Research pilots for understanding children's online experiences
Ofcom has a long track record in developing evidence-based policy using Research and Intelligence. Our flagship research including our qualitative and quantitative research into Children’s Media Literacy and Children’s Media Lives provide a strong foundation from which to understand what children do online and what they experience. This research, along with surveys such as our Online Experience Tracker (OET) among those aged 13+, and our ad-hoc research programme, provide valuable evidence.
However, there remain some parts of children’s experiences that are harder to measure, for example given ethical and safeguarding considerations.
As such, Ofcom piloted different methodologies designed to measure children’s exposure to potential harm in different ways – an age-appropriate version of the OET administered through schools with children as young as 6 and the use of fictional ‘avatar’ accounts based on real children run on platforms to see what content they are served. Last year, Ofcom's Behavioural Insights team trialled a serious game as an approach to making children safer online, with promising results.
The learnings from these pilots help us to understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of these different approaches and confirm that, used carefully, and designed appropriately, these approaches could be valuable tools to use alongside our existing research and intelligence gathering.