On the rapid rise of social networking sites: new findings and policy implications

Social networking sites have been rapidly adopted by children and, especially, teenagers and young people worldwide, enabling new opportunities for the presentation of the self, learning, construction of a wide circle of relationships, and the management of privacy and intimacy. On the other hand, there are also concerns that social networking increases the likelihood of new risks to the self, these centring on loss of privacy, bullying, harmful contacts and more. This article reviews recent findings regarding children and teenagers’ social networking practices in order to identify implications for future research and public policy. These focus on the interdependencies between opportunities and risks, the need for digital or media literacy education, the importance of building safety considerations into the design and management of social networking sites, the imperative for greater attention to ‘at risk’ children in particular, and the importance of a children’s rights framework in developing evidence-based policy in this area

Children, internet and risk in comparative perspective

What do we know of the changing array of opportunities and risks that different children are encountering on the internet? This special issue includes articles exploring diverse dimensions of the EU Kids Online survey based on a detailed, in-home, face-to-face, representative survey of 25,142 children aged 9–16 years old plus one of their parents. Children's internet use is investigated on two levels, first taking the child as the unit of analysis to examine individual (demographic, psychological) factors and those relating to their socially mediated environment (centred on parental, school and peer relations), and second taking the country as unit of analysis, focusing on factors of socio-economic stratification, regulatory framework, technological infrastructure, education system and cultural values as possible explanations for differences in online use, risk and safety. As the articles in this issue reveal, the sheer scale of the project permits focused analysis of complex patterns and particular subgroups within the dataset. Thus new findings and conclusions are reached regarding the relation between cyberbullying perpetrators and victims, offline meetings with varieties of online “stranger”, children's strategies for coping with online risks, and ways in which digital skills and parental mediation operate, potentially ameliorating harm. Lessons for theory, cross-national comparison, and research methodology are also identified

Regulating the internet in the interests of children: emerging European and international approaches

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Positive and Negative Internet Regulation in the Interests of Children “We Do Not Intend to Regulate the Internet” Children's Rights Offline and Online Internet Regulation: Emerging Principles and Practices Regulating Contact, Content, and Conduct Risks Online Integrating Diverse Policy Initiatives Conclusion Reference