Nicki Lyons, Chief Corporate Affairs & Sustainability Officer, Vodafone UK
Doorbells, games, home assistants, TVs. More and more items in our home are connecting to the internet, making busy households run more smoothly and offering parents and children at-home access to entertainment and education. But how do we keep children safe when accessing the internet through an ever-growing body of devices? Parents have a responsibility, but they cannot do it alone.
We recently surveyed UK parents and carers and they revealed that 85% of children access online platforms every day. Interestingly, the majority of parents (60%) believe it is primarily their responsibility to keep children safe online, more so than social media companies or government. However, we all know how busy modern lives are, especially when juggling work and raising children; one in five parents tell us they don’t always have time to monitor what children are doing online.
While many devices come with filters that parents can apply to restrict the content children access, each control is specific to a website and often changes, meaning parents must keep on top of several different settings. Only one in ten are fully confident with navigating these features.
Many parents feel ill-equipped to keep up with the fast-moving online world. Over half (59%) wish they were more digitally savvy. In fact, we found that 71% claim their children use technological terms they don’t understand, and 12 is the average age they feel that their children’s digital knowledge overtakes their own.
Parents shouldn’t have to figure this out by themselves. As a mum myself, I understand how busy life can get. While they tell us they feel it is their responsibility to keep children safe, parents need guidance from the experts.
The Online Safety Bill is currently making its way through the House of Lords and is set to make social media companies more responsible for users’ safety as part of new laws to protect children and adults online. But we cannot expect legislation to solve everything, particularly when the degree of accountability to be placed on social media companies remains unclear.
What we need is everyone with an influence over the online world to step up and equip households with the skills they need to thrive in a digital world. As a telco provider, we have some part to play. That’s why Vodafone has launched its Digital Parenting Pro resource in collaboration with digital wellness organisation Digital Awareness UK. We want to equip parents with skills to maximise the opportunities and minimise the risk of their children’s time online, so we’ve created one of the biggest safety settings tools in the UK. With tips from NSPCC experts, it provides information about a range of apps, games and devices, in one easy-to-access resource. It follows a decade of Vodafone supporting parents – by creating learning resources, working with Digital Awareness UK to reach parents, carers and teachers across the country and supporting Childnet to raise awareness of Safer Internet Day on 7th February.
We shouldn’t forget that 1.7 million UK households still don’t access the internet at all. We believe that everyone has a right to connectivity and the skills to operate in a digital world, which is why we donated 1 million connections last year and pledged to help a total of four million cross the digital divide by 2025.
But when families gain access to the internet, they need guidance on how to safely maximise its benefits. It’s brilliant that schools are teaching children digital skills; they are growing up in a tech-first world with a range of career, social and education opportunities at their fingertips. But parents need similar coaching. No-one should be left behind on the UK’s digital journey and children must be able to safely enjoy the benefits of being online.
Nicki Lyons is chief corporate affairs & sustainability officer, Vodafone UK
