Our tracker survey is conducted twice per year with a sample of 1000 children aged 9-16 and 2000 parents.
This survey helps us analyse trends over time and compare responses by child’s age, gender, vulnerabilities and more. It also enables us to analyse differences in what parents and children report.
Children spend a significant amount of time online: nearly 4 hours on weekdays and nearly 5 hours each weekend day. That means that in a typical week, children are spending more than one complete day online.
Parents underestimate how much time children spend online by around one hour.
Parents are particularly concerned about:
Many of the risks that parents are concerned about fall into the category of “legal but harmful”, suggesting the continued importance of this aspect of the Online Safety Bill.
Children are much more unsure about how to distinguish between what is true and false online than parents think they are.
The gap between children’s responses on the one hand and parents’ responses on the other shows that there is still more to do to educate parents about children’s online lives.
See related advice and practical tips to support children online: