Preventive measures: how youngsters avoid online risks

Abstract

To protect children from online risks, it is important to recognise that children’s perceptions of online problematic situations may greatly differ from those of adults. What adults perceive as problematic does not necessarily result in a negative or harmful experience for children. This report shows that children’s perceptions of online risks strongly depend on their awareness of how online activities may turn into problematic or harmful situations. Also important is their knowledge of effective preventive measures, since it appears that when children feel capable of dealing with a risk they are less fearful or worried by it. Children expressed a range of concerns about online problems that sometime bother or upset them. The salient risks in children’s eyes are online bullying and harassment, unwelcome contact from strangers, misuse of personal information, issues related to sexual content or communication, and commercial content. Looking at the media platforms where these incidents occur, about half of unpleasant online experiences happen on social networking sites such as Facebook. While children acknowledge the potential risks of social networking sites, they do not necessarily do something to avoid the risk. However, when they do feel capable of dealing with the risk, they are less fearful or worried about it. These new findings result from the qualitative analysis of 57 focus groups and 113 personal interviews with children aged 9 to 16. In total, 349 children from nine different European countries (Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and UK) were invited to explain what they perceive as problematic or harmful online, and what they do to prevent harm from occurring.

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www.eukidsonline.net February 2014 1
ISSN2045‐256X
Preventive measures – how youngsters
avoid online risks
Sofie Vandoninck, Leen d’Haenens & David Smahel
Children’s perspectives on online problematic
situations
Children’s and adolescents’ developmental
processes and digital worlds are interconnected.
Their online experiences play a crucial role in many
developmental aspects of their lives, such as in
exploring their identity and sexuality, building
relationships with peers or romantic relationships,
but also in moral and ethics development.
While parents, teachers and other adult caregivers may
feel that exposure to certain online content or contacts
is risky, youngsters may perceive this very differently.
For example, posting sexy pictures and receiving flirty
comments can be flattering and exciting. However,
sharing of sexy pictures can turn also into traumatic
experience, for example, when youths receive very bad
comments or when these pictures are shared with too
many people.
The line between online positive and negative
experiences is very thin. The outcome depends on the
situation and on children’s awareness of problems they
may encounter online. The same situation can be
perceived differently by different children. For example,
while some are very cautious about their personal
information, others believe that nothing bad will happen
to them, regardless of what they disclose online.
Because of the different perceptions of adults and
youngsters, and the lack of a neat distinction between
positive and negative experiences online, we decided
to avoid the term ‘risk’, and prefer to talk about
‘problematic situations’. These cover any unpleasant,
annoying or bothersome experiences which affect
children in digital environments.
In light of Safer Internet Day 2014’s theme “Let’s
Create a Better Internet Together”, we believe it is
important for parents, teachers and other adult
caregivers to take time to listen to young people,
and to learn about how the latter perceive online
problematic situations and, more importantly, what
they do to avoid unpleasant situations online.
Summary
To protect children from online risks, it is important
to recognise that children’s perceptions of online
problematic situations may greatly differ from
those of adults. What adults perceive as
problematic does not necessarily result in a
negative or harmful experience for children.
This report shows that children’s perceptions of
online risks strongly depend on their awareness of
how online activities may turn into problematic or
harmful situations. Also important is their
knowledge of effective preventive measures, since
it appears that when children feel capable of
dealing with a risk they are less fearful or worried
by it.
Children expressed a range of concerns about
online problems that sometime bother or upset
them. The salient risks in children’s eyes are online
bullying and harassment, unwelcome contact from
strangers, misuse of personal information, issues
related to sexual content or communication, and
commercial content.
Looking at the media platforms where these
incidents occur, about half of unpleasant online
experiences happen on social networking sites
such as Facebook. While children acknowledge the
potential risks of social networking sites, they do
not necessarily do something to avoid the risk.
However, when they do feel capable of dealing with
the risk, they are less fearful or worried about it.
These new findings result from the qualitative
analysis of 57 focus groups and 113 personal
interviews with children aged 9 to 16. In total, 349
children from nine different European countries
(Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Malta,
Portugal, Romania, Spain, and UK) were invited to
explain what they perceive as problematic or
harmful online, and what they do to prevent harm
from occurrin
g
.

