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Making children safer online

Researchers are making it safer for children to use the Internet for educational purposes.
  1. Dalmeet Singh Chawla

    1. Dalmeet Singh Chawla is a freelance science journalist based in London.

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Children between the ages of 5 and 16 typically spend more than six hours a day in front of a screen. That rises to around eight hours for teenage boys, according to a 2015 report1 from the UK-based market-research agency Childwise. But spending so long online may impair their ability to recognize emotions2 and could expose them to cyberbullying and sexual exploitation.

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Nature 562, S15-S16 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-06848-6

This article is part of Nature Outlook: Science and technology education, an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content.

References

  1. Connected Kids: How the Internet Affects Children’s Lives Now and Into the Future (Childwise, 2015).

  2. Uhls, Y. T. et al. Comput. Hum. Behav. 39, 387–392 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. American Academy of Pediatrics Pediatrics 132, 958–961 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Outsmart the Cyber Pandemic (DQ Institute, 2018).

  5. Livingstone, S., Davidson, J., Bryce, J. & Batool, S. Children’s Online Activities, Risks and Safety (London School of Economics, 2017).

    Google Scholar 

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