Better Internet for Kids

The internet and connected technology offer unlimited opportunities for children and young people to communicate, find information and be entertained as well as acquire and develop digital skills. However, these experiences are not without risk. It is important for families and their children to have an awareness of the risks faced online and how they can be managed.

This module will explore the risks that children and young people may face when using technology and online services. You will also have opportunity to consider how these risks might affect your child, alongside advice on how to support and protect your child if they encounter something worrying or upsetting online.

There are many positive experiences and opportunities offered by the internet and connected technology:

• Entertainment – Access to video and music streaming services, online games and other activities.
• Communication – Video conferencing, social media, photo sharing and other messaging services allow young people to stay connected to family and friends, to interact and collaborate with others online. Online platforms can also offer a voice to young people to express themselves.
• Information and education – Access to news, updates, information, advice and a wealth of content that enables users to educate themselves and learn new skills.
• Creativity – Online platforms provide opportunity for young people to showcase their talents and skills, and work collaboratively with others to produce content for others to enjoy. Technology also enables people to crowdfund to support new products or good causes.
• Products and services – Just like adults, children and young people can also be consumers, and they enjoy the breadth of choice that online marketplaces can offer for both physical and digital products and services.
   

Before we dive into the different risks that can be present online, it is important to establish two key terms: risk and harm.

When we consider ‘risk’, we are thinking about the likelihood of something happening that may cause harm, e.g. something that is low risk would be very unlikely to occur or cause any harm, something high risk would be very likely to occur or cause harm.

When we consider ‘harm’, we are thinking about the negative impact that something would have on a child. This harm can take different forms – it could be physical, mental or emotional. Harm can also be considered in other aspects of a child’s digital life, such as something harming their friendships, or harming their reputation. 

Just like risk, harm can also be considered on a scale from low/no harm (something that would have little or no negative impact) to high harm (something that would have a significant and/or lasting negative impact).

The link between risk and harm online is not straightforward – high likely risks do not always result in high levels of harm, and risks that are very uncommon do not necessarily cause little harm. To give an example: there is a high likelihood of your child encountering information online that is untrue. However, the negative impact of that false information could be very low (or even none), especially if your child recognises that the information is false and ignores it.

This highlights another important point about risk and harm; there are many factors that can change the likelihood of an online risk as well as whether it will cause harm to your child. These factors include things such as your child’s age, personality and experience, as well as which apps and devices are involved. It is also affected by other online users, companies and organisations.

It is important to remember that, for many children online, their experiences are largely positive! This may be true for your child, or it may be that your child finds digital life tricky. 

The following sections explore the different types of risk that a child may encounter online. If you are working through this module in one go, learning about so many different risks in one go can feel very overwhelming!

Make sure you take some time to think and reflect on what you learn in this module and focus on the areas that are most relevant to your child. It is also important to know how to talk to your child about these risks –you might find the ‘How can I talk to my child about online safety?’ module helpful.
 

The following sections will broadly outline a number of different online risks. Some risks are extremely complex and may require further study and research to fully understand them. The deep dive section of the BIK Teacher corner contains additional learning modules focusing on these risks, with new modules added regularly. 

An alternative version of the table is available here.

A broad overview of the online risks that children and young people may face online are summarised in Fig 2. This is taken from CO:RE – a knowledge base for researchers and educators on children and youth in the digital age.

It is important to understand your child’s role in each of the categories – children are not passive users who merely targeted by and affected by online risks, they often play an active role in interacting with these risks (both positively and negatively) and can also assume the role of perpetrator in some contexts (such as grooming, bullying, hateful behaviour and sexual harassment). 

