The third annual Internet Matters survey concludes that children’s “digital wellbeing” is improving thanks in part to “more engaged parenting”.
However, it also warns that “many children are still dealing with the negative aspects of online life” including seeing extreme and hateful content and being contacted by strangers.
The report is based on survey data from more than 1,000 UK children and young people aged 9 to 16 and their parents.
Children and young people in the survey report that the time they spend online helps them to feel confident and independent and part of wider groups as well as helping them to learn and discover careers and new interests.
There is also evidence of “more engaged” parenting, including more oversight of children and young people’s online activity and more parent-child dialogue about online risks.
As such, the report’s digital wellbeing index, which considers how children feel about their physical, social, emotional and developmental online experiences, shows that more children and parents are reporting positive experiences.
The report states: “Quite simply, children are experiencing more of the benefits from their online activities – whether this is feeling more connected, more creative, or more empowered.”
However, this does not negate the fact that 67% of the children and young people in the research have experienced harm online.
These harms include fake information, contact from strangers, seeing violent content, receiving abusive messages or comments, the promotion of unhealthy body image, sexual content, and content about self-harm.
Girls are significantly more likely to experience many of the harms of being online. Nearly half of 15 to 16-year-old girls say that strangers have tried to message or contact them, up from 3 in 10 in 2022.
Meanwhile, 13 to 14-year-old girls are more likely to say that being online makes them feel lonely and isolated. Overall, the survey reports rising incidence of stranger contact, particular for older girls.
Digital threats: Two-thirds of children have experienced online harms. This graphic shows the different threats as experienced by 9 to 16-year-olds in 2022 and 2023 (source: Internet Matters)
In her foreword to the report, Internet Matters joint-CEO Carolyn Bunting voices her fears about online harms becoming normalised.
She writes: “I am concerned that to younger generations who have grown up with technology, experiencing harm online is becoming normalised: increasingly seen as an inevitability of online life, rather than something which can, and must, be tackled.
“We, the adults supporting and shaping children’s online experiences, must remain ambitious and determined that things can be better.”
Elsewhere, 63% of parents in the survey said they are worried that the strain of too much screen time is affecting family life and the physical health of their children; 57% are concerned about the impact on their children’s sleep.
Almost a quarter of children in the survey also say they are experiencing negative physical effects from their online activities, including fatigue, concentration difficulties, vision problems, and poor posture.
Around a third of the parents said they often found them and their children spending time on their own devices “rather than doing things together”.
- The report, Children’s wellbeing in a digital world, can be found via www.internetmatters.org/hub/research/childrens-wellbeing-in-a-digital-world-index-report-2024