

Have seen or experienced something

on the internet that has bothered

13-14 yrs

9-10 yrs

Table 68: Summary of childrens negative

online experiences, comparing mobile and
non-mobile users

11-12 yrs

Age

All
17

Active mediation of internet use

by parents

Active mediation of internet

safety by parents

Restrictive mediation of internet

safety by parents

Technical mediation of internet

109

Net Children Go Mobile

safety by parents
Active mediation by friends

At least one person very likely to

talk to if bothered

For the exact questions, see earlier sections and definitions at

the end of this chapter.
Base: All children who use the internet.

Table 70: Summary of mediation, comparing

mobile and non-mobile users

Smartphones

Tablets

Neither

Daily use of mobile

devices

Active mediation of internet

use by parents

Active mediation of internet

safety by parents

Restrictive mediation of
internet safety by parents

Technical mediation of
internet safety by parents

Active mediation by friends

At least one person very likely

to talk to if bothered

% in past 12 months

All

For the exact questions, see earlier sections and definitions at

the end of this chapter.
Base: All children who use the internet.

Younger children are more mediated by

parents than teenagers, while 13-16 year-olds
receive more mediation by peers.
As shown in Table 70, smartphone and tablet
users are less likely to be restricted in their
online activities, and smartphone users also receive
less active mediation of internet use by parents. But
both are more likely to receive mediation of
internet safety by parents and friends. Tablet
users are also slightly more likely to report that
their parents adopt technical mediation. When it
comes to social responses to online risks,
smartphone users are slightly less likely than the
average to have at least someone they would talk
to.

110

10.4 Conclusive remarks

The findings presented in this report show that
there is an increasing awareness of online risks
among parents and children: important factors such the decrease of underage use of SNS (social
networking sites) in certain countries, the growing
engagement of parents in mediating children's
online safety, and the acquisition of safety skills or
the adoption of preventive measures among
children - all signal this trend, although country
differences are notable.
A second major finding is that exposure to online
risks seem to have increased compared to the 2010
EU Kids Online data, more specifically among
children using also mobile devices to go online.
Further analysis is required in order to identify
which children, among smartphone and tablet
users, are more vulnerable. What is clear from these
findings is that we cannot assume smartphone and
tablet use as a factor of vulnerability. Rather, the
more opportunities, more risks thesis is a valid
framework to understand the changes associated
with smartphones and tablets, changes that lead to
more pervasive internet access and use in
children's everyday lives. Since more children are
going online, and they are doing so from more
devices and in more contexts, it is no surprise that
exposure to online risks is increasing; what is
surprising is that the proportion of those who
are harmed out of those who experienced any
risk is not increasing.
Bullying remains the risk that causes most harm.
Adolescents now report more bullying through SNS
and phone calls than face-to-face. Despite evidence
that children are more aware of the dangers of
online harassment, more needs to be done to
promote safer and more responsible uses of
mobile communication. This should include
raising awareness of privacy issues, reporting and
blocking features, location-tracking functions, as
well as the risks of escalation of exchanges that can
occur through online 'social drama' (Marwick &
boyd, 2014). Schools, in particular, can play a more
active role, given that most social media
communication happens between peers and
schoolmates.

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Finally, findings show that strong inequalities in

internet use persist among children, with lower
SES children being less likely to use the internet
daily both at home and at school, or to have a
smartphone or a tablet computer. Children from
less advantaged families are also less skilled and
receive less mediation by parents and teachers,
restrictive mediation being a notable exception
(they have more rules limiting their internet use
both at home and school). Therefore, policy

initiatives promoting children's digital inclusion

should be a priority.

10.5 A list of variables used in tables in this chapter

Daily internet use at home (bedroom or elsewhere): See Table 1 and Table 2
Q1 a-e: Looking at this card, please tell me how often you go online or use the internet (from a computer, a mobile phone, a
smartphone, or any other device you may use to go online) at the following locations

Daily internet use at school: See Table 1 and Table 2

Q1 a-e: Looking at this card, please tell me how often you go online or use the internet (from a computer, a mobile phone, a
smartphone, or any other device you may use to go online) at the following locations

Has a profile on SNS: See Figure 9

Q16 a-f: Do you have your own profile on a SNS (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) that you currently use and if you have a
profile/account, do you have just one or more than one?

Has a profile on media sharing platform: See Figure 7

Q23 a-f: Do you have your own profile/account on a media sharing platform (photo and video) such as YouTube, Instagram,
Flickr, that you currently use, and if you have a profile/account, do you have just one or more than one?

