The Republic of Serbia

In brief: Serbian findings from EU Kids Online 2020

Children in Serbia aged 9 to 17 most frequently use smartphones to access the internet – 86% do so daily, from 65% in the youngest group of 9- to 10-year-olds. Underage use of social media and gaming platforms is conspicuous: 41% of 9- to 10-year-olds and 72% of 11- to 12-year-olds have a profile on such platforms. Sixty per cent of children and young people never use the internet for creative purposes, such as to share content (videos or music) they created on their own.

Serbian children assess their own digital skills as above average (above the arithmetic mean). Older children display greater confidence across the range of digital skills except for programming (e.g. in Scratch or Python), where younger children aged 11 and 12 feel more competent than older ones. This may be due to the fact that children of this age have a compulsory computer science subject at school.

Please click here for Serbian language website.

Serbian national report: Kuzmanović, D., Pavlović, Z., Popadić, D. & Milosevic, T. (2019). , 2018
Additional analyses about excessive internet use reveals that, when a range of children’s socio-demographic characteristics are controlled for, restrictive mediation is a significant predictor of time spent online (parental restrictions reduce the time spent online), but not of excessive internet use. The main predictor of excessive internet use is the child’s anxiety (emotional problems). Active mediation, however, does reduce excessive internet use, but it doesn’t affect time spent online. While there is a significant correlation between the amount of time spent online and excessive internet use, time spent online should not be considered as a necessary or sufficient condition for excessive internet use. We therefore warn against pathologising screen time, and emphasise the need to look into the broader context of children’s internet use. The use of active mediation among parents in Serbia is rather limited, however. Only 40% of participants say their parents or caregivers often suggest ways of how to use the internet safely, and 39% say their parents often help them when something bothers them online.

Serbia became a member of the EU Kids Online research network in 2018, when funds were raised for the country to participate in the 2018 wave of European surveys. Previously, pilot data on children’s digital media use was collected as part of the Global Kids Online Project[1]. The EU Kids Online survey in Serbia is the first piece of research on a nationally representative sample in Serbia that covers such a wide range of topics regarding children and young people’s digital media use. The data was collected using pen-and-paper method in 60 schools across the country, a total of 1150 students participated in the survey. Previous research covered some of these topics on a non-representative or smaller sample[2] or on specific topics such as digital media literacy[3] or cyberbullying.[4]

The project was initiated by Dr. Tijana Milosevic and Prof. Elisabeth Staksrud at the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo, Norway. The survey was financially supported by the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo; OSCE Serbia, UNICEF Serbia, The Serbian Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications as well as the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development.

[1]

[2]Popadić, D. & Kuzmanović, D. (2016). .
Beograd: Ministarstvo prosvete, nauke i tehnološkog razvoja Republike Srbije i
UNICEF.

[3] Kuzmanović, D. (2017). . Beograd: Filozofski fakultet

[4] Rančić, J. (2018). Violence on social networking sites in the Republic of Serbia. CM: Communication and Media, 13(43), 95-124.

Links to e-safety organizations and projects

Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications, (Serb. Pametno i bezbedno)

Nadel, (Serb. Nacionalna Dečija Linija)

(child sexual abuse context removal)

Links to research publications, projects and resources on children’s rights, families and digital media use

Kuzmanović, D., Pavlović, Z., Popadić, D. & Milosevic, T. (2019). , 2018

Popadić, D., Pavlović, Z., Petrović, D., & Kuzmanović, D. (2016) , Belgrade: University of Belgrade.

Popadić, D. & Kuzmanović, D. (2016). . Beograd: Ministarstvo prosvete, nauke i tehnološkog razvoja Republike Srbije i
UNICEF.

Kuzmanović, D. (2017). (Doctoral thesis). Belgrade: Faculty of Philosophy.

UNICEF-funded project Family Guide for Safer Internet, resources .

Dragan Popadić (Beograd, 1955) is a social psychologist, Professor at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade.

His research area covers wide range of social psychological issues including political socialization, value orientations, ethnocentrism, social conflicts and violence, and works in these areas have been published in a number of domestic and international books and journals. He participated in creation of numerous programs aimed to develop non-violent communication and tolerance, and in introduction civic education in school curricula. He was involved in international projects dealing with regional research of youth and education for democracy as well as in national research projects about the impact of social transition on individuals and groups and forming new competences in changing society.

Since 2005 he has being engaged in the School Without Violence program, jointly implemented by the Ministry of Education and UNICEF in primary and secondary schools in Serbia, which resulted in developing an integrated school prevention program applied in almost three hundreds schools in Serbia and in extensive report on violence in schools in Serbia.

Zoran Pavlović, PhD, is a social psychologist and an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia. His main scientific interests include the study of political behaviour, political socialisation and human values. He participated in several national and international projects, including the Global Kids Online. He has authored or co-authored a number of books, book chapters and articles in scientific journals, including the book, Violence in Serbian schools: An overview from 2006 to 2013, as a part of the UNICEF’s ‘School Without Violence’ prevention programme.

Dobrinka Kuzmanovic, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Media and Communication, in Belgrade and a researcher at Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia. Dobrinka defended her PhD thesis on the topic of digital literacy among students in Serbia. Her research interests include youth technology use, learning with ICT, digital literacy, child safety online, relationship between online and offline vulnerability, digital violence among children and youth. She participated in several national and international research projects dedicated to children and youth: School without violence - towards safe and enabling environment for children, Stop digital violence, OECD/PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), Global Kids Online.

Tijana Milosevic is a postdoctoral researcher at Dublin City University’s Anti-Bullying Centre, focusing on social media policies, digital media, internet governance and the implications for children’s wellbeing. She is the country team coordinator for the EU Kids Online network in Serbia and a member of the Norwegian EU Kids Online team. She previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo. Tijana’s written a monograph on social media platforms’ anti-bullying interventions (Protecting Children Online? Cyberbullying Policies of Social Media Companies, MIT Press 2018). She has also researched children’s privacy and the Internet of Things with the COST Action DigiLitEY collaborative project. Previously, she studied broader communication research topics (always from an interdisciplinary perspective), focusing on media coverage of the war in Iraq, US public diplomacy, climate change and copyright. Her works have appeared in the Journal of Children and Media, The International Journal of Communication and New Media & Society, among others. She holds a PhD in Communication from American University’s School of Communication; and an MA in Media and Public Affairs from the School of Media and Public Affairs, both in Washington DC, where she studied and worked for six years. She holds a BA in journalism and political science from the American University in Bulgaria.

Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade,: Čika Ljubina 18-20. Belgrade, Serbia

Email: tijana.milosevic@dcu.ie; tijana.milosevic@gmail.com