Children’s Internet Use in Ireland:

Balancing Risks, Responsibilities and Opportunities

Dr Helen McQuillan, Dr Brian O’Neill

Dublin Institute of Technology

Internet Use in Ireland

- ICT as the driver of the knowledge economy

- Broadband infrastructure and household ICT

- Schools’ ICT strategy

- Young people and new media

- Regulation and responsibility

- Poor empirical research base

Children’s Use of the Internet

- 6 studies of young people’s use of the internet

- 79% (9-16 years) have home internet

- 58% (4-12 years): rural and urban

- 64% (9-16 years) regularly use school internet

- Introduced to the internet at home

- Internet use rising steadily

SAFT – Ireland (Webwise)SAFT (Safety Awareness Facts and Tools) survey of 848 9-16 year olds (2006)

90% have internet at home

Over 50% said their parents rarely or never spoke to them about their internet use

27% met someone new online who asked for their photo, phone number, school, address,

an increase from 19% in 2003

7% met an online friend offline, 24% of these had claimed to be a child but were adults

35% had visited pornographic sites; 26% had visited hateful sites (mostly boys)

23% had received unwanted sexual comments online (more boys)

19% of chatters were harassed/bothered/upset/threatened online

Webwise 2006 (2006) Webwise Survey of Children’s Use of the Internet 2006: Investigating Online Risk Behaviour. Ireland, July 2006. Available at: www.webwise.ie/GenPDF.aspx?id=1389

What are children doing online?2007 2003

Messaging Games

Bebo/YouTube Surfing - fun

Games Music

Music Information

- Patterns of use changing

- Ladder of Online Opportunities

- Gendered patterns of use

- Extensive use of social networking

Exposure to Online Risks

1. Giving out personal information (79%)

2. Accessing or seeing pornography (37%)

3. Viewing violent or hateful content (26%)

4. Being harassed, bullied or stalked online (19%)

5. Receiving unwanted sexual comments ( 9%)

6. Meeting an online contact offline ( 7%)

Parental Perceptions of Risk

- Different risks perceived by adults and children

- Children more aware of commercial exploitation

- Adults more concerned about illegal use

- Parents concerned about generational divides

- Both concerned about offensive material

Internet Safety – Whose Responsibility?

- State approaches to internet safety

- Industry responses

- School programmes

- Parental awareness and mediation strategies

- Individual responsibility and peer learning

- Media and moral panic: good or bad?

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Encouraging Safer Internet Use

- Media literacy education

- Media literacy policy

- Mapping new risks

- Encouraging public discourse

- Exploiting the potential of Web 2.0