Predictors of children’s and young people’s digital engagement in informational, communication, and entertainment activities: findings from ten European countries

ABSTRACT

Through a re-analysis of survey data collected with a sample of 9,731 youth aged 11–17 from 10 European countries, the article explores how some of the most popular online activities for children and young people (i.e., informational, social, and entertainment activities) relate to different types of perceived digital skills, as well as individual and social characteristics (such as age, gender, emotional problems, sensation seeking, parental mediation, and family environment). Furthermore, this paper looks at the moderating role of the family environment between enabling parental mediation and online activities. Using multi-group structural equation modeling we found that emotional problems, perceived informational and social digital skills, and enabling parental mediation were associated with informational online activities; sensation seeking, perceived informational digital skills, and enabling and restrictive parental mediation were associated with social online activities; and restrictive parental mediation was associated with entertainment online activities. Implications of these findings for educators, policy-makers, and parents are outlined, as well as limitations and future directions.

Impact summary

• Prior State of Knowledge: When going online, children and young people more commonly engage in informational, communication, and social activities. While different online activities may promote different positive outcomes, variables like digital skills, individual and social characteristics make a difference in what they do.

• Novel Contributions: We found that perceived informational digital skills was the most consistent predictor of all kinds of online activities, followed by enabling parental mediation positively predicting engagement in informational and social activities and restrictive mediation negatively predicting social and entertainment activities.

• Practical Implications: Findings are informative for policy-makers and educators to promote curricula fostering informational digital skills, predicting engagement in all kinds of activities, and parents to adopt an enabling mediation style allowing children to undertake a more diverse range of online activities.

KEYWORDS:

• Online activities
• digital skills
• parental mediation
• emotional problems
• sensation seeking

Acknowledgments

This paper is part of the ySKILLS project, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation programme under Grant Agreement no. 870612.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2022.2123013

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Horizon 2020 [870612].

Notes on contributors

Davide Cino

Davide Cino, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Communication and Performing Arts, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. He is currently working on the Horizon 2020 ySKILLS and CO:RE projects. His main research interests concern children’s online presence, digital skills, and digital parenting, which he studies employing different methodologies and through an interdisciplinary lens.

David Lacko

David Lacko is a member of the Interdisciplinary Research Team on Internet and Society (IRTIS) at Masaryk University. His research interests include cross-cultural research of cognition and perception, psychometrics and advanced statistical methods, intergroup contact research, and videogames research.

Giovanna Mascheroni

Giovanna Mascheroni, PhD, is a sociologist of digital media, and Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Performing Arts, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. She is the leader of WP6 in the H2020 project ySKILLS, and of DataChildFutures, a national project investigating the data practices of Italian families with young children. Her work focuses on the social consequences of digital media, datafication fand AI or children and young people.

David Šmahel

David Šmahel Ph.D. is the Professor at the Faculty of Social Studies and Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. He leads the Interdisciplinary Research Team on Internet and Society (irtis.muni.cz), which researches the social-psychological implications of the internet and technology. His current research focuses on the impact of digital technology on well-being, online risks, and human-computer interaction. He is editor of Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace (www.cyberpsychology.eu).