Ellen Johanna Helsper

London School of Economics and Political Science | LSE · Department of Media and Communications

This article discusses the development of task-based performance tests designed to measure digital skills among children aged between 12 and 17 years old. The tasks reflect authentic everyday situations to evaluate skill levels. The primary objective is to design performance tests that provide a comprehensive understanding of children’s digital ski...

This report presents the youth Digital Skills Indicator (yDSI), a unique, extensively cross-nationally validated measurement tool with 31 items, distributed over digital skills and digital knowledge questions, that can be used for large-scale population research. The yDSI is the only measurement tool for youth digital skills that has been tested u...

This report summarises the main insights and questions discussed on 6 February 2020 as part of the Research Dialogues at the Media and Communications Department at LSE. This was panel discussion with the Dutch, Spanish, Swiss, UK and US partners of the From Digital Skills to Tangible Outcomes project. It focused on the difficulties of doing compara...

In understanding and promoting positive outcomes for children’s internet use, media and information literacies play a crucial mediating role, by enabling opportunities to learn, create, express oneself and participate, and by facilitating coping and building resilience. This chapter explains the approach taken by Global Kids Online (GKO), a multina...

This paper combines clinical-psychological and digital literacy frameworks to shed new light on explanations for excessive Internet use (EIU). The combination of these opposing approaches leads to a more comprehensive explanation of intense use with negative outcomes. A survey with a random sample of 18,709 Internet-using children between 11 and 16...

This article examines the extent to which economic, cultural, social, and personal types of engagement with the Internet result in a variety of economic, cultural, social, and personal outcomes. Data from a representative survey of the Dutch population are analyzed to test whether engagement with a certain type of activity is related to “collateral...

This paper asks what predicts having access to and using social support networks that might help an individual in using the Internet. Following the course taking by digital divide or digital inclusion research, this paper uses socio-cultural, socio-economic, social, and digital indicators to predict access to and the type of potential and actual so...

As internet use becomes widespread at home, parents are trying to maximize their children’s online opportunities while also minimizing online risks. We surveyed parents of 6- to 14-year-olds in eight European countries (N=6,400). A factor analysis revealed two strategies. Enabling mediation is associated with increased online opportunities but also...

Through a survey with a representative sample of Dutch Internet users, this paper examines compound digital exclusion, that is, whether a person who lacks a particular digital skill also lacks another kind of skill; whether a person who does not engage in a particular way online is also less likely to engage in other ways; and whether a person who...

Digital divide research and policy have moved beyond looking at who does and does not have access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and, therefore, the explanations for digital inequalities and the possible interventions to address it have become more nuanced and complex. The current emphasis is on digital skills or, more compreh...

Digital inequalities research adopted the idea that exclusion is compound and multifaceted. Nevertheless, digital exclusion theory and empirical research often takes an individual, static approach; assuming that personal characteristics such as socioeconomic status consistently influence how individuals engage with information and communication tec...

Although a number of instruments have been used to measure Internet skills in nationally representative surveys, there are several challenges with the measures available: incompleteness and over-simplification, conceptual ambiguity, and the use of self-reports. Here, we aim to overcome these challenges by developing a set of reliable measures for u...

Research into reasons for Internet non-use has been mostly based on one-off cohort studies and focused on single-country contexts. This article shows that motivations for being offline changed between 2005 and 2013 among non- and ex-users in two high-diffusion European countries. Analyses of Swedish and British data demonstrate that non-user popula...

Purpose Research into the explanations of digital inclusion has moved from investigations of skills and usage to tangible outcomes, what we label here as the third-level digital divide. There is a lack of theoretical development about which types of people are most likely to benefit. Understanding how achieving outcomes of internet use is linked t...

In 2014, the authors of this report started a project with the main objective to develop theoretically informed measures that can be used to explain how people use the Internet and what the benefits might be. A first report (van Deursen, Helsper & Eynon, 2014) looked at how to measure digital skills, an area in which a good amount of research has b...

This article examines explanations for both Internet non-use and use by older individuals. Seniors are often considered as a homogeneous group with uniform reasons for Internet non-use, or when they are online, practicing a uniform range of activities. The study gathered data concerning senior non-users through a national telephone survey. Data con...

The importance of considering the family context in the adoption and use of the Internet are well recognised. Supporters of the digital inclusion agenda often see children as a way to increase the digital skills and use of the Internet by parents and older adults. However, there is a limited amount of research that has explored whether this is real...

The first report that results from the "From Digital Skills to Tangible Outcomes project" proposes an instrument to measure five types of Internet skills. To come up with such an instrument, we took a critical look at the existing digital skills literature. Moreover, our own experience and work related to digital skills helped us in building an ela...