Daily contact with parents on SNS: See Table 21 and Figure 27

Q18: How often are you in contact with the following people on SNS?

Daily contact with friends on SNS: See Table 22 and Figure 27

Q18: How often are you in contact with the following people on SNS?

How old when first used the internet: See Table 10 and
Figure 7
Q5: How old were you when you first used the internet?

Average number of skills related to internet use: See

Figure 37
Q26 a-d, Q27 a-h: Which of these things do you know how to do? (Average out of 12 items.)

Treated in a hurtful or nasty way online or offline: See Figure 45

Q32: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, has someone treated you in this kind of way, and if so, how upset were you about happened?

Experienced any form of cyberbullying: See Table 36 and Table 37

Q33: If someone has treated you in this kind of way, how did it happen? (Multiple responses allowed)

Treated others in hurtful or nasty way online or offline: See Table 38

Q34 In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you ever behaved in this way to someone else and if so, in which way did you do it? (Multiple
responses allowed.)

Treated others in hurtful or nasty way using internet or mobile phones: See Table 39
Q34 In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you ever behaved in this way to someone else and if so, in which way did you do it? (Multiple
responses allowed.)
Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

111

Net Children Go Mobile

Received sexual messages (only 11+): See Figure 47

Q42: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you received sexual messages of this kind (this could be words, pictures or videos), and if so,
how upset were you about happened?

Had contact with someone not met face to face before: See Figure 49
Q37: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you ever had contact on the internet (on all platforms/devices) with someone you had not
met face to face before? This could have been by email, chatrooms, SNS, instant messaging or gaming sites.

Gone to a face-to-face meeting with someone only met online before: See Figure 51
Q39: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you ever gone on to meet anyone face to face who you had first met on the internet, and if
so, were you at all upset by what happened or wish that you had not done it?

Seen sexual images online or offline: See Figure 55

Q35: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you seen anything of this kind, and if so, how upset were you by what you saw?

Seen any type of harmful user-generated content on websites (age 11+): See Table 49
Q44: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you seen websites where people discuss

Have had other negative online experiences: See Table 50

Q45: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, has any of the following happened to you on the internet/on your smartphone/mobile phone?

Excessive internet use (two out of five items): See Figure 60 shows
Q46: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, how often, have these things happened to you? The figure indicates the percentage of children
who answer fairly often or very often to at least two of the five statements in Figure 59

Have seen or experienced something on the internet that has bothered them: See Figure 41
Q30: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you seen or experienced something on the internet that has bothered you in some way? For
example, made you feel uncomfortable, upset, or feel that you shouldnt have seen it?

Treated in a hurtful or nasty way online or offline and been upset: See Figure 45
Q32: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, has someone treated you in this kind of way, and if so, how upset were you about happened?

Received sexual messages and been upset (only 11+): See Figure 47
Q42: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you received sexual messages of this kind (this could be words, pictures or videos), and if so,
how upset were you about happened?

Gone to a face-to-face meeting and been upset: See Figure 51

Q39: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you ever gone on to meet anyone face to face who you had first met on the internet, and if
so, were you at all upset by what happened or wish that you had not done it?

Seen sexual images and been upset: See Figure 55

Q35: In the PAST 12 MONTHS, have you seen anything of this kind, and if so, how upset were you by what you saw?

Active mediation of internet use by parents: See Table 55 and Figure 65

Q53: Does your parent/do either of your parents sometimes The figure indicates the percentage of children who say yes to
at least two of the items in Table 55.

Active mediation of internet safety by parents: See Table 56 and Figure 67

Q54: Has your parent/have either of your parents ever done any of the following things with you? The figure indicates the
percentage of children who say yes to at least two of the items in Table 56.

Restrictive mediation of internet safety by parents: See Table 57: and Figure 69
Q55: For each of these things, please tell me if your parents CURRENTLY let you do them whenever you want, or let you do them
but only with permission or supervision, or NEVER let you do them. The figure indicates the percentage of children who say
can never do this to at least two of the items in Table 57.

Technical mediation of internet safety by parents: See Table 58: and Figure 71
Q56: As far as you know, does your parent/do your parents make use of any of the following for the computer that you use the
MOST at home? The figure indicates the percentage of children who say yes to at least two of the items in Table 58.

Active mediation by friends: See Table 60 and Figure 79

112

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

Q58: Have your friends ever done any of these things? Please say yes or no to each of the following... The figure indicates the
percentage of children who say yes to at least two of the items in Table 60.

