Foundation for Internet Development Lomonosov Moscow State University, Department of Psychology Russian Kids Online Key findings of the EU Kids Online II survey in Russia Galina Soldatova, Elena Rasskazova, Ekaterina Zotova, Maria Lebesheva, Marina Geer and Polina Roggendorf 1 The authors would like to express gratitude for all the help in the process of conducting the survey, for consulting and support during data analysis Prof. Dr. Sonia Livingstone, Dr. Leslie Haddon, Dr. Brian O’Neill, Prof. Dr. Uwe Hasebrink, as well as the entire united and experienced team of the EU Kids Online II project. We are also very grateful to the whole Russian team for their help during the survey in Russian regions: Tatiana Yanicheva (Saint-Petersburg University), Olga Uvarovskaya (Syktyvkar State University), Svetlana Kasimova (Vyatsky State University), Margarita Pavlova (Saratov Institute for Continued Education and further training), Tatiana Skripkina amd Tatiana Scherbakova (Rostov State University), Andrei Shatin and Alexander Vokhmintsev (Chelyabinsk State University), Mikhail Ivanov (Kemerovsky State University), Elmira Isaeva (Dagestan State University), and Elvira Vandanova (Chita State University). 2 CONTENTS KEY FINDINGS ........................................................................................................................... 5 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 12 2. USAGE OF THE INTERNET ................................................................................................. 20 One on one with the internet: uncontrolled usage. ....................................................................... 20 2.1. Where children use the internet ............................................................................................. 20 2.2. How children access the internet ........................................................................................... 23 2.3. How much children use the internet ...................................................................................... 27 2.3.1. Internet acceleration: the age at which children first use the internet is dropping ............. 27 2.3.2. The frequency of going online and the time spent online are increasing ........................... 29 2.4. Digital literacy ....................................................................................................................... 33 2.5. Excessive use of the internet ................................................................................................. 37 2.6. Parental use of the internet .................................................................................................... 42 3. ACTIVITIES ............................................................................................................................ 45 3.1. Range of children's online activities ..................................................................................... 45 3.2. Perceived quality of online content ....................................................................................... 48 3.3. Children's use of SNSs .......................................................................................................... 50 3.4. Nature of children’s SNS contacts......................................................................................... 52 3.5. Use of SNS privacy settings .................................................................................................. 54 3.6. Children's approach to online communication ...................................................................... 57 4. RISK AND HARM .................................................................................................................. 63 4.1. Risk and harm ........................................................................................................................ 63 4.2. Parental awareness ................................................................................................................. 69 5. SEEING SEXUAL IMAGES ................................................................................................... 72 5.1. Where children have seen sexual images online ................................................................... 72 5.2. How children have seen sexual images online ...................................................................... 76 5.3. Children’s and parents’ accounts compared .......................................................................... 80 5.4. Perceived harm from sexual images online ........................................................................... 84 5.5. Coping with sexual images on the internet ............................................................................ 89 6. BULLYING .............................................................................................................................. 95 6.1 How often children are bullied ............................................................................................... 95 6.2 In what ways children are bullied online .............................................................................. 100 3 6.3 When/how children bully others .......................................................................................... 103 6.4 Children’s and parents’ accounts compared ......................................................................... 107 6.5 Perceived harm from being bullied online ........................................................................... 112 6.6 Coping with being bullied online ......................................................................................... 114 7. SENDING/RECEIVING SEXUAL MESSAGES ................................................................. 119 7.1. Exchanging sexual messages: victims or perpetrators? ....................................................... 119 7.2. Parental awareness ............................................................................................................... 125 7.3. Perceived harm from sexual messaging online ................................................................... 130 7.4. Coping with online sexting .................................................................................................. 134 8. MEETING NEW PEOPLE .................................................................................................... 140 8.1. Frequency of meeting online contacts offline ..................................................................... 140 8.2. Parental awareness ............................................................................................................... 146 8.3. Perceived harm from meeting online contacts .................................................................... 150 8.4. Coping with meeting online contacts offline ....................................................................... 157 9. OTHER RISK FACTORS ...................................................................................................... 164 9.1. Sites with hate messages or sites that can potentially harm children's physical wellbeing . 164 9.2. Have you been cheated on the internet? .............................................................................. 167 9.3. Parental awareness ............................................................................................................... 170 10. MEDIATION ....................................................................................................................... 173 10.1. Parents ............................................................................................................................... 173 10.1.1. Active mediation of the internet use ............................................................................... 174 10.1.2. Parent’s active mediation of the child’s internet safety .................................................. 178 10.1.3. Parents’ rules and restrictions ......................................................................................... 182 10.1.3.1. Restrictive mediation ................................................................................................... 182 10.1.3.2. Monitoring ................................................................................................................... 187 10.1.3.3. “Technical” mediation ................................................................................................. 191 10.2. Judging parental mediation: does parental mediation work? ............................................ 196 10.3. Teachers ............................................................................................................................. 211 10.4. Friends and peers ............................................................................................................... 216 10.5. Parent, teacher and peer mediation compared ................................................................... 220 10.6. Sources of safety awareness .............................................................................................. 223 CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................................ 229 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................... 233 4 About every fifth Russian child tries to limit