Children and Internet use: A comparative analysis of Brazil and seven European countries (original) (raw)

The present crosscountry report focuses on the Internet access and use reported by 9-to 16-year-olds in the ICT Kids Online Brazil survey and in seven European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania and the UK) as part of the project Net Children Go Mobile. Conducted between 2013 and 2014, the surveys adopted questions that were quite similar, allowing for comparison of the results. The Brazilian dataset was also compared with the results achieved in the first wave of the ICT Kids Online Brazil survey (2012). The comparison showed rapid shifts in Internet access towards going online via mobile devices and at home and the persistence of socioeconomic gaps in access to the Internet. The child's home was the most common location for Internet use across all countries. The trend towards more private access to the web in the home, in the child's bedroom, or other private rooms was mentioned by more than half of the young Brazilian Internet users. Accessing the Internet from relatives' or friends' households was also reported by half of the Brazilian users. Around one-third of the Brazilian children reported accessing the Internet at school, the second lowest value among the eight countries after Italy. The growing trend toward mobility was particularly clear in Brazil: one out of three children accessed the Internet on the move. This is more than twice what was reported in Romania, Ireland, Portugal and Belgium. In 2013, Internet access in LAN houses was lower than in 2012, whereas access from public libraries and telecenters continued to be minimal. In Brazil, desktop computers were found to be the most common devices for going online, followed by mobile phones – reported by more than half of the users. Laptops, the leading devices in Denmark, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Belgium, ranked third in Brazil. The most reported form of Internet connection in Brazil was mobile web packages, similar to the Romanian results. The combination of these packages and free Wi-Fi was reported by about one out of three young Brazilian Internet users, ranking third among the eight countries. The top five activities reported across countries pointed to the dominance of activities such as visiting social networking sites and watching video clips across groups of 11-to 16-year-olds. The Brazilian results revealed the highest percentage of 9-and 10-year-olds with social networking site (SNS) profiles and one of the highest positions among children 11 and 12 years old among the eight countries. More than half of the young Brazilian Internet users claimed to have more than 100 contacts in their main SNS profiles (Facebook, in 2014); a quarter said that they had over 300 contacts. In this regard, both figures were led by Romania. Most Brazilian children with SNS profiles reported that they were set to public, ranking second after Romania.