New Report – Boys in the Digital Wild
Historically there hasn’t been too much about the impact of the online world for boys specifically, but Common Sense Media have recently released their newest report called Boys in the Digital Wild: Online Culture, Identity and Well-Being. The study was carried out with over 1,000 boys aged 11 – 17, It’s quite a big report at 84 pages, but there are lots of fact/stats within the Key Findings section which will give you lots of useful information, for example:
- Nearly three quarters of boys regularly encounter masculinity-related content with just under a quarter experiencing high levels of exposure.
- Over two thirds encounter problematic gender stereotypes, e.g. that girls only want to date certain types of males, that girls use their looks to get what they want and that boys are treated unfairly compared to girls.
- Boys with heavy digital masculinity exposure have more negative self-esteem, with some boys feeling useless or that they’re no good.
- The primary driver of masculinity content is algorithms. Most boys didn’t search out this content, it just started appearing in their feeds.
Report link: Common Sense Media – Boys in the Digital Wild.
Social Media Ban – Half of Parents Would Ignore
As the consultations, arguments and debates continue at pace around the world around the banning of under 16’s from social media, here in the UK a new report has come out from Public First which states that around half of parents would still allow their children to access social apps even new legislation was to come out. In summary:
- Although 64% of parents support new restrictions, 50% would still allow their under-16 to use social media.
- Parents are concerned about the ease of workarounds such as VPN’s (which the government are also considering banning) or movement away to other unregulated apps.
- Many parents prefer alternate restrictions such as time restrictions and mandatory parental consent when setting up an app.
Article link: Half of parents would ignore under-16’s social media ban.
Child Sexual Abuse is Soaring (NCA)
The National Crime Agency has reported that child sexual abuse is soaring. Specifically here in the UK police are arresting around 1,000 suspects each month with the number of children being rescued from harm has risen by 50% in the last five years. I know through my work with the Paedophile Online Investigation Team the number of referrals is increasing significantly, keeping up with these referrals is almost impossible and if you consider that each highly complex investigation takes approximately 2 years from arrest to court you can see this is an enormous issue.
Most contact initially happens via gaming or social media platforms, so you can understand why people are calling for more scrutiny on social platforms. But if the mainstream platforms are banned (as per Australia) then many children and young people will simply move over to other unregulated platforms, thereby increasing the risk significantly. Not only that, for every ban, for every new feature adopted within an app such as age estimation, offenders find a way around these. The only thing that truly works is the education and awareness for staff, parents/carers and, most importantly, the children themselves.
Article link: Police arresting 1,000 peadophile suspects a month across the UK.
For Parents – Tips for Raising Digitally Resilient Children
Every parent knows how difficult it is to monitor their children whilst they’re online. It can be difficult asking children what they’re seeing, their motives, healthy screen habits and more.
Written by a clinical psychologies, BBC Bitesize have released some new advice and support for parents. Although aimed at parents of teenagers, I think this would be useful for any parent. Additionally there are resources called Solve the Story which would work well in the classroom.
Article and resources: Screen time and resilience: a psychologist’s guide.
