The best of findings?

The internet offers many benefits, but is the cost too high? 30 per cent of Australian children aged 9-16 say they've been bothered by something they've seen online in the past twelve months, according to our November 2011 report, AU Kids Online, published as a special edition of the Journal of Cultural Science.

This 30 per cent compares with 12 per cent of a matched cohort of European children. Are Australian children simply more impressionable, or is something else going on? And what should we do about it?

The AU Kids Online research in Australia, from November 2010-February 2011, involved 400 randomly selected children aged 9-16, and the parent most involved in their internet use.

Specially trained market research professionals under the aegis of Ipsos Social Research Institute carried out the research. Ipsos or its affiliates also conducted parallel research in 25 European countries with 25,142 children.

In Europe, this research was funded bythe EC (DG Information Society) Safer Internet plus Programme, to provide an evidence base for policy.

Although the Australian sample was smaller (400 children compared with 1000 children per European country), and carried out about 6 months later than most of the European research, the shared methodology, questionnaire and overlapping time frame means that dataset provides a good basis for comparison internationally.

The other countries involved in the research were Austria (AT), Belgium (BE), Bulgaria (BG), Cyprus (CY), Czech Republic (CZ), Denmark (DK), Estonia (EE), Finland (FI), France (FR), Germany (DE), Greece (EL), Hungary (HU), Italy (IT), Ireland (IE), Lithuania (LT), Netherlands (NL), Norway (NO), Poland (PO), Portugal (PT), Romania (RO), Slovenia (SI), Spain (ES), Sweden (SE), Turkey (TU), and the United Kingdom (UK).

The EU Kids Online study investigated children's and young people's experiences in terms of the concepts of 'risk' and 'harm'. Risk taking need not lead to harm and may, indeed, be seen as a potentially desirable characteristic in some situations, particularly when it comes to creativity and innovation.

This has been indicated in studies of innovative behaviour. Elizabeth Chell and Rosemary Athayde identify five attributes particularly linked to innovation: "creativity, confidence, energy, risk-propensity and leadership."

They define 'risk-propensity' as being "a combination of risk tolerance and the ability to take calculated risks." Arguably, the structured development of risk-awareness in Australian children underpins the evolving mediation schemes used by their parents, who generally adopt a child-centred age-related process. The Australian Communication and Media Authority report that the way parents supervise and regulate their child's internet access is in line with their maturity.

Even so, a risky experience that has the effect of bothering a child might indicate a potential harm. Although the term 'bothered' is not in common use among Australian children, it was specifically investigated prior to the roll out of the AU Kids Online research through a period of in-depth cognitive testing.

The explanation of something that has bothered a child was described as making them "feel uncomfortable, upset, or feel that you shouldn't have seen [something]." This wording was tested and refined during this Ipsos-conducted cognitive testing process so that it would equate as nearly as possible to the meaning assigned to the same notion in the 25 comparison countries.

While Australian children were 2.5 times more likely to have 'been bothered' than the average child in Europe, and while Australia was the most bothered of all 26 countries, there was a range of countries that approached similar levels. Denmark (28%), Estonia (25%), Norway and Sweden (both 23%) followed Australia in the ranking.

Interestingly, like Australia, many of these countries also have children who go online comparatively early. In this respect, and in a number of others, Australian children's internet use aligns more closely with Scandinavian and Baltic nations than it does with the English-speaking countries of the UK and Ireland.

As well as going online early, Norway and Australia both had comparatively high numbers of children able to access the internet using smart, handheld, mobile devices. Australia was first in the 26 nations, with 44% of child participants using these devices, and Norway second, with 31%. Using mobile media to go online is more likely to indicate children who are accessing the internet in a social group, possibly away from adult supervision.

The child that feels bothered by what they see online may not have experienced harm, but insofar as some children may have been harmed by online experiences, these are likely to have indicated being bothered.

Of the six risks investigated, four are particularly responsible for Australian children's high experience of feeling bothered. These four high-scoring risks are:

1. Misuse of personal data (where Australia is ranked second out of 26 countries);
2. Exposure to online bullying (where Australia is ranked third out of 26 countries);
3. Seeing sexual images (where Australia ranks fourth);
4. Accessing potentially harmful user-generated content (where Australia ranks sixth).

• Only one of these, 'seeing sexual images', potentially involves professional content services, since the majority of concerns about personal data use (13/17) involved misuse of a password or someone online pretending to be the child. The other risks are likely to involve children's peers or young people in the child's age group.

This indicates that a high policy and intervention priority should be given to developing social expectations and tools around children's acceptable online behaviour, as well as focusing upon regulatory mechanisms and parents' adoption of technological tools, such as filters, for children younger than teenage years.

Recommended strategies for promoting safe and sociable online activity, and responding to peer-related negative events, should be age-appropriate and should address children's online use from the youngest ages. Given that it is other children who seem to be primarily responsible for most of the experiences that bother the AU Kids Online respondents, effective self-regulation by content services – or external regulation of content services – will only make an impact on a minority of the areas of internet experience that most bother Australian children.

The research findings around skills, opportunities and internet use and access, align Australia with other wealthy developed, smaller population nations, particularly those in Scandinavia.

Whilst it is important to investigate what bothers children online, how much and for how long, it remains the case that 70 per cent of Australian children, online for an average of 99 minutes per day, say they have not come across anything online in the past 12 months that bothered them.

On the other hand, they have been doing their schoolwork, watching video clips, playing internet games, using email, visiting social network sites such as Facebook, instant messaging, and posting content to share. They have also been developing valuable skills and opportunities for the future.

This indicates that a high policy and intervention priority should be given to developing social expectations and tools around children’s acceptable online behaviour, as well as focusing upon regulatory mechanisms and parents’ adoption of technological tools, such as filters, for children younger than teenage years.

Recommended strategies for promoting safe and sociable online activity, and responding to peer-related negative events, should be age-appropriate and should address children’s online use from the youngest ages. Given that it is other children who seem to be primarily responsible for most of the experiences that bother the AU Kids Online respondents, effective self-regulation by content services – or external regulation of content services – will only make an impact on a minority of the areas of internet experience that most bother Australian children.

The research findings around skills, opportunities and internet use and access, align Australia with other wealthy developed, smaller population nations, particularly those in Scandinavia.

Whilst it is important to investigate what bothers children online, how much and for how long, it remains the case that 70 per cent of Australian children, online for an average of 99 minutes per day, say they have not come across anything online in the past 12 months that bothered them.

On the other hand, they have been doing their schoolwork, watching video clips, playing internet games, using email, visiting social network sites such as Facebook, instant messaging, and posting content to share. They have also been developing valuable skills and opportunities for the future.