ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳

Preparing for a Digital Future has two interlinked strands:

Parenting for a digital future

• How do parents and carers approach the task of bringing up their children in the digital age?
• What is their vision of their children’s future and that of the wider society?
• What risks or opportunities do they see opening up for them and their children?
• How then do they conceive of being a ‘good parent’ and how do they evaluate the learning and socialisation resources available to their children?
• And how do their children view and respond to their parents’ hopes, fears and values regarding digital media?

From the days of early films and comics to today’s social networks, tablets and multiplayer online games, technology has always entered into the discourses of parenting, raising new hopes and fears and necessitating shifts in parenting practices. Yet the pace of recent advances in digital media – not to mention talk about smart homes, geo-location apps, driverless cars and the internet of things – leaves many parents and carers increasingly anxious about what these changes will mean for their children, now and in the future. Parents are left unsupported by the polarised public debate about the detrimental effects of ‘screen time’ on the one hand, and the visions of digital media as offering radically-new pathways to academic achievement, or self-expression on the other. To aid parents and policy-makers in assessing the available evidence, we have written a  and a  on the current state of research on ‘screen time’ including case studies from our own research.

To understand parental conceptions of the ‘digital future,’ we invite participants to reflect on imagery of the future as well as the changing nature of childhood since their own youth. Parenting discourses often foreground notions of ‘best practice’ or ‘ideal pathways’ or, more prosaically, what ‘most people do’. But in reality, we are finding that parents and carers are highly diverse, so we are exploring the different economic, religious, social and cultural contexts in which parents negotiate these choices and also highlight the diversity in parents’ orientations to the digital future.

See our  for updates.

Preparing for creative labour

• What are the barriers and enablers to young people’s transition from participation in semi-formal creative learning organisations to paid work in the cultural and creative industries?
• How can young people learn about and take advantage of progressions between and across different forms of social structure, qualifications infrastructure and institution to be able to develop organised careers in an increasingly-precarious economic landscape?
• How and in what ways do the generic properties of 'digital creativity' create different kinds of opportunity for employment and movement across traditional work roles?
• What notions of learning identity and continuous ‘professional’ development support or hinder entry into work?

We will engage both with young ‘filmmakers’, to reflect with those who have started careers about the influences that shaped them, and with educators and mentors from non-formal learning organisations in the UK and other English-speaking countries to consider the supports they put in place to help their young people explore these career trajectories. Working directly with learning organisations, including the , this research will provide recommendations how to support young people effectively, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to use their newly-developed skills and experiences as they begin to enter the ‘world of work’; and to map the complex mix of pathways, life-skills, barriers and opportunities that young people have to navigate and learn as they move from leisure interests to paid employment.

Related Research

• Makerspaces in the Early Years (MakEY)

Principal Investigator: Professor Sonia Livingstone

Principal Research Fellow: 

Research Officer: Dr Alicia Blum-Ross

This research is part of the  (CLRN), funded by the  initiative, which examines how children and young people connect their learning experiences in school, home, with peers and in interest-driven activities. CLRN and the  advocate for parents, schools and government to support learning that reflects and is embedded in children and young people’s social worlds and interests, and helps create equal educational, economic and political opportunity.

2018

Publications

• FORTHCOMING BOOK - Sonia Livingstone and Alicia Blum-Ross are currently writing up this mixed method research project that explores how parents prepare themselves and their children for the prospect of a ‘digital future.’ The book is under contract with Oxford University Press.
  
  For updates check
• In the digital home, how do parents support their children and who supports them?
  The Parenting for a Digital Future team produced this report for Safer Internet Day 2018 based on a nationally-representative survey of UK parents of children aged 0-17, finding that parents need more sources of advice and support when it comes to digital dilemmas.
  
  Full report / Methodology / Full questionnaire / Data tables

Press

• BBC Radio 4, Woman’s Hour)
  Sonia Livingstone appeared on Woman’s Hour to talk about whether children can be said to be ‘addicted’ to technology.
• Sonia Livingstone was interviewed to discuss how parents should help mediate children’s online activities.

2017

Publications

• In this review for the Journal of Children and Media Sonia Livingstone looked at the evidence base behind the widely-reported claim that young people’s mental health and well-being has suffered because of the introduction of smartphones.
• Alicia Blum-Ross contributed to this literature review on children and makerspaces by reviewing the literature examining how parents can support children’s STEM learning.
• In this journal article Alicia Blum-Ross and Sonia Livingstone asked whether “sharenting” (sharing representations of one’s parenting or children online) is a form of digital self-representation.
• Led by Sonia Livingstone, this journal article was based on surveys of 800+ parents across eight-European countries and found that restrictive mediation is associated with fewer online risks but at the cost of opportunities, reflecting policy advice that regards media use as primarily problematic.
• Alicia Blum-Ross and Sonia Livingstone produced this infographic about managing children’s ‘screen time’ with the Connected Learning Alliance, providing advice for shifting the focus away from screen time and towards content, context and connections.
• This book chapter, by Sonia Livingstone and Alicia Blum-Ross argues that researchers interested in the lives of children must pay attention to the digital in all aspects of childhood research.
• Sonia Livingstone and Claire Local wrote this journal article to demonstrate how audience measurement techniques currently fail to provide a clear picture of trends in children’s television viewing because of the diversification in devices on which television content can be viewed.
• , Information Commissioner’s Office and Department of Media, Culture and Sport
  Sonia Livingstone submitted an evidence-based response to the consultation on GDPR consent guidance and .
• In this journal article Sonia Livingstone and Amanda Third argued that that the child represents a limit case of adult normative discourses about both rights and digital media practices.
• In this journal article, led by Sonia Livingstone, researchers from the EU Kids Online network consider the different phases of Internest studies as they relate to understanding the lives of children online.
• In this literature review, by the UKCCIS Evidence Group (of which Sonia Livingstