Leslie Haddon

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

The easy interface of touchscreen technologies like tablets and smartphones have enabled children to access the digital world from a very young age. But while some commentators are enthusiastic about how this can open up a new world for play, learning, and developing digital skills, others see the dangers of yet more screens, inauthentic play, and...

Systematic evidence reviews draw together findings from multiple studies, helping researchers and decision makers to understand patterns of research and findings across varying contexts and research methodologies. They have become more popular over the last twenty years, with various guides discussing the different ways in which they can be conduct...

Based on an impressive in-depth survey of 25,000 children carried out by the EU Kids Online network, this timely book examines the prospect for young internet users of enhanced opportunities for learning, creativity and communication set against the fear of cyberbullying, pornography and invaded privacy.

Given the considerable policy and practical importance of digital skills and literacies for young people’s life chances, especially as regards inequalities and digital inclusion, and the increasing reliance on digital technologies for learning, employment and civic life, a systematic evidence review was conducted to answer this question. The review...

What actors and factors shape children and young people’s digital skills? And how do their digital skills impact the rest of their lives? These are the two research questions addressed in this paper, along with an analysis of how the research literature to date has measured digital skills. The findings reported here come from a systematic evidence...

The chapter first outlines the history of the domestication concept and how it evolved when applied by different researchers. This is then exemplified through diverse domestication studies of the mobile phone. In the case of the smartphone, the form of domestication analysis in part reflects how it is framed more generally (e.g., as mobile media or...

Over the last 10 years very young children (0–5) are showing significantly increased patterns of internet use, due primarily to the introduction of touchscreens (Gorzig & Holloway, 2017). The widespread availability of touchscreen devices such as iPads and Android tablets means that previous technologies are being bypassed in terms of their impact...

This chapter reports the first findings from the Australia-UK Toddlers and Tablets project, exploring how parents of 0 to 5-year olds evaluate the role of touchscreen technologies in their children’s lives. The findings indicate that parent’s evaluations, covering both their concerns and satisfactions, are in many ways similar to those of parents o...

Smartphone Cultures explores emerging questions about the ways in which this mobile technology and its apps have been produced, represented, regulated and incorporated into everyday social practices. The various authors in this volume each locate their contributions within the circuit of culture model. More specifically, this book engages with issu...

This paper examines issues associated with secondary analysis of qualitative data and their implications for information behaviour scholarship. Secondary data analysis poses a range of potential challenges for data creators, but also opportunities, including the ability to expand theory to a wider context, strengthen the reliability and validity of...

Over the last 10 years very young children (0-5) are showing significantly increased patterns of internet use, due primarily to the introduction of touchscreens (Gorzig & Holloway, 2017). The widespread availability of touchscreen devices such as iPads and android tablets means that previous technologies are being bypassed in terms of their impact...

Although many hopes and fears about children's experience of the Internet have been expressed in policy, academic research, and by parents and other stakeholders in children's futures, there is little research examining children's perspectives. This chapter reports on UK findings from the EU Kids Online qualitative study that give children a voice...

Mobile devices’ impact on daily life has raised relevant questions regarding public and private space and communication. Both the technological environment (operating systems, platforms, apps) and media ecosystems (interface design, participatory culture, social media) influence how users deal with the public and private, intimate and personal sphe...

Domestication theory provides a framework for understanding the way in which information and communication technologies (ICTs) find a role in people's lives. This entry offers an account of its origins, a broad assessment of its central features, and an indication of how it has diversified in the hands of different researchers. Two key areas are di...

The article provides a sense of how the field of domestication analysis has developed over the last 25 years, showing the range of ways in which has been deployed, and how it can address social issues relating to technologies. Understanding cross-cultural differences has not been a strong feature of this framework to date, but examples are provided...

Although the new sociology of childhood draws attention to societal influences on children’s experiences, it also sees them as active agents. This article investigates children’s perspectives on parental interventions in regards their use of the internet, an aspect not covered in the parental mediation literature. Although children are generally po...

The Parents and Peers project set out to investigate key influences of peers and parents on the online experiences of young people aged 13-17. Specifically, the project sought to explore the family constructions of learning, support and management systems that operate in the informal context of the domestic space of the family home (Silverstone & H...

This chapter examines young people’s use of smartphones, with a particular focus on opportunities and risks related to the mobile internet. Drawing on a review of mobile phones literature and internet studies, the chapter examines the emergence of a new research agenda in the study of children and mobile communication and outlines relevant empirica...

This article examines young people's use of smartphones, with a particular focus on opportunities and risks related to the mobile internet. Drawing on a review of mobile phones literature and internet studies, the article examines the emergence of a new research agenda in the study of children and mobile communication and outlines relevant empirica...

The EU Kids Online II project built on the previous project's literature review and development of methods to generate detailed cross-national evidence about children's use, risks and harms online. The project aimed to provide comparable survey data that permit the joint elaboration of social policies for Internet use and protection for young peopl...

How to research children and online technologies? Frequently asked questions and best practice. These answers to frequently asked questions of how to research children and their use of online technologies have been written by members of the EU Kids Online network (see Annex 2) and edited

This article explores a range of research issues relating to children and mobile media, including the potential growth of children’s screen time, the regulation of children’s use of these media, the challenge of managing increasing media options, effects on children’s perception of time, problems posed for parental surveillance and the domesticatio...