www.eukidsonline.net 2
 Young people seem to be very bothered by
online bullying and misuse of personal
information and privacy. Unwelcome contact
from strangers also provokes quite a few worries.
 Youngsters regularly express how they feel
about issues related to sexual content or
communication (sexting). Much depends on the
context and whether it is perceived as disturbing.
 Young people frequently refer to being bothered
or annoyed by unwelcome content, referring to
shocking or aggressive content, false or
misleading information or anything else they
didn’t ask for nor look for.
 Somewhat less often, youngsters talk about
technical problems (e.g. viruses) or commercial
content that create unpleasant situations. They
feel mostly irritated or annoyed by these issues.
 Sometimes children worry about the risk of
excessive usage of the internet and other health-
related issues, such as nighmares from sexual or
nasty content, problems with eyes, headaches
and backpain.
 We conclude that the most salient
problematic situations for children and young
people are online bullying, misuse of
personal information, unwelcome contact
with strangers and sexual issues. In what
follows, we will focus on these types of risks.
Risky platforms?
When talking about problematic experiences, about
half of what children said concerned unpleasant
experiences in social networking sites. Although many
problematic things online happened there, it would be
an oversimplification to state that SNS are the most
risky platforms online.
 Previous analyses have shown the positive link
between online activities and online risks.
Because SNS are the most popular platforms,
unsurprisingly most stories about problematic
situations also took place on social network sites.
 At the time of the interviews, Facebook was the
most popular SNS among our interviewees.
Younger children (9-11), who are officially below
Facebook’s minimum age limit of 13 years,
sometimes use other SNSs, often (sub)national
initiatives. But younger children also reported
pretending to be older on Facebook.
It makes sense to conclude that children
acknowledge the potential risks of social
networking sites, but this does not
necessarily mean they will do something to
avoid the risk. Even if they are aware, some
children simply do not care much about
potential risks.
But this sense of awareness is crucial in
learning to avoid problematic situations
online. As our findings suggest, when
children do feel capable of dealing with the
risk they are less fearful or worried by it.
From awareness to preventive measures
Awareness of online risks motivates children to
concentrate on how to avoid problematic situations
online, or prevent them from (re)occurring. This
brings us to the concept of preventive measures,
which is understood as what children actually do
or consider doing in order to avoid unpleasant or
problematic situations online.
As a result of an iterative process of comparing
literature-based categories of preventive strategies
with the children’s quotes, five main categories of
preventive measures could be identified:
 Problem-solving strategies: actions and
strategies to tackle the potential stressor, aimed
at finding an effective solution.
 Planning, reflecting, and strategising: critical
thoughs and reflections about how to prevent
(hypothetical) problems, deciding on the criteria
and circumstances according to which a situation
is problematic or not.
 Information seeking: increasing one’s
knowledge or skills about online security and
risky situations online. This includes gathering
information about a person or certain
applications.
 Support seeking: approaching others to obtain
advice or aid that should help prevent an incident
or problematic situation from happening.
 Fatalistic approach: accepting the situation as a
part of life, trivialising or generalising the

