The UK’s gambling laws are failing to keep pace with the emergence of new forms of gambling that are infiltrating children’s gaming practices. In this post, Lulu Freemont outlines how the gaming industry and policy-makers must work together to ensure that children are protected from such risks and that parents are made aware of the dangers. Lulu Freemont has recently completed […]
Children who are vulnerable offline are more likely to encounter multiple risks online – but current advice on safety fails to take into account their differing levels of resilience. In this post, Adrienne Katz and Dr Aiman El Asam outline the findings from a major UK study into the links between online and offline vulnerability and recommend changes for […]
Sonia Livingstone and Dongmiao Zhang discuss the major findings from the latest Parenting for a Digital Future study, and outline why special educational needs and disabilities are important in shaping children’s digital lives and why. Sonia Livingstone is Professor of Social Psychology at LSE’s Department of Media and Communications and is the lead investigator of the Parenting for a Digital Future research project. Dongmiao Zhang is a […]
In this post Dr Alicia Blum-Ross interviews Dr Eric Rasmussen about his book, Media Maze: Unconventional Wisdom for Guiding Children Through Media, which argues in parent-friendly language that the secret to protecting kids online is to change parents’ focus from protecting them to empowering them. Eric is an Associate Professor in the College of Media & Communication at Texas Tech University and is […]
In this post Larry Magid takes a look at the recent media coverage of two apps and games that have been accused of harming children’s mental health. He argues that these sensationalist stories are often based on fake news and may serve only to exaggerate fears surrounding online risk in potentially damaging ways. Larry is a technology journalist and an Internet safety advocate. He is […]
A Swedish survey has claimed that social media use negatively affects the self esteem of young people. But such studies must take into account the complex intertwining of online and offline worlds, and recognise that a sharp distinction between life, relationships, and communication online and offline is no longer meaningful. Stine Liv Johansen is an Associate Professor at the Centre […]
Rapidly developing technology and the ubiquity of social media means that there is increasing risk of child sexual exploitation or abuse online. A recent NSPCC FOI investigation found there were more than 3,000 police-recorded offences for sexual communication with a child in England and Wales in 2017/18 alone. In this post, Pooja Kumari introduces the NSPCC’s new Wild West Web […]
Recent research by Project Open Eyes in Lagos, Nigeria has found that while nine out of 10 teenagers have access to the internet and three out of four have made friends with strangers online, there remains a very low level of digital literacy and a lack of regulatory protection at the state level. In this post Chukwuemeka Monyei calls for a more […]
With summer holidays on the horizon, here’s our roundup of recent posts from the Parenting for a Digital Future blog. [Header image credit: P. Morris, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]
Privacy, safety and rights online
With the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into force at the end of May, we asked how this will impact on children’s privacy and right to participate online, […]
In a response to a previous blog on this site about the Netflix TV series 13 Reasons Why, Richard Graham presents his perspective as a practising psychiatrist on the issues that it raised around media portrayal and reporting of suicide, and suicide more broadly. Richard argues that such debates present an important opportunity to create greater public awareness of the issues surrounding […]
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