Here is a summary of the main risks under each of the 4Cs (Content, Contact, Conduct and Contract) that can apply to children. Specific named risks are highlighted in bold:

Content

• Aggressive – violent or graphic content presented in videos, images or video games. Content that is hateful in nature (hate speech such as racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, etc.). Extremist content that promotes extreme ideas or values.
• Sexual – Pornographic content (including illegal forms), sexualised content, content that reinforces stereotypes about bodies and cultures.
• Values – Misinformation (inaccurate but not intended to deceive), disinformation (inaccurate with the intention to deceive), fake news, clickbait, unsuitable online adverts, posts or emails. Content posted by other users that can negatively influence a child’s opinions and attitudes.

Contact

• Aggressive – Unwanted contact from strangers or known users, harassment and stalking behaviour. Hate speech directed towards a child. Unwanted or excessive surveillance could include an adult user pressuring a child to regularly share their location or access to their social media content.
• Sexual – Sexual harassment, grooming and exploitation. Creation and distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Most behaviours in this category are illegal.
• Values – Manipulating children towards extreme or dangerous ideologies and concepts, radicalisation and recruitment into extreme regimes or groups.

Conduct

• Aggressive – Cyberbullying, hate speech and other forms of behaviour between children. This could also include harassment, stalking and surveillance. Risks could also include damaging another user’s online reputation or sharing their private personal data publicly to harm them (often known as doxing).
• Sexual – Sexual harassment, sexual pressures and the creation and sharing of youth-produced sexual content (often referred to as sexting).
• Values – Engaging in communities, discussions and experiences that may present a risk of harm to themselves or others (such as self-harm, anti-vaccine, extreme conspiracy theories, etc.). Adverse peer pressures may include participating in online challenges or engaging in or supporting higher risk behaviours (for example, publicly taking a side in a highly controversial social issue, or publicly supporting the use of banned substances, etc.)

Contract

• Aggressive – Cybercrime and attempts to steal personal data, money or possessions, or trick users into handing it over – identity theft, fraud, phishing and scams, hacking, blackmail, use of malware such as viruses and trojans.
• Sexual – Child trafficking, livestreamed child sexual abuse, abuse or harm of children for financial gain.
• Values – Gambling (and promoting gambling behaviours to children), filter bubbles (children only see and experience what online platforms deem are relevant to them), and manipulative digital marketing tactics. Dark patterns relate to persuasive design techniques that encourage users to spend longer on a game or app or to pressure/persuade users to make purchases.

Cross-cutting

• Privacy violations – These could be invasions of privacy by others (gaining access to private personal data through hacking or pressure), by institutions (such as governments collecting detailed data about their citizens’ online activities without justification) or by commercial bodies (companies collecting and using unnecessary personal data through their service).
• Physical and mental health risks – Use of technology and online services might be linked to less active lifestyles and greater risk of obesity or physical health issues. Excessive or problematic use can lead to addiction in rare cases. The impact of using digital technology and online services may affect a child’s sense of self and identity, as well as impact on their relationships and emotions.
• Inequalities and discrimination – This can be at an individual level between users, as well as at institutional and commercial levels. Artificial intelligence and algorithms may unfairly discriminate against users based on online behaviours or profiling. Certain vulnerabilities may be heightened and exploited online (for example, children with autism or mental health problems may be more vulnerable to coercion or manipulation) and access to/use of technology can reinforce social inequalities (such as the digital divide highlighted during the Covid-19 pandemic, where not all children were able to access and engage in remote learning due to lack of technology or connectivity).

As previously highlighted in this training module, there are many factors that can affect whether an online risk might lead to harm for your child. Different risks carry potential for different forms of harm. Below is a summary of some different harms that a child could experience.

• Physical safety – Threatened or actual violence or abuse. In extreme instances, exploitation can lead to abduction, actual physical harm or death.
• Physical health – Long term impacts on diet, weight, posture, eyesight.
• Mental health – Possible impacts to self-image, anxiety, depression, etc.
• Emotional well-being – Impact on their ability to regulate their emotions, or online experiences leading to frequent heightened emotional states (such as anger, fear or upset).
• Behaviours and attitudes – Impact on their attitudes towards themself and others, attitudes towards risk (becoming risk-averse or risk-taking), unhealthy behaviours, self-harming behaviours.
• Relationships – Impact on their friendships, forming and maintaining relationships, making connections or interacting positively and respectfully with others.
• Reputation – Impact on their reputation (online and offline) which can further impact on their current and future opportunities (education, careers, etc.). A negative impact to reputation often links to other negative impacts on behaviour and well-being.
• Personal data – Theft or exploitation of their personal data resulting in a need to change details (phone numbers, address), hacking of online accounts or an impact on reputation.
• Technical – Damage or destruction to their devices and connected technology through malware, hacking and risky modifications.
• Financial – Loss of money or possessions because of exploitation, hacking or impersonation. Financial implications (such as debt) of gambling behaviours or overspending online.

At this point in the module, you may be feeling overwhelmed – it can feel like there are so many things that can wrong online.

It may sometimes feel like you are powerless to support your child when they are online, but there are practical steps you can take to help protect and empower them. Here is some general advice that applies to many online risks:

• Help your child build a support network – Help your child to know who to turn to when they encounter difficulties online. For younger children, this may mean turning to you or another trusted adult in their life, such as another family member or teacher. For teens, turning to a trusted adult is always a good step, but they may also rely on friends or other sources of support such as helplines. Seeking help is the first important step in solving an issue, so make sure your child understands who can help them.
• Use the available safety tools – Many apps, games and online spaces include tools to help users manage their experience. These can include privacy settings that restrict contact with others or limit what others can see about your child, content filters that can manage which websites or apps can be used on your child’s devices (such as the age rating of games that can be downloaded and played), and safety tools to help you respond to issues (such as block/mute buttons and reporting features). Working with your child to find and know how use these tools can help them proactively protect themselves but also support others in need of help online.
• Supervision is important but should be transparent – Online services and content cater to billions of people all over the world, and therefore not everything online is aimed at or suitable for children. For younger children, it is important to supervise their online activity – what they are watching and who they are talking to. You may supervise them in person or might use monitoring apps to keep an eye on their online activity. For older children, it is more challenging to see what they are doing online, and they may view monitoring apps as an invasion of their privacy. Ensure that your child is aware of how your monitor their online activity and be prepared to discuss and change this approach as they get older.
• Regularly discuss online experiences and risks – As you may have found from this module, considering all online risks in one go is difficult! The same will be true for your child, so try to find regular opportunities to chat with them about their online experiences and how they can manage tricky situations. Posing questions such as ‘What if…?’ and using scenarios can also help your students consider different possibilities and outcomes without having to experience them first-hand.
• Be open minded – As an adult, your experience of the internet differs to that of your child. Even if you used the internet as a child, your experiences then are likely very different to the experiences of your child today. Keep an open mind when discussing online risks– your child may recognise and react to those risks in a very different way to you (or a different way to how you would expect them to behave). This doesn’t mean their approach or responses are wrong! Taking time to understand and work from their perspective is the best way to support them to lead positive and responsible digital lives.
• Know where to get help – Just as it is important for your child to know where to get help with online issues, it is equally important for you to know where to seek further help and advice if you are unsure what to do next. Ensure you know who can seek support from – this might include your child’s school, local or national organisations. Your national Safer Internet Centre can support you.
• Think positive! – It is important to keep digital experiences in perspective. Not all children are affected by all risks all the time, and not all interactions result in harm. For most children, the vast majority of their online experiences are incredibly positive and enjoyable! Keep this in mind when discussing online safety; taking a positive outlook and approach will inspire and empower your child to do the same.

A good way to help you reflect upon the risks outlined in this module is to consider which are relevant to your child.

Use the table below to guide your thinking about the risks that may affect your child (and their likelihood), their possible impacts and the strategies you can put in place to protect and support your child in relation to each risk.

It can be easy to get carried away in this activity, so choose 3-5 risks to focus on that you think are most relevant.

You can either copy this table onto a piece of paper and complete it by hand or copy and paste it into a word processor to add your ideas. An example is provided to get you started: