EU Kids Online I + II

Children’s use of new media formed the core of this project proposal (EU Kids Online I), which was accepted at the beginning of 2006 by the European Commission in the context of the Safer Internet Plus Programme. This is an international networking initiative, which brings together the available data from across Europe on children’s use of media, makes it available to internationally cooperating partners and identifies research needs on this basis.

Institutions from 21 countries in all participated in the project group. Prof. Dr. Sonia Livingstone and Dr. Leslie Haddon from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) coordinated the network.

The entire project divided up into various priority topics, which concerned, among other things, data access, questions of methodology, the demands of internationally comparative research etc. In the last analysis, recommendations for action in future research projects and measures for dealing safely with the Internet and other online services were to be worked out on this basis. The results of the three-year project, which were presented in London on 10 June 2009, provide an overview on the status of available data, as well as on the urgent need for research and action.

One research gap will be closed with the follow-up project EU Kids Online II, in the course of which the conduct of an internationally comparative and representative survey on the risks of online usage in over 20 countries is planned. It is planned to interview children and adolescents between the age of 6 and 17 as well as their parents. The Hans Bredow Institute will coordinate the data analysis.

First results of the overall project were be presented in the context of the Safer Internet Forum in Luxemburg in 2010 as well as at the conference “Growing up in Digital Society: Internet and Value-Orientation in Germany and Europe” (event by the State Centre for Media and Communication Rhineland-Palatinate and the Hans Bredow Institute) in Berlin on 7 December 2010.

Further information is also available at www.eukidsonline.net.