Children's Media Lives

+ Children’s Media Lives 2020/21 A report for Ofcom CHILDREN’S MEDIA LIVES_WAVE 7 Contents Introduction Page 4 Summary of key findings Page 6 About this study Page 8 How were young people experiencing the UK’s third lockdown? Page 18 What was happening in children’s social lives? Page 28 What were children watching? Page 34 What was important to children when creating their online identities? Page 43 How were children promoting themselves online? Page 55 How were children engaging with the news? Page 65 How did children feel about spending more time online during lockdown? Page 70 Glossary Page 74 2 CHILDREN’S MEDIA LIVES_WAVE 7 Introduction One year of lockdowns and a global pandemic has resulted in everyone spending a lot more time at home and on their devices. This impact has been felt by all - and particularly by children who have now had several months of at-home learning. In this context, media activities have become an even more important part of children’s lives; allowing them to connect with peers, explore their interests, learn about the world and stay entertained from the confines of their homes. This is the seventh wave of the Children’s Media Lives study. This longitudinal study of children’s digital media use started in 2014. Since then, each year we’ve tracked the online behaviours and experiences of 18 children aged between eight and 18. Interviewing these children annually has allowed us to gain insight into how different factors affect children’s media use, including age, family, social life and society as a whole. Methodology This wave was completed in February of 2021, during the UK’s third national Covid-19 lockdown. The work followed on from Life in Lockdown 1, completed in the summer of 2020, which was a Covid-19-specific wave of the study that aimed to get an insight into the media lives of children during the initial period of the Covid-19 pandemic. Apart from this deep-dive report, the project has run once each year between 2014 and 2019. Due to the travel and distancing restrictions in place during the Covid-19 pandemic, all the interviews for wave 7 were, like those for Life in Lockdown, conducted remotely via a video-calling platform. We used new research methods this year to understand the children’s experience of using media during a pandemic. These new techniques provided us with more insight into their online lives than ever before. This phase included the following: An initial interview with each child and their parent. A media diary: Following their first interview, children kept a detailed diary over a two-week period, including a description of what they did each day. They also submitted six screen-recorded videos showing how they used their devices and giving tours around their favourite social media apps and influencers. Social media tracking: In addition to the material that the children recorded for us, we were able to follow them on social media over the same period; this allowed us to see how they acted online. Follow-up interviews: During the follow-up interviews, researchers were able to explore what the participants had uploaded and shared on their social media profiles, and cover specific topics of interest raised during the first interview. Revealing Reality has a strict ethics and safeguarding policy 2 in place to ensure, as much as possible, that taking part in research is a positive experience for children and that they are not placed under any undue risk, stress 1 Life in Lockdown 2 See Annex 5 to review Revealing Reality’s Ethics and Safeguarding Policy 3 CHILDREN’S MEDIA LIVES_WAVE 7 or discomfort during the project. This policy is reviewed regularly to ensure that it is in line with all industry standards, including the Market Research Society and the Government Social Research Service. Warning: this report contains some words and imagery which may cause offence. 4 CHILDREN’S MEDIA LIVES_WAVE 7 Summary of key findings Most children lacked routine and structure, and as a result were spending long periods of time online • Children experienced a lack of structure and routine: o access to technology and different home circumstances meant that it was harder for some children than for others to engage with schoolwork. • Many participants were spending long periods of time online: o smartphones and gaming consoles were the most popular devices; o TikTok continued to be a dominant social media platform; o for most of the boys, gaming was their primary activity; o many children in the study were ‘binge-watching’ shows; and o multi-screening was part of everyday life. Social circles were shrinking, and online friendships were more normalised than in previous waves • A lot of the children were talking to fewer people, and doing so less often: o maintaining friendships during the pandemic was seen to be harder; o some children’s social lives were limited by the platforms they used; and o it was more common to have ‘online-only friends’. Some children in the study were watching content online in continuous ‘binges’ • All the children remained disengaged from live television, watching on-demand content instead: o most children binge-watched shows; o some re-visited shows they had already watched; and o for some children, anime had become more popular than in previous waves. • Several children sought content from people they felt they could relate to, even if their lifestyles or appearance differed from their own. For most of the children, ‘how you look’ was central to creating their online identity • Almost all of the children in the study reported that that there was pressure to look good online. • A majority of the children, across all ages, used filters and editing apps to alter their appearance: o for some of the teenage girls, there was an expectation that female friends would share positive affirmation underneath each other’s photos. • Copycatting content remained common across multiple social media platforms. • Both boys and girls in the study were following and seeing content that focused on fitness and body sculpting: o the interest in body-conscious exercise seen among the teenage girls in Life in Lockdown was also evident among boys in this more recent wave. 5 CHILDREN’S MEDIA LIVES_WAVE 7 Across the sample, children of all ages were continuing to seek opportunities for self-promotion online and were increasingly aware that this could be monetised • #Makemefamous: online attention remained a precious commodity. • Several children were using new strategies to promote their posts without necessarily understanding how these worked. • A number of children thought that broadcasting their social drama online would gain them attention. • Some understood that online attention could make them money. • Some children were streaming 3 to capture online attention - and potentially money. • A few children were connecting with streamers ‘to feel part of the action’. Children remained disengaged from major news sources, and most were passively consuming news via social media • After a brief surge in interest at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, nearly all the participants had reverted to being disengaged with major news sources, as seen in summer 2019. • Most news was passively consumed through social media – although some children had begun to share content themselves. • Most children in the study did not tend to think about whether the news they saw online was accurate and had limited methods for assessing this, beyond a few ‘rules of thumb’. Many children felt that living life online was a poor substitute for offline activities, and reported lower wellbeing during lockdown than previously • Despite spending time socialising and being entertained online, many children felt lonely or pessimistic about their situation. 3 Streaming refers to the sharing of live video content with a public audience. See page 60 of this report for more detailed definition. 6 CHILDREN’S MEDIA LIVES_WAVE 7 About this study The Children’s Media Lives study was set up in 2014 to provide a small-scale, rich and detailed qualitative complement to Ofcom’s quantitative surveys of media literacy. Ofcom has a statutory duty under The Communications Act 2003 to promote and to carry out research in media literacy across the UK. Ofcom’s definition of media literacy is: “the ability to use, understand and create media and communications in a variety of contexts”. The report forms part of our wider programme of work, Making Sense of Media, which aims to help improve the online skills, knowledge and understanding of UK adults and children. We do this through cutting-edge research, and by bringing together organisations and individuals with expertise in media literacy, to share ideas and to support their activities. To find out more about our Making Sense of Media programme and for details on how to join our network, please go to https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/media-literacy-research. The Children’s Media Lives project follows, as far as possible, the same 18 children, aged eight to 18, conducting filmed interviews each year to learn about their media habits and attitudes. It provides evidence about the motivations and the context for media use, and how media is a part of daily life and domestic circumstances. The project also provides rich details of how children’s media habits and attitudes change over time, particularly in the context of their emotional and cognitive development. This document provides analysis of the findings from the seventh wave of the study, and any changes or nuances we have seen since Life in Lockdown. Setting the context for this year This study took place during the UK’s third national lockdown between January 2021 and March 2021.

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