This study examines whether the impact of offline identities on computer-mediated communication is stable across different social contexts or whether it depends on which identity aspect is salient. Field experiments with 206 teenagers tested the influence of gendered, ethnic, youth and personalized identities on teenagers' chat behaviour and cognit...

Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013, p368, $27.50 (hardcover).

Digital literacy and inclusion have been two important, largely separate, areas of study that examine the relationships between Internet skills and engagement. This article brings together these areas of research by testing a model that assumes specific pathways to inclusion: specific sociodemographic factors predict specific digital skills and spe...

What do we know of the changing array of opportunities and risks that different children are encountering on the internet? This special issue includes articles exploring diverse dimensions of the EU Kids Online survey based on a detailed, in-home, face-to-face, representative survey of 25,142 children aged 9–16 years old plus one of their parents....

Abstract This article investigates patterns of reasons for digital disengagement of British adults. It adds a psychological dimension to research that is mostly sociological in nature in trying to separate out explanations for disengaging from the Internet by choice or by forced exclusion. The analysis of a nationally representative survey shows di...

The notion of digital exclusion has become important in communications research but remains under-theorized. This article proposes a theoretical model that hypothesizes how specific areas of digital and social exclusion influence each other. In this corresponding fields model it is argued that they relate mostly for similar (economic, cultural, soc...

This report presents new findings and further analysis of the EU Kids Online 25 country survey regarding excessive use of the internet by children. It shows that while a number of children (29%) have experienced one or more of the five components associated with excessive internet use, very few (1%) can be said to show pathological levels of use.

Digital exclusion and low engagement with information and communication technologies (ICTs) by particular social groups is usually researched among adults. Little research is done in relation to children under the assumption that they are all digital natives and thus fully online. This chapter uses EU Kids Online data to examine whether there are d...

As internet use is extending to younger children, there is an increasing need for research focusing on the risks young users are experiencing, as well as the opportunities, and how they should cope. With expert contributions from diverse disciplines and a uniquely cross-national breadth, this timely book examines the prospect of enhanced opportunit...

In studies that compare Internet use between groups, factor analysis is often used to create broader categories of use. Composite variables are constructed using a factor structure that fits the overall data. This approach overlooks tests that show whether the constructs are valid and whether items relate similarly to the general constructs in diff...

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in how uptake and use of the Internet by individuals is influenced by other members of the same household. Nevertheless, the relationships between the use of the Internet by young people and adults in the same household are complex, multifaceted and underexplored (Selwyn 2004). The majority of rese...

This article discusses children contacting new people online and going to face to face meetings with these people. Analyses of the EU Kids Online II project data (2009-2011) showed that older children, girls and more frequent, self-confident communicators are more likely to expand their social circle through contacting new people online. Meeting ne...

Using a nationally representative British survey, this article explores the extent to which adults are using the internet for learning activities because they choose to (digital choice) or because of (involuntary) digital exclusion. Key findings suggest that reasons for (dis)engagement with the internet or the uptake of different kinds of online le...

Eugene Loos, Leslie Haddon & Enid Mante-Meijer, The Social Dynamics of Information and Communication Technology (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2008), 227 pp., ISBN 978-0754670827

The internet has become an integral part of many people’s everyday lives. It is unclear what its role is in maintaining intimate offline relationships and whether the use of the internet might cause conflicts between partners about what constitutes acceptable online behavior. An online survey of 920 married couples in the UK who used the internet i...

Generational differences are seen as the cause of wide shifts in our ability to engage with technologies and the concept of the digital native has gained popularity in certain areas of policy and practice. This paper provides evidence, through the analysis of a nationally representative survey in the UK, that generation is only one of the predictor...

Gender inequalities in Internet use are smaller among younger people. It is unclear whether these differences can be explained by the varying circumstances in which different generations grew up or by other factors that vary within an individual’s life time. This article tests a model which proposes that generation determines the level of Internet...

Many hopes exist regarding the opportunities that the internet can offer to young people as well as fears about the risks it may bring. Informed by research on media literacy, this article examines the role of selected measures of internet literacy in relation to teenagers’ online experiences. Data from a national survey of teenagers in the UK (N =...

We are all familiar with the headlines proclaiming the rise of the ‘silver surfer’; or now even the ‘silver tweeter’. Alongside this, services are increasingly disseminating information that is accessed purely online. So, what about the digitally-disenfranchised who, for whatever reason, do not want to or are simply not able to use or access the in...

This study explores the role of the Internet in reconfiguring marriages, introducing couples that meet in person and later marry, through a set of online surveys of married couples in Britain, Australia, and Spain. The study found that a sizeable proportion of online married couples in each country first met their spouse online, usually through an...

