Children and Digital Wellbeing in Australia: Online regulation, conduct and competence

Abstract

This article contributes to the study of children and the internet by reporting on findings from an ethnographic study of children's online use, experience and regulation in Melbourne, Australia. As part of a social inclusion study of technology use, we worked with children and their families in the contexts of everyday and home internet use. This article begins by identifying age-related gaps in the literature on children's online risks, and then moves on to a discussion of the research findings relating to children's online mediation, conduct and competence. By developing a concept of digital wellbeing the article argues that rather than focus only on risk protection measures, it is important to equip children with the knowledge and skills to be active, ethical and critical participants online.

Keywords:

• children
• cybersafety
• digital inclusion
• digital wellbeing
• digital media literacy
• internet use
• media regulation
• online conduct
• online content
• parental mediation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their appreciation to the families involved in this study for their generous contribution of time and experiences. This research project was conducted by the Jack Brockhoff Child Health and Wellbeing Program at The McCaughey Centre, the University of Melbourne in partnership with Department of Information Studies at the University of Melbourne, and The Alannah and Madeline Foundation. Funding for the project was provided by VicHealth, the Victorian public health promotion organization and the Institute for a Broadband Enabled Society.

Notes

^1. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines children as those between the ages of 0–18, while the Australian government understands “youth” to be between the ages of 15–24. For the purposes of this article, we refer to “children” as those below 12 years old, while “adolescents” refer to young people aged 12–19. Young people denote both children and adolescents.

^2. In Australia, the Australian Media and Communications Authority (ACMA) have developed a different vocabulary to classify these same risks. ACMA categorizes risks under three broad headings: content risks (inappropriate or illegal material); e-security risks (spam, viruses, fraud); and communication or behavioral risks (cyber-bullying, unwanted contact) (ACMA, 2008).

^3. In 2008 the Government committed $125.8 million over 4 years to a broad-based cybersafety plan to combat online risks and help parents and educators protect children from inappropriate material. http://www.dbcde.gov.au/online_safety_and_security/cybersafety_plan.

^4. ACMA is Australia's regulator for broadcasting, the internet and telecommunications. ACMA administers a number of functions, including: acting as a resource for information and reporting on internet content; developing and monitoring a code of practice for internet service provider industries; providing information to the community about online safety issues, especially those relating to children's use of the internet and mobile phones; undertaking research on ICT usage and cybersafety to inform the Department of Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy on trends; and liaising with relevant authorities on cyber-crime.

^5. See, http://www.thinkuknow.org.au/site/index.asp.

^6. See, http://www.staysmartonline.gov.au/home.

^7. See, http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/.

^8. The Alannah and Madeline Foundation is a child safety charity organization that has developed a Cybersafety and Wellbeing Initiative for Australian schools. See, http://www.amf.org.au/Cybersafety/.

^9. Pseudonyms have been used to protect participant anonymity.

^10. For example, the Australian Government is planning to implement ISP-level filtering in an attempt to enforce network-wide blocking of illegal or dangerous content that is “refused classification,” yet this is mainly directed at violent or sexual content (Department of Broadband, Communications & the Digital Economy, 2009). This plan has been heavily criticized for, among other reasons, the potential to filter-out lawful sites (e.g., euthanasia sites), or for the ease with which such URL-directed filtering could be circumvented (e.g., peer-to-peer networks).

^11. Instead, the ACMA endorses self-regulation through voluntary codes of conduct for online content and service provider industries.

^12. See, http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/aba/contentreg/codes/internet/documents/iia_code_2005.pdf.