No abstract

In this article we reflect critically on the research agenda on children's internet use, framing our analysis using Wellman's three ages of internet studies, and taking as our case study the three phases of research by the EU Kids Online network from 2006-14. Following the heyday of moral panics, risk discourses and censorious policy-making that led to the European Commission's first Internet Action Plan 1999-2002, EU Kids Online focused on conceptual clarification, evidence review and debunking of myths, illustrating the value of systematic documentation and mapping, and grounding academic, public and policy-makers' understanding of 'the internet' in children's lives. Consonant with Wellman's third age which emphases analysis and contextualization, the EU Kids Online model of children's online risks and opportunities helps shift the agenda from how children engage with the internet as a medium to how they engage with the world mediated by the internet.

Kjartan Ólafsson is a lecturer at the University of Akureyri where he teaches research 2 methods and quantitative data analysis. He is also a visiting researcher at the Masaryk University in Brno. He has extensive experience in survey research and has played a key role in the design and implementation of a number of cross national research projects on children's media use. Amongst these are the 2010 EU Kids Online study, which has been a landmark project in the field of media studies in Europe, and the Net Children Go Mobile survey. AbstractBased on data collected through the Net Children Go Mobile survey of approximately 3,500 respondents aged 9-16 in seven European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania and the UK), this article examines the diffusion of smartphones among children, and contributes to existing research on mobile digital divides by investigating what influences the adoption of smartphones among children, and whether going online from a smartphone is associated with specific usage patterns, thus bridging or widening usage gaps. The findings suggest the resilience of digital inequalities among children, showing how social inequalities intersect with divides in access and result in disparities in online activities, with children who benefit from a greater autonomy of use and a longer online experience also reaching the top of the ladder of opportunities.

This paper examines how children aged 11-16 in three European countries (Italy, UK and Spain) develop and present their online identities, and their interactions with peers. It focuses on young people’s engagement with the construction of an online identity on social media through pictures, and explores how peer-mediated conventions of self-presentation are appropriated, legitimated, or resisted in pre-teens’ and teenagers’ discourses. In doing so, we draw on Goffman’s (1959) work on the presentation of self and “impression management” to frame our analysis. Mobile communication and social network sites serve an important role in the process of self-presentation and emancipation, providing “full-time” access to peers and peer culture. Our findings suggest that there are gender differences and the presence of sexual double standards in peer normative discourses. Girls are positioned as being more subjected to peer mediation and pressure. Boys blame girls for posing sexy in photos, and negatively sanction this behaviour as being aimed at increasing one’s popularity online or as an indicator of “a certain type of girl.” However, girls who post provocative photos chose to conform to a sexualised stereotype as a means of being socially accepted by peers. Moreover, they identify with the pressure to always look “perfect” in their online pictures. While cross-national variations do exist, this sexual double standard is observed in all three countries. These insights into current behaviours could be further developed to determine policy guidance for supporting young people as they learn to manage image laden social media.

No abstract