After years of collective indecision, Britain shifted to become a full participant in an increasingly networked world; supporting the diffusion of the Internet, broadband access, and its use for an increasingly wide range of activities. This paper compares Britain with other European nations and the wider world in its adoption and use of the Intern...

This article examines parental regulation of children and teenagers' online activities. A national survey of 1511 children and 906 parents found that 12–17-year-olds encounter a range of online risks. Parents implement a range of strategies, favoring active co-use and interaction rules over technical restrictions using filters or monitoring softwar...

This article examines parental regulation of children and teenagers' online activities. A national survey of 1511 children and 906 parents found that 12-17-year-olds encounter a range of online risks. Parents implement a range of strategies, favoring active co-use and interaction rules over technical restrictions using filters or monitoring softwar...

This working paper explores the role of the Internet in reconfiguring marriages, introducing couples that meet in person and later marry, through a set of online surveys of married couples in Britain, Australia, and the US. We found that a sizeable proportion of online married couples in each country first met their spouse online, usually through a...

Use of the internet has become central to social, civic and economic participation in many societies. Countries with early adopters and skilled users are clearly advantaged in comparison to those whose population remains disengaged. A positive public opinion about the internet and technologies can therefore be a major asset to the development and c...

This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The notion of a generation uniquely at home in a digital environment – the Digital Natives – is increasingly being challenged. Expertise and experience are just as important as generation in explain...

This report was commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government. Research on the links between the diffusion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and social and economic development has been undertaken for decades. Evidence of links between social and digital engagement, particularly with respect to the Internet,...

Children and young people encounter a range of risks on the internet relating to communication. Making friends online has attracted particular attention as a risky behaviour, especially when this leads to offline meetings, as has giving out personal information online. This article, based on the 'UK Children Go Online' survey, seeks to explain the...

Little academic and policy attention has addressed the `digital divide' among children and young people. This article analyses findings from a national survey of UK 9—19-year-olds that reveal inequalities by age, gender and socioeconomic status in relation to their quality of access to and use of the internet. Since both the extent of use and the r...

Launched by the Oxford Internet Institute in 2003, OxIS has become an authoritative source of information about Internet access, use and attitudes - and the difference this makes for everyday life - in Britain. Areas covered include: digital and social inclusion and exclusion; regulation and governance of the Internet; privacy, trust and risk conce...

Traditionally, debates about digital exclusion have been concerned with a lack of access to the internet by certain groups. Currently, the debate is shifting towards quality of use. Yet, it remains unclear which processes underlie differences in digital inclusion. By combining macro, micro and meso theoretical perspectives, this thesis examines the...

Launched by the Oxford Internet Institute in 2003, Oxford Internet Surveys (OxIS) have become an authoritative source of information about Internet access, use and attitudes – and the difference this makes for everyday life – in Britain. Areas covered include: digital and social inclusion and exclusion; regulation and governance of the Internet; pr...

It is widely assumed in academic and policy circles that younger children are more influenced by advertising than are older children. By reviewing empirical findings in relation to advertising and children’s food choice, it is argued that this assumption is unwarranted. The findings do not suggest that young children are more affected by advertisin...

During February and March 2006, OSS Watch conducted a survey of UK Higher Education (HE) and Further Education (FE) institutions, looking at their attitudes and policies towards open source software (OSS). This was in many ways a repeat of a similar exercise that OSS Watch performed in October 2003. The full text of the 38 page report can be read o...

Given increasing calls for children and young people to participate via the Internet in civic and political activities), this article examines how far, and with what success, such participation is occurring among UK teenagers. Findings from a national survey conducted by the UK Children Go Online project show that young people are using the Interne...

Within an overall focus on media literacy, the present report examines the internet literacy of children and young people aged 9-19, based on the UKCGO survey findings. We examine the relations among the three main dimensions of media or internet literacy (access, understanding and creation), showing how developing online expertise increases online...

This overview was produced for Ofcom by Ellen Helsper, London School of Economics in response to a consultation regarding the desirability of making non-abusive explicit sex between consenting adults available on television (consultation on the proposed Ofcom Broadcasting Code, 14 July 2004). It presents the findings of the consultation and summari...

Resumen El presente artículo muestra los resultados de una encuesta de opinión pública acerca del 11 de septiembre de 1973 y el Régimen Militar, aplicada a 792 personas de la Región Metropolitana. La muestra contempló participantes de distintas orientaciones ideológicas y de tres generaciones políticas: quienes cumplieron 18 años antes de 1973, los...

Executive summary. Considerable academic and policy attention has recently addressed the so-called ‘digital divide’ in the UK and elsewhere. Yet very little research has addressed children and young people in relation to the digital divide. This report examines the extent and source of any inequalities in internet access and use among 9-19 year old...