40,000 pupils took part in this year's LGfL DigiSafe pupil online-safety survey about their online lives. We found out what they love and what they hate, what really goes on behind closed screens, and who they trust when things go wrong. Discover what we learned and what it means for schools, parents, industry and government in our new report, 'Hopes & Streams'.

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Most social media platforms have a minimum age limit of
13, but research shows a growing number of children
aged under 13 are using social media, with 3 in 4 children
aged 10-12 having their own accounts.
While much is known about how teenagers use social
media, this research provides the missing piece to the
story, exploring the social media lives of children before
they reach the teenage years. In October and November
2017, we conducted 8 focus groups with 32 children
aged 8-12 to understand the impact of social media on
the wellbeing of this age group.

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Professionals Guidance Digital Romance
Digital Romance was led by researchers Dr Ester McGeeney (Brook) and Dr Elly Hanson (NCA-CEOP), the research took place between January and May 2017 and used a mixed methods approach involving an online survey, in person focus groups and one-to-one interviews.

The project was motivated by the desire to evolve online safety education by providing an in-depth insight into young people’s views and experiences. The project was influenced by US research conducted by the PEW Research Centre (Lenhart, Smith & Anderson, 2015) that explored the digital romantic practices of young Americans. Arguably, up until now, much of the focus of online safety work has been narrow – exploring the risks of online communication such as the unsafe sharing of personal details, the loss of control of material (especially images), and the facilitation of abusive and bullying behaviours. At times this approach has been at the expense of acknowledging the positive role of digital technology in young people’s lives and the complicated ways in which young people experience and negotiate risk.

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A report from the Children's Commissioner's Growing Up Digital Taskforce.

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Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes, provides detailed insight into media use, attitudes and understanding among UK adults aged 16 and over. It covers TV, radio, mobile, games and the internet and can be found here.

Findings include:

• a considerable rise (10 percentage points over a year to 16%) in the proportion of adults who only use smartphones or tablets to go online, rather than a PC or laptop. This indicates that these devices are not just supplementing PCs and laptops, but are starting to replace them;

• a sizeable increase (11 percentage points over a year to 42%) in the proportion of internet users who say they only use websites or apps that they’ve used before. This trend, which is particularly prominent in over 25s, points to a narrowing use of the internet, with people focusing on content and apps that they use regularly;

• seven in ten adults now use a smartphone, the device most used for accessing social media and the preferred device for the majority of online activities. Mobile phones have become the media device people would miss most, overtaking the television set; and

• half of adults (51%) that use search engines are not aware that the top items on many results pages are adverts or sponsored links, indicating there is a need for people to be more aware or savvy about the content they are accessing online.

Access the report here

This report examines children’s media literacy. It provides detailed evidence on media use, attitudes and understanding among children and young people aged 5-15, as well as
detailed information about the media access and use of young children aged 3-4.

The report also includes findings relating to parents’ views about their children’s media use, and the ways that parents seek – or decide not – to monitor or limit use of different types of media.

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