www.eukidsonline.net / Children’s online experiences in socially disadvantaged families : European evidence and policy recommendations

Over the last years the EU Kids Online-Network has presented a wide range of empirical evidence on children’s online use and online experiences. Within this field special attention has to be paid to socially disadvantaged children, because they are more vulnerable to different kinds of harm resulting from online risks than other children. This report summarises findings on social disadvantage from the EU Kids Online II dataset and from other studies conducted in countries belonging to the EU Kids Online network in recent years. This is complemented by results of a long term study dealing with the media socialisation of socially disadvantaged children in Austria. The conclusion provides recommendations on how to support socially disadvantaged children and adolescents in making better experiences with the internet. Access and use are the main topics of almost all the studies covered, but for Europe we can state that a lack of access to the internet is not the key problem. This is different, however, for countries like Brazil or Russia. In Europe children and adolescents differ in the way they use the internet and they have different preferences concerning content, e.g. a stronger interest in entertainment. The educational background of the family (which correlates highly with the economic well-being of a family) plays the major role influencing the different ways the internet is used. Children of lower educated parents are often left alone when dealing with the internet. The results of a long term study (from 2005 ongoing) show that socially disadvantaged families are challenged to cope with many roblems in their daily life. Resulting from restricted financial resources, unemployment and lower education, lack of time and leisure opportunities their life world conditions are very demanding. Socially disadvantaged children are at risk in a double way. On the one hand they suffer from the effects of their parents’ socio-structural problems, on the other hand they use edia very intensively which means that their ...