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situation. This includes tactics of cognitive
reframing and justification, and often results from
a failed attempt to avoid the situation.
Besides these five main categories, in a number of
interviews participants explicitly mentioned they did
not even try to take any preventive measure at all,
often due to a strong disbelief in the effectiveness or
usefulness of any kind of strategy.
Finally, in a substantial number of interviewers it was
not the participant but another person who is the
initiator of the preventive measures. Such comments
are treated separately, in an effort to distinguish
between children’s own initiatives on the one hand,
and actions imposed by others, most often their
parents or teachers, on the other.
Tailored strategies to solve potential
problematic situations online
Most preventive measures can be classified as
problem-solving strategies. More in-depth analysis of
this predominant category reveals three subtypes of
preventive measures aimed at solving the problem.
Figure 1: Types of problem-solving preventive
measures
 Instumental action: concrete actions or
behaviour to avoid a problematic situation from
happening. This often involves so-called
technical measures that require some level of
digital skills, for example changing settings,
installing filters or software.
 Self-monitoring: controlling or limiting one’s
online activities and disclosure of personal
information, for example only posting neutral,
non-intimate pictures or limiting online
communication to people one personally knows.
 Behavioral avoidance: (temporarily) staying
away from or disabling platforms or applications,
avoiding some online activities or actions. For
example not accepting friend requests, not
answering or ignoring online contacts.
We conclude that, depending on the type of
online problematic situation they are confronted
with, youngsters consider these three problem-
solving measures as appropriate remedial
actions.
Instrumental actions
 To avoid being bullied online, children prefer
instrumental actions such as deleting,
unfriending or blocking certain people.
Sometimes, bystanders of bullying use the report
button to prevent the bully from making more
victims.
 Boy (10-year-old, Greece): “When some stranger
sends me a friend request, I reject it, because I
don’t know him or her. Strangers may pretend
they are 10 years old, like I am, and intend to get
together to play. But it could be they are a lot
older, like 20, 30 or 40 years old.”
 Boy (9-year-old, Belgium): “We reported a girl.
She was a bully, so on the Ketnet website one
could report things; for example one could report
messages as ‘acts of bullying’. So we did this
with all her messages”.
Self-monitoring
 When confronted with the possibility of
personal data misuse and unwelcome contact
by strangers, children often turn to strategies
that focus on self-monitoring or on
(temporarily) limiting their online activities,
such as accepting friend requests only from
people they know personally or have seen at
least once.
 Young people often limit their online
communication to people who meet certain
criteria. For example, they only share pictures
with people whom they personally know, or
people from their school, town or neighbourhood.
 Girl (14-year-old, Belgium): “I look at for example
the place where the person lives…if I know that
the person lives in the same town, I would add

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him as a friend. But when I see that the person
lives in a different city, I won’t add him…because
I don’t really know the person. You can also look
at mutual friends. When my classmates or
friends are mutual Facebook-friends with this
person, then I add the person”.
 Girl (15-year-old, Czech Republic): “I only show
my online pictures to friends whom I’ve known for
a long time, or classmates from school, not to
everyone”.
Behavioral avoidance
 In situations of unpleasant sexual issues,
children do not perceive limiting their online
activities as useful. Unpleasant sexual content
or communication is being avoided by
turning away from the situation or making
sure one does not get involved.
 Measures such as scrolling further, clicking
away, or simply not taking sexy pictures nor
undressing oneself in front of the webcam are
frequently mentioned. Surprisingly, teenagers,
males and females alike, suggest it is up to the
girls to take responsibility for avoiding incidents
where sexy pictures are shared.
 Boy (16-year-old, Greece): “My news feed was
full of posts about a sexting incident. I could see
posts saying ‘look at her naked’. I was wondering
what happened and started scrolling down, and
found the picture further down. The girl might
have had 500 friends and there were 2000
comments on the photograph. People were
saying ‘we’ll kill the girl who took the photograph.
Isn’t she ashamed!’”
 Girls (15-year-old, Belgium): Girl 1: “My sister’s
friend showed me naked pictures from a
classmate, and I was like ‘ooooh’, I was totally
shocked! I didn’t know Jennifer would do such
things…” Girl 2: “Yeah, I was really shocked…”
Girl 3: “And then someone asked ‘why does
Jennifer make naked pictures from herself’, and
then a friend said ‘Yeah, Jennifer has no self-
respect at all’. And we thought they were best
friends…”
Conclusions
These results show that awareness about online
risks is crucial to motivate youngsters towards
preventive strategies. Although we distinguish
three types of preventive measures aimed at
solving online problems, we often see that young
people do not restrict themselves to just one
strategy to avoid unpleasant or problematic
experiences online.
These insights in young people’s preferred
preventive measures and combinations are
helpful for parents and teachers who play in
important role in guiding and supporting young
people in their explorations of the online world.
This short report presents early findings from the full
report on the focus groups and qualitative interviews
conduced by EU Kids Online in nine countries. The
full report will be published in May 2014.