At least one person very likely to talk to if bothered: See Figure 57

Q48: If you were to experience something on the internet or when you were online from different devices that bothered you or
made you upset, how likely or unlikely is it that you would talk with the following people? (% who say they are very likely to talk
to at least one of those named in Table 51).

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

113

Net Children Go Mobile

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116

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Net Children Go Mobile

List of tables
Table 1: How often children use the internet in
different places ......... Errore. Il segnalibro non
definito.

Table 19: Ways of being in contact with friends

.................................................................................................41
Table 20: Ways of being in contact with siblings
.................................................................................................41
Table 21: Ways of being in contact with people
met online .........................................................................41

Table 2: Daily internet use in different places,

by gender, age and country ..................................... 12

Table 22: Online and offline communication

compared ...........................................................................45

Table 3: Devices used to go online daily in

different places .............................................................. 15

Table 23: Self-assessment of various skills ....47

Table 4: Daily use of devices, by age and

gender ................................................................................. 15
Table 5: Ways of connecting to the internet
from mobile phone/smartphone, by gender,
age and country ............................................................. 17

Table 24: Skills related to internet use and

critical understanding, by age and gender .....51
Table 25: Skills related to internet use and
critical understanding, by smartphone use and
by age ..................................................................................51

Table 6: Ownership of devices, by age and

gender ................................................................................. 19

Table 26: Skills related to internet use and

critical understanding, by tablet use and by
age .........................................................................................52

Table 7: Children who own devices and

children who use devices daily, by age ............ 21

Table 27: Skills related to internet safety in

general, by age and gender .....................................52

Table 8: Age of first internet use, first mobile

phone and first smartphone, by gender, age
and country ...................................................................... 21

Table 28: Skills related to internet safety in

general, by smartphone use and by age ...........52

Table 9: Childrens ownership of devices, by

parents internet use and ownership of mobile
devices ................................................................................ 23
Table 10: Daily online activities (all types of
access), by age and gender ..................................... 25
Table 11: Online activities done at least once
in the past month ......................................................... 26
Table 12: Daily online activities, by age and by
whether child uses a smartphone or not ......... 27
Table 13: Daily online activities, by age and by
whether child uses a tablet or not ...................... 28
Table 14: Children with a profile on SNS, by
country and by age ...................................................... 30
Table 15: Number of contacts on SNS, by name
of profile that is used the most ............................. 37
Table 16: Whether SNS profile is public or
private, by name of profile that is used the
most ..................................................................................... 40
Table 17: What information children show on
their social networking profile, by age and
gender ................................................................................. 40
Table 18: Ways of being in contact with parents
................................................................................................ 41

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

Table 29: Skills related to internet safety in

general, by tablet use and by age ........................53
Table 30: Communicativ e abilities, by age and
gender ..................................................................................53
Table 31: Communicativ e abilities, by
smartphone use and by age ....................................53
Table 32: Communicativ e abilities, by tablet
use and by age ................................................................54
Table 33: Skills related to use and critical
understanding on smartphones and tablets, by
age and gender ...............................................................54
Table 34: Skills related to safety on
smartphones and tablets, by age and gender54
Table 35: Communicativ e abilities on
smartphones and tablets, by age and gender55
Table 36: Ways in which children hav e been
bullied in the past 12 months, by age ...............63
Table 37: Ways in which children hav e been
bullied in the past 12 months, comparing
mobile and non-mobile internet users .............64
Table 38: Ways in which children bullied others
in the past 12 months, by age ................................64
Table 39: Ways in which children bullied others
in the past 12 months, comparing mobile and
117

Net Children Go Mobile

non-mobile internet users ....................................... 64

Table 40: Ways in which children hav e receiv ed
sexual messages in the past 12 months, by age
(age 11+) ............................................................................ 67
Table 41: Ways in which children hav e receiv ed
sexual messages in the past 12 months,
comparing mobile and non-mobile internet
users (age 11+) ............................................................... 67
Table 42: Ways in which children first
contacted someone they later met offline, by
age ......................................................................................... 71
Table 43: Ways in which children first
contacted someone they met offline,
comparing mobile and non-mobile users ....... 72
Table 44: Ways in which children hav e seen
sexual images, by age ................................................. 74
Table 45: Ways in which children hav e seen
sexual images, comparing mobile and nonmobile internet users ................................................. 75
Table 46: Child has seen potentially harmful
user-generated content on w ebsites in past 12
months, by age (age 11+) .......................................... 75
Table 47: Child has had other negativ e online
experiences in the past 12 months, by age .... 76

