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Latest report from BBC Newsround reports 3/4 of children aged 10-12 have a social media profile

Put simply 75% of children are breaking legal terms and conditions, a shockingly high number. As we know once the 50% mark is reached it is very difficult for parents not to bow to peer pressure as they do not want their children to miss out or be labelled as “uncool”. The problem is self perpetuating resulting in such high levels of young children using age inappropriate apps. Why is it that in the online world such terms and conditions are just blithely ignored?

The online and offline world seem to operate with very different sets of instructions. A recent straw poll saw 100% of year 5 and 6 children say they had watched or played a game with a rating of 18. When posed the same question with regards to films only 3 hands went up. Despite all the good work that goes on with organisations such as NSPCC, PEGI, SwGfL to name but a few the message is clearly not getting through to parents or children. How do educational professionals deal with this, as the saying goes “You can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”. E-safety seminars within schools are notorious for low attendance, with parents either deliberately or naively turning a blind eye.

In the Ofcom report on Children’s media use parents cited the main reason they did not, for example use safe search, was because they trusted their children. Trust is not enough, children must be protected. There is a difference between “trust” and “protection”. We need to educate parents that even if you “trust” your child you still need to protect them. Children wear cycling helmets – this is not because we don’t “trust” them to fall off their bikes – it is because we want to protect them.

For the first time, children are now spending more time on the Internet than watching TV and are accessing content unsupervised at an increasingly younger age, so rather than turning a blind eye, parents should be actively discussing Internet use with their children. If parents are familiar with the online playground their children are in, they will at least have some notion of the potential risks. And once they do know where their children are hanging out, they then have the opportunity to suggest safer alternatives such as ChatFOSS. Afterall, we don’t want to prevent young people from learning how to use social media properly as it is integral to modern life. By showing them safer alternatives which teach them the principles without the risks, it’s like teaching them to ride a bike with stabilisers.

Happily, the majority of underage usage of apps such as Instagram, twitter and facebook is entirely innocent, however that does not mean such usage does not bring with it risks. The reported increase in mental health issues that is being attributed to social media seems to have no impact on parental decisions. Can the recent Newsround report stating that 37% of children who use social media underage are friends with someone they have never met encourage parents to be more involved in e-safety? I hope so.

We would like to thank our latest guest blogger, Alicia Coad, for her thoughts on this topic. To find out more about Alicia and ChatFOSS, click here.

Major shift in UK children’s behaviour as time online overtakes time watching TV for first time ever, reveals new report.

This year has seen a major shift in UK children’s media use with time spent online overtaking TV viewing for the first time ever, according to the latest 2016 CHILDWISE Monitor Report.

Tablet ownership also soared this year – up by 50% from last year. Just six years after the UK release of the iPad, tablets have swept into children’s lives, with two in three (67%) now having their own device.

The new data shows that YouTube has taken centre stage in children’s lives this year to become the place they turn to for entertainment, music, games, TV programmes, instruction and advice. Half use the site every day, almost all do so on occasion.

The majority of children who use YouTube visit the site to access music videos (58%). Around half of users keep themselves entertained with funny content on YouTube (52%). Around a third watch gaming content, vlogs/blogs, TV programmes or ‘how to’ videos.

Children are also going online more in their bedrooms. Three in four children (73%) can now access the internet in their room, up from two in three (63%) last year.

The 2016 CHILDWISE Monitor is a comprehensive annual report looking at five to 16-year-olds media consumption, purchasing and social habits as well as key behaviour. More than 2000 children in schools across the United Kingdom completed in-depth online surveys for the report.

“Growing access to the internet at any time and in any place, and a blurring of television content across channels and devices, brings a landmark change in behaviour this year. TV viewing has been redefined,” says Simon Leggett, Research Director from CHILDWISE.

“Children are now seeking out the content of their choice. They still find traditional TV programmes engaging but are increasingly watching them online and on-demand or binge watching box sets.”

This year, for the first time, tablet devices have overtaken laptops/PCs/netbooks as the main type of computer that children have in their homes. Four in five children (79%) now live in a house with a tablet device in it. This is a significant rise from just three in five (61%) last year.

Findings of the report also include...