www.eukidsonline.net 5
Further reports
 Barbosa, A., O'Neill, B., Ponte, C., Simões, J. &
Jereissati, J. (2013) Risks and safety on the
internet: Comparing Brazilian and European
findings (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/54801/)
 Barbovschi, M., Green, L. & Vandoninck, S. (2013)
Innovative approaches for investigating how young
children understand risk in new media: Dealing
with methodological and ethical challenges.
(http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/53060/)
 Holloway, D., Green, L. and Livingstone, S. (2013)
Zero to eight: Young children and their internet use
(http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/52630/)
 Helsper, E., Kalmus, V., Hasebrink, U., Sagvari, B.
& de Haan, J. (2013) Country classification.
Opportunities, risks, harm and parental mediation
(http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/52023/)
 Ólafsson,K., Livingstone,S. & Haddon, L. (2013)
How to research children and online technologies.
Frequently asked questions and best practice
(http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/50437/)
 Ólafsson, K., Livingstone, S. & Haddon, L. (2013)
Children's use of online technologies in Europe: A
review of the European evidence
database (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/50437/)
 Livingstone, S., Kirwil, L, Ponte, C. and Staksrud,
E., with the EU Kids Online Network (2013) In their
own words: What bothers children
online? (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/50228/)
 D’Haenens, L., Vandoninck, S., and Donoso, V.
(2013) How to cope and build online resilience?
(http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/48115/)
 Smahel, D., Helsper, E.J., Green, L., Kalmus, V.,
Blinka, L., and Ólafsson, K. (2012) Excessive
internet use among European children.
(http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/47344/)
 Haddon, L., Livingstone, S., and the EU Kids
Online network (2012.) EU Kids Online: National
perspectives. LSE, London: EU Kids Online.
(http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/46878/)
 Livingstone, S., Ólafsson, K., O’Neill, B. and
Donoso, V. (2012) Towards a better internet for
children (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/44213/)
 Dürager, A. and Livingstone, S. (2012) How can
parents support children’s internet safety?
(http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/42872)
 Livingstone, S., Haddon, L., Görzig, A. and
Ólafsson, K. (2011) EU Kids Online final report
(http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/39351/)
 O’Neill, B., Livingstone, S. and McLaughlin, S.
(2011) Final recommendations for policy,
methodology and research
(http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/39410/)
 Livingstone, S., Haddon, L., Görzig, A. and
Ólafsson, K. (2011) Risks and safety on the
internet: The perspective of European children: Full
findings (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/33731/)
 Görzig, A. (2011) Who bullies and who is bullied
online? A study of 9-16 year old internet users in
25 European countries
(http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/39601/)
 Livingstone, S., Haddon, L., Görzig, A. and
Ólafsson, K. (2011) Disadvantaged children and
online risk (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/39385/)
 Livingstone, S., Ólafsson, K. and Staksrud, E.
(2011) Social networking, age and privacy
(http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/35849/)
 Sonck, N., Livingstone, S., Kuiper, E. and de Haan,
J. (2011) Digital literacy and safety skills
(http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/33733/)
 Livingstone, S. and Ólafsson, K. (2011) Risky
communication online
(http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/33732/)
The EU Kids Online network has been funded by the
EC Safer Internet Programme in three successive
phases of work from 2006-14 to enhance knowledge
of children’s and parents’ experiences and practices
regarding risky and safer use of the internet and new
online technologies. For this report, David Smahel
acknowledges the support of the project
CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0184, which is co-financed by the
European Social Fund and the state budget of Czech
Republic.
As a major part of its activities, EU Kids Online
conducted a face-to-face, in home survey during 2010
of 25,000 9-16 year old internet users and their
parents in 25 countries, using a stratified random
sample and self-completion methods for sensitive
questions. Now including researchers and
stakeholders from 33 countries in Europe and beyond,
the network continues to analyse and update the
evidence base to inform policy. See
www.eukidsonline.net