Table 58: Teachers activ e mediation of childs

internet use, by age and gender ........................ 101
Table 59: Use of the internet and smartphones
at school .......................................................................... 103
Table 60: Summary of childrens access, use,
activities and skills, by age ................................... 105
Table 61: Summary of childrens access, use,
activities and skills, comparing mobile and
non-mobile users ....................................................... 105
Table 62: Summary of childrens negativ e
online experiences, by age .................................... 107
Table 63: Summary of childrens negativ e
online experiences, comparing mobile and
non-mobile users ....................................................... 107
Table 64: Summary of childrens harmful
experiences online, by age .................................... 109
Table 65: Summary of childrens negativ e
online experiences, comparing mobile and
non-mobile users ....................................................... 109
Table 66: Summary of mediation, by age ...... 109
Table 67: Summary of mediation, comparing
mobile and non-mobile users ............................. 110

Table 48: How likely it is for children to talk

about things that bothered them on the
internet ............................................................................... 77
Table 49: Children who are v ery likely to talk
about things that bothered them on the
internet, by age and gender .................................... 77
Table 50: Managing the complexity of ev eryday
life ......................................................................................... 80
Table 51: Managing the complexity of ev eryday
life, by age and gender .............................................. 81
Table 52: Parents activ e mediation of the
childs internet use, by age and gender ........... 87
Table 53: Parents activ e mediation of the
childs internet safety, by age and gender ...... 88
Table 54: Parents restrict childs internet use,
by age and gender ........................................................ 90
Table 55: Parents technical mediation of the
childs internet use, by age and gender ........... 91
Table 56: Parents technical mediation of the
childs smartphone use, by age and gender .. 92
Table 57: Friends activ e mediation of childs
internet safety, by age and gender ...................... 96

118

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

List of figures
Figure 1: Comparison betw een home and
school access ............. Errore. Il segnalibro non
definito.

smartphones than my parents, by gender, age

and country ......................................................................49
Figure 19: There are lots of things on the
internet that are good for children of my age,
by gender, age and country .....................................50
Figure 20: Av erage number of skills related to
internet use (out of 12) ..............................................56

Figure 2: Daily use of smartphones and

laptops, by gender, age and country ................. 16

Figure 21: Av erage number of skills related to

smartphones and tablets (out of 11) ..................57

Figure 3: Ownership of smartphones and

tablets, by age, gender and country ................... 20

Figure 22: Online experiences that hav e

bothered children, by age, country and gender
.................................................................................................59

Figure 4: Age of first internet use, first mobile

phone and first smartphone, by age .................. 22
Figure 5: Parents internet use and ownership
of mobile devices .......................................................... 23
Figure 6: Children (%) with a SNS profile, by
gender, age and country ........................................... 29
Figure 7: Children (%) with a profile on a media
sharing platform, by gender, age and country31
Figure 8: Which social networking profile is the
one children use most, by gender, age and
country ................................................................................ 32
Figure 9: Which media sharing platform is the
account children use most, by gender, age and
country ................................................................................ 33
Figure 10: Number of contacts on SNS, by
gender, age and country ........................................... 36
Figure 11: Childrens responses to friends
requests on SNS, by gender, age and country38
Figure 12: Whether SNS profile is public or
private, by gender, age and country ................... 39
Figure 13: Daily contact by talking on the
mobile phone/smartphone, by gender, age and
country ................................................................................ 42
Figure 14: Daily contact by sending SMS/ text or
multimedia messages (MMS) with pictures or
videos from a mobile phone/smartphone, by
gender, age and country ........................................... 44
Figure 15: Daily contact on SNS, by gender, age
and country ...................................................................... 44
Figure 16: Online and offline communication
compared, by gender, age and country ............ 46

Figure 23: Online experiences that hav e

bothered children, comparing mobile and nonmobile internet users ..................................................60
Figure 24: Child has been bullied online or
offline in the past 12 months .................................62
Figure 25: Child has receiv ed sexual messages
online in the past 12 months (age 11+) ............66
Figure 26: Child has been in contact with
someone not met face to face before ................68
Figure 27: Child has gone to an offline meeting
with, someone not met face to face before ....69
Figure 28: Number of online contacts children
hav e gone on to meet offline, by gender, age
and country ......................................................................71
Figure 29: Child has seen sexual images online
or offline in the past 12 months ............................73
Figure 30: Children who are v ery likely to talk
to at least one person about things that might
bother them on the internet, by gender, age
and country ......................................................................78
Figure 31: Ex cessiv e use of the internet among
children ...............................................................................82
Figure 32: Child has experienced two or more
forms of ex cessiv e internet use fairly or v ery
often .....................................................................................83
Figure 33: Ex cessiv e use of smartphones among
children ...............................................................................84
Figure 34: Child has experienced two or more
forms of ex cessiv e smartphone use fairly or
v ery often ...........................................................................85

