Insights into children’s digital use

In this wave, children reported spending 4.4 hours online per weekend day, and 3.4 hours per week day. However, parents estimated 3.6 and 2.4 hours respectively. This shows an underestimate of around 1 hour.

Priority online harms include exposure to:

• material that promotes self-harm;
• pornography;
• bullying;
• certain types of hate speech.

Our tracker aligns to these harms. The survey found that parents underestimate their child’s exposure to online harms.

For example, 21% of children report being contacted by strangers online (32% of 15-16-year-olds). However, only 8% of parents said their child experienced this.

Only a quarter of children who experienced an online harm said they reported it to the platform. Additionally, of the children who reported an issue, 25% felt unhappy or unsure about their feelings of the outcome.