This article empirically examines if parents apply new types of mediation for the internet, using data from the Dutch EU Kids Online project. The high internet penetration in the Netherlands makes this study especially relevant because almost all parents and children use the internet. Factor analyses applied to reports by parents and children (aged 9-16) revealed four mediation types that are comparable for both groups: active safety mediation, restrictive content mediation, restrictive technical mediation, and monitoring. Demographics (age, gender, education, family size), measures of internet usage, and parental views towards internet use were analysed as determinants of the parental mediation types. Parents monitored younger children in particular, more often actively mediated girls and more often restricted children's internet use in larger families. The use of virtually all mediation types was related to children's diversity in internet use and the parents' view on the benefits of their involvement.

No abstract

Not all children who use the internet will experience harm from the online risks they encounter. One of the factors that might moderate the relationship between risk and harm is children's internet skills. As there has been little research on this topic, this article examines the influence of internet skills on the prevalence of online risks and the degree to which 11-to 16-year-olds experience being harmed by these risks, using data from the EU Kids Online project. The findings suggest that, whilst older children (aged 13 -16) are exposed to more online risks, younger children (11 -12) report more often being harmed by these risks. After controlling for differences between children due to demographics and internet experience, as well as country differences (using multilevel analysis), the findings reveal that children with more self-reported internet skills experience more risks online. Such skills do not seem to contribute much to differences in being harmed by online risks. KEYWORDS digital skills; online risks; harm; children; internet experience; multilevel analysis Most European teenagers have access to the internet and use it regularly for various activities, such as schoolwork, entertainment, information-seeking, and communication (Hasebrink, Livingstone, Haddon, & O ´lafsson, 2009). Young people today are taking their first steps into the virtual world at an ever younger age, which generally leads to positive educational experiences, but children using the internet might also be exposed to risks, which can sometimes produce harm. For example, children can easily get to know new people online, with whom they may subsequently arrange a personal meeting offline. Not all these meetings will go wrong, but they do carry the chance (i.e. risk) that something might happen, which children may experience negatively (i.e. being harmed).By acquiring and improving skills, children could learn to avoid negative consequences from using the internet. As part of the broader concept of digital literacy (see Sonck, Kuiper, & de Haan, 2012), internet skills are multifaceted. They encompass several dimensions related to the technology of computers and the internet, as well as to the use and evaluation of information online (Gui & Argentin, 2011;Steyaert, 2000; van Deursen, 2010). Additionally, internet skills contain a social component relating to online safety in interpersonal communication, and a creative component relating to production knowledge and abilities (De Haan, Kuiper, & Pijpers, 2010). Previous studies have shown that digital skills are unevenly distributed not only amongst the general public, but also amongst young people who have grown up with the technology, and who are generally considered as highly skilled (

No abstract

No abstract