The Latvian run Ask.Fm web-site has always had a very bad reputation.
With more than 40 million users worldwide the site is quite popular particularly with gullible and vulnerable young people. While most share questions and answers about pop groups, cyber bullies populate it for a different but sinister reason: bullying.
Unlike sites such as Facebook and Twitter, it has no privacy settings and consequently it becomes a bully paradise. People working with young people in Malta will tell you the harm Maltese youth come too thanks-but-no-thanks to this website.
In past days the notoriety of the site shot up in after the death by suicide of teenager Hannah Smith/ She couldn’t any longer take the bullying she was being subjected to. Ask.FM has, till this day, been connected with at least six known suicides.
This raises a very important issue; parenting mediation of children’s online risk. The pan-European research project, Kids Online III has just published a report on the subject.
The EU Kids Online project aims to enhance knowledge of European children’s and parents’ experiences and practices regarding risky and safer use of the internet and new online technologies, and thereby to inform the promotion of a safer online environment for children. The project is funded by the EC Safer Internet Programme (SI-2010-TN-4201001).EU Kids Online had conducted a face-to-face, in-home survey among 25,000 9-16 year-old internet users and their parents in 25 countries, using a stratified random sample and self-completion methods in the case of sensitive questions.
The report just published is titled “Country Classification: Opportunities, Risks , Harm and Parental Mediation.” It updates and deepens the understanding of cross-national differences among the countries surveyed in EU Kids Online.
The research just published on children’s online risk and parenting practices across Europe reveals a potentially negative pattern developing in some countries that either limit children’s engagement or do not prevent risk of harm.
In Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and the UK, - the protected by restrictions countries - parents tend to overprotect their children, significantly reducing their online opportunities. In Austria, Hungary, Lithuania, and Slovenia – the unsupported networkers countries - children engage more intensely but most parents are not involved in their children’s internet use. Children in other countries encounter risks but have parents who are more active in mediating their internet use.
Researchers are concerned that both too much parental restriction and the lack of support for children’s online use might lead to higher levels of harm when risk is encountered.
Clusters of countries where children encounter higher levels of risk are most clearly distinguished in terms of sexual content risks. Children who are bullied or who give away personal data are more uniformly distributed across country clusters.
European countries divided into four groups
Researchers have found that European countries divide into four main groups, based on children’s risk profiles:
• Supported risky explorers (Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden)
This cluster has more children who are experienced social networkers. They encounter more sexual risks online and their parents are more actively involved in guiding their children’s internet use.
• Semi-supported risky gamers (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, and Romania)
In these countries, children encounter only moderate online opportunities, mainly focused on entertainment, especially games. Yet they still experience relatively high levels of risk and harm: some encounter a specific risk, others a range of risks.
• Protected by restrictions (Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and the UK)
Children’s online experiences in this cluster of countries is characterised by relatively low levels of risk probably because internet use is also more limited, largely restricted to practical activities. While parents might be glad that their restrictive mediation practices prevent risk, it does seem that they may miss out on many of the online opportunities
• Unprotected networkers (Austria, Hungary, Lithuania, and Slovenia)
Finally, there is a cluster of countries where children’s experiences are fairly narrow but potentially problematic since parents are not involved in their children’s use: web 2.0 opportunities are intensely taken up and the children encounter related risks but not as much harm, other opportunities are less likely to be taken up.
This research shows the wisdom of the Maltese idiomatic expression of “jew nejja jew maqruqa”. Both extremes are bad. Parents are duty bound with mediating their children’s use of the internet without stifling their creativity or curbing its positive potential. On the other hand, parents who are totally or almost totally absent from their children’s internet use are letting their children facing on their own the risks that one encounters during internet use.
Parental mediation should shun both extremes.
PS: the full report can be accessed from http://www.eukidsonline.net/EU Kids III/Classification