Figure 17: I know more about the internet than

my parents, by gender, age and country ........ 48

Figure 35: Parents activ e mediation of the

childs internet use, by gender, age and
country ................................................................................87

Figure 18: I know more about using

Figure 36: Parents activ e mediation of the

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

119

Net Children Go Mobile

childs internet safety, by gender, age and

country ................................................................................ 89
Figure 37: Parents restrictiv e mediation of the
childs internet use, by gender, age and
country ................................................................................ 90
Figure 38: Parents technical mediation of the
childs internet use, by gender, age and
country ................................................................................ 91
Figure 39: Parents technical mediation of the
childs smartphone use, by gender, age and
country ................................................................................ 93
Figure 40: How much the child thinks their
parents know about what they do on the
internet, by gender, age and country ................ 94
Figure 41: How much the child thinks their
parents know about how they use their phone,
by gender, age and country ..................................... 95
Figure 42: Friends activ e mediation of childs
internet use, by gender, age and country ........ 97
Figure 43: Availability of wifi at school, by
gender, age and country ........................................... 98
Figure 44: Accessibility of wifi to students at
schools where wifi is available, by gender, age
and country .................................................................... 100
Figure 45: Rules about smartphone use at
school, by gender, age and country ................. 100
Figure 46: Teachers activ e mediation of childs
internet use, by gender, age and country ...... 102
Figure 47: Students who use the internet or
smartphones daily at school, by gender, age
and country .................................................................... 104

120

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and opportunities

Net Children Go Mobile

The network
Country

National contact

Team

Belgium

Leen dHaenens
leen.dhaenens@soc.kuleuven.be

Leen dHaenens
Sofie Vandoninck

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Institute for Media Studies Parkstraat 45

bus 3603, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
Denmark

Gitte Stald
stald@itu.dk

Gitte Stald
Heidi Jrgensen

IT University of Copenhagen, Ruud Langgaards Vej 7, 2300 Copenhagen

Ireland

Brian ONeill
brian.oneill@dit.ie

Brian ONeill
Thuy Dinh

College of Arts and Tourism, Dublin Institute of Technology, Rathmines

Road, Dublin 6, Ireland
Italy
Coordinator

Giovanna Mascheroni
giovanna.mascheroni@unicatt.it
OssCom, Universit Cattolica del S. Cuore, Largo Gemelli, 1, 20123 Milano

Giovanna Mascheroni
Kjartan lafsson
Andrea Cuman
Barbara Scifo
Marina Micheli
Maria Francesca Murru
Piermarco Aroldi

Portugal

Jos Alberto Simes

joseav.simoes@fcsh.unl.pt
Departamento de Sociologia, Faculdade de Cincias Sociais e Humanas,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL), Av. de Berna, 26-C, 1069-061 Lisboa,
Portugal

Jos Alberto Simes

Cristina Ponte
Juliana Doretto
Celiana Azevedo
Eduarda Ferreira

Romania

Anca Velicu
anca.velicu@gmail.com
Institute of Sociology, Casa Academiei, Calea 13 Septembrie 13, Bucharest

Anca Velicu
Monica Barbovschi
Valentina Marinescu
Bianca Balea

Leslie Haddon
leshaddon@aol.com

Leslie Haddon
Jane Vincent

Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics

and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE

Net Children Go Mobile: Risks and Opportunities

121

The International
Advisory Panel
Mizuko Ito
University of California, Irvine
Richard Ling
IT University of Copenhagen
Sonia Livingstone
The London School
of Economics and Political Science
Charo Sdaba
Universidad de Navarra
Cristiana De Paoli
Save the Children Italia

published by:

distributed under
creative commons license

Contacts:
Dr. Giovanna Mascheroni
giovanna.mascheroni@unicatt.it
OssCom
Reasearch Centre on Media and Communication
Universit Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Largo Gemelli 1, 20123 Milano Italy

Full Findings Report (second edition), May 2014

Net Children Go Mobile Project
CO-Funded by:

Safer Internet Programme

European Commission
(SI-2012-KEP-411201)

ISBN 978-88-6780-288-3

Released on May 2014

www.netchildrengomobile.eu

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