Internet Literacy Among Children and Young People

This report examines internet literacy among children and teenagers, 9 to 19 years old, based on survey findings carried out by UK Children Go Online (UKCGO). The authors explore the dimensions of media and internet literacy which they define as access, understanding and creation, and the associated opportunities and risks. The report also looks at parental regulations which according to the authors reveal "a more complex picture than assumed."

Central to the the study was the consideration of the following five questions:

1. Are children and young people becoming internet literate?
2. What forms of formal or informal support and guidance are they receiving in developing internet literacy?
3. What opportunities and risks do children and young people experience online? How is this influenced by demographics and internet literacy?
4. How do parents regulate children's internet use, and does it work?
5. Do children and young people adopt different styles of engagement with the internet, balancing opportunities and risks in different ways?

The report describes children and teenagers as gaining internet literacy "unevenly and unequally." Further, the learning process involved is described as "haphazard and unsupported." One of the key findings suggests that the more opportunities children and teenagers take online the more risks they are also likely to come across and vice versa.

A path analysis was conducted which demonstrated statistical relations among demographic variables (age, socio-economic status, gender, internet access, online expertise and use, and opportunities and risks). The purpose was to find out if young people encounter more or fewer online opportunities and risks and why. The report then indicates, "It does not seem, therefore, that those who are more focused on the opportunities are more likely to avoid the risks, nor that those with greater expertise have found a way to avoid the risks as they pursue the opportunities. Rather, taking up online opportunities is proving, for many children and young people, an experience associated with some degree of risk."

Report findings show that informal support in respect to internet usage for 9 to 19 year olds comes mostly from "a teacher (66%), followed by a parent (44%), friend (33%) and sibling (16%)." The report indicates that parental regulation is related to the child’s online skills, as well as to their frequency of internet use and time spent online per day. According to the report, "children whose parents implement more rules and practices are better at using the internet, use it more often and spend more time online per day." Additionally, "in general, younger children are subject to more regulation and have lower expertise than teens, within each age group it seems that those who are subject to more regulation use the internet more and gain more in skills, this in turn resulting in increased opportunities and risks."

The UKCGO study includes a number of different research methods. Some were: qualitative research that had 14 focus group interviews with 9-19 year olds around the UK (summer 2003); nine family visits and in-home observations (2003/4), and a children’s online panel; a major national, in-home, 40-minute face to face survey of 1,511 9-19 year olds and 906 parents of the 9-17 year olds (using Random Location sampling across the UK.); and fieldwork, conducted via multi-media computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) with children.

According to the report, the demographic variables (age, gender, socio-economic status) make more difference to encounters with unwelcome or inappropriate content than to privacy risks or, except for the influence of gender, contact risks. The report indicates that middle classs boys are more often considered ‘skilled risk takers’ (15-16 years on average.) The report states, "interestingly, they react strongly – with disgust – to inappropriate content when they come across it." Sixteen year olds, more often boys are considered 'all-round experts' particularly, from middle class households.