Many hopes and fears surround children's increasing immersion in the digital and networked culture of the internet. Arguing against technological determinism, this chapter locates internet adoption and appropriation within the wider context of changing childhoods in late modernity and the risk society. It provides an overview of the EU Kids Online...

Introduction Childhood is rarely viewed neutrally. Although strongly shaped by the past, childhood in the early 21st century is very different from the one that adults today remember. Looking into the face of a child seems to enable a ‘gaze into the future’. It is no wonder, then, that ideas about childhood, including those expressed in academic co...

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...

Generational Use of New Media examines and contrasts how younger and older people, representing different generations, engage with the new media that they increasingly encounter in everyday life. Exploring the various assumptions about the degrees to which younger and older people are more or less willing to use, or are capable of using, new media,...

As internet use is extending to younger children, there is an increasing need for research focus 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 opportunities...

The EU Kids Online research on children's experience of and ability to cope with risks faced several challenges: the large number of countries involved (25 countries); 2) interviewees were children aged from 9-16 (along with one parent), 3) the main focus was on the sensitive topic of online risks. In order to address these challenges and prior to...

The article first introduces the domestication approach, its origins, its key elements, and its general contributions and limitations. It then examines ways in which the domestication analysis could be developed. One issue concerns contemporary objects of study and research questions given developments in information and communication technologies...

This paper considers some of the issues involved in the data analysis stage of a cross-national study of children's experience of the internet. Taking the project EU Kids Online as a case study, it focuses on the challenges faced and the basis of decisions taken when analysing the influence of contextual factors within the countries that were studi...

2011) Patterns of risk and safety online: in-depth analyses from the EU Kids Online survey of 9-to 16-year-olds and their parents in 25 European countries. EU Kids Online network, London, UK.

Media representations of the internet can influence perceptions of how much it leading to changes in our lives, and whether this is for better or worse, as well as people’s understanding of what is happening online and what they can do there. While we now have various tools for analysing how and why the media organise coverage and with what implica...

The contemporary internet focuses on user experiences of more recent developments on the internet, specifically with the spread of broadband, the audio-visual applications it has enabled, Web2.0 uptake more generally and the growth of eGovernment. The Contemporary Internet is comparative in two senses. The first is at the cross-national level, exam...

This article reports a content analysis of press coverage of children and the Internet in order to examine cross-cultural similarities and differences in the news values framing accounts of the benefits from and risks facing children online. By comparing media reporting in 14 European countries, the study found greater coverage of online risks than...

This chapter summarizes the preceding discussions covering research on children and young people online, online opportunities, and online risks. It concludes by calling for more public debate over the opportunities for children. These are, perhaps surprisingly, often taken for granted rather than specified clearly, and when one or another advocate...

Europe is traditionally regarded as a cultural entity with shared historical roots, values, systems, and institutions. However, when considering the various levels on which Europe may be understood, one must note that the European Union is more integrated at the political and economic levels than in terms of culture and traditions. This chapter exa...

As the internet and new online technologies are becoming embedded in everyday life, there are increasing questions about their social implications and consequences. Children, young people and their families tend to be at the forefront of new media adoption but they also encounter a range of risky or negative experiences for which they may be unprep...

Europe is traditionally regarded as a cultural entity with shared historical roots, values, systems and institutions. At a meta-level this provides a shared point of departure within and outside Europe. However, Kevin (2003: 2) notes that ‘definitions of Europe cannot logically be confined to specific political, cultural, or geographic descriptions...

Researching children and young people online After the first decade or so of research, what do we now know about children and young people online? The number and range of empirical studies of children and the internet has increased steadily over recent years, although many studies are largely descriptive – charting statistics on access, use and act...

The paper reports a project conducted within COST298 that used content analysis to cross-culturally study newspaper coverage of the internet. The paper justifies examining media representation in this field and provides an account of the methodological challenges, decisions and limitations. In documents certain commonalities in media coverage acros...

This article discusses EU Kids Online. Funded by the European Commission’s Safer Internet Programme, EU Kids Online (2006–2009) is a thematic network that aimed to identify, compare, and draw conclusions from existing and ongoing research on children and online technologies conducted in Europe. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights res...

What shapes the role of Information and Communication Technologies in our everyday life? Despite the speed with which information and communication technologies such as the PC, mobile telephone and internet have found their way into society, there remains a good deal of debate surrounding their adoption and use. Through empirical studies covering a...

Children's online experience, especially the risks to which they might be exposed, is an increasingly important policy and research concern. This article reports an analysis of the amount, nature and range of empirical research concerning children's online experiences across 18 European countries. Research teams in each country have collaborated, a...

Children, youth and the mobile phone In its short life, a surprisingly large literature on the use of mobile communication among children and teens has been written. Indeed, in recent years there has hardly been a conference or a collection of readings that did not include work in this area. The iconic status of the mobile telephone among children...

What shapes the role of Information and Communication Technologies in our everyday life? Despite the speed with which information and communication technologies such as the PC, mobile telephone and internet have found their way into society, there remains a good deal of debate surrounding their adoption and use. Through empirical studies covering a...

This article deals with the contribution made by domestication research to our understanding of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in everyday life, especially in the home. It first provides a sense of the diversity of research in this tradition and how this is evolving. The article then reflects upon and illustrates different elemen...

Everyday Innovators explores the active role of people, collectively and individually, in shaping the use of information and communication technologies. It examines issues around acquiring and using that knowledge of users, how we should conceptualise the role of users and understand the forms and limitations of their participation. • To what exte...