Children age 5-16 now use the internet for an average of three hours a day and watch TV for 2.1 hours. It is worth noting that simply counting hours spent on devices can be problematic. Children multi task and often use more than one device at once and don’t always give each full attention.

63% of children own their own mobile phone with an average monthly spend of £12.

Favourite internet vloggers
Zoella, real name Zoe Sugg, is children’s favourite YouTuber, followed by TheDiamondMinecart, Thatcher Joe, KSI and Stampy.

For the first time the CHILDWISE Monitor report asked children age 7 to 16 that used YouTube who their favourite YouTubers were or what were their favourite channels on the site.

The YouTuber with the most mentions was fashion and beauty vlogger Zoella. She was a favourite among girls with 15% naming her as favourite and 8% naming her overall.

TheDiamondMinecart, real name Daniel Middleton, posts daily videos about the popular game Minecraft. He was popular among boys, chosen by 6%, compared to 4% overall.

Zoella’s boyfriend Alfie Deyes of PointlessBlog fame (named by 2% overall) and her brother Joe Sugg, known as Thatcher Joe (4%) are continuing favourites.

“This is the year YouTube use has exploded among children with almost half (48%) using it every day and just 10% never using it,” says Simon

“Around a third of children who use YouTube watch vlogs/blogs. Girls are much more likely to be interested in these than boys and viewing is highest for older children, peaking at half of 11-12 year olds.”

However, the majority of children are passive consumers, rather than contributors to YouTube, rarely going beyond liking/disliking content or subscribing to channels. Only a minority ever post comments, share or upload videos.

“Children of all ages, both boys and girls, find somebody to follow on YouTube who speaks directly to them and reflects their interests, coming across as authentic and unmediated,” Simon added.

“For older girls, vloggers are filling the role previously held by magazines – somewhere to read about other people’s lives, problems, cringes, new ideas and fashion.”

Boys of all ages enjoy FIFA football gaming commentary by vloggers such as Joe Weller and Miniminter. Younger boys like Minecraft gameplay vloggers such as TheDiamondMinecart, Stampy and iBallisticSquid. Older boys favour KSI

CHILDWISE is an independent market research agency specialising in children and young people.

The Monitor Report 2015-6 covers computers and the internet; websites and applications; gaming, YouTube; mobile phones; TV viewing; music; reading; cinema; children’s equipment; money; purchasing; sports & activities; health & wellbeing and social awarenes.

E-safety Support launched in February 2013, shortly after Ofsted released the new requirements for e-safety in schools. Since launch we have added over 100 resources, send over 150 e-safety news bulletins and been joined by almost 11,000 members.

The most significant development since we launched has been the addition of 7 online training courses. These have been tailor made to reach the whole school community, and have been created specifically for pupils, staff, parents and governors. We are delighted to report that these courses have been issued to over 52,000 candidates - a number which is growing rapidly on daily basis.

Over the last 3 years, the online safety environment has seen many changes, both good and bad. We have seen the phenomenon of online trends making headlines for all the wrong reasons with Neknominate, Slenderman and various risky (and unfortunately sometimes fatal) challenges all playing out on social media. But there have also been positive trends too, with the ice bucket challenge for example which used the platform to raise millions of pounds for charity.

More safeguards for young people have also been made available - the big 4 media providers making changes to their parental controls to help protect children in the home and the RDI rolling-out their Friendly WiFi scheme to help protect them when in public places to name just two.

Of course, we must mention the most recent issue of young people being groomed online into extremism. This has been an incredibly challenging issue for many teachers and schools to tackle - we will continue to monitor this area particularly to ensure that we are providing appropriate resources to help support our members.

We are, of course, delighted to have so many members benefiting from the resources available at www.e-safetysupport.com, some of the comments we have received can be seen on our testimonials page - if you would like to let us know your thoughts, please email feedback@e-safetysupport.com or use the comments section below.

Over the coming months, we are looking forward to bringing you a new look to the website along with more e-safety resources. Will continue to monitor the e-safety issues to ensure we are keeping you up-to-speed with the important issues.

Finally, below is an infographic showing the E-safety Support story so far, highlighting the important developments across the site in the first 3 years - we look forward to continuing our journey with you.