“If parents are too restrictive, this might leave their children unprepared for the future. This is how children learn to navigate the offline world, so why would online be different?” said Daniel Kardefelt-Winther, research lead on Children & Digital Technology at UNICEF Innocenti and co-author of the report. “Children need to spend time online to learn how to navigate the digital environment, even if this means being exposed to some level of risk.
Encouraging children to extend their online activities beyond entertainment alone can also enable them to develop a range of technical and critical capacities, according to the report. Online entertainment, for example, like playing videos games and watching videos clips, can help young children develop an interest in educational, informative and social online experiences. The report finds that children who participate in a wider range of online activities are more skilled in using the internet, while those whose access to the internet is more limited tend to have weaker digital skills. We can’t – and don’t want to – prevent children from crossing the road just because it presents dangers our role is to teach them how to cross the road safely and responsibly in all situations, and to apply safeguards that enable them to do so." “We should help children navigate how to use the internet in the same way we help teach children how to cross the road. “We often hear so much about the risks associated with children using the internet, but less about how we can build their online resilience and digital skills,” said Priscilla Idele, Director, a.i, of UNICEF’s Office of Research-Innocenti. It finds that the activities children engage in online – even those typically seen as entertainment - are crucial for building digital skills.
Produced by the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and based on research by Global Kids Online, Growing up in a Connected World compares data on internet use among nearly 15,000 internet-using children in 11 countries across Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America. FLORENCE, 28 November 2019 – Blanket restrictions on children’s internet use prevent them from taking advantage of critical learning and skills development opportunities, according to a new UNICEF report, launched today at the Internet Governance Forum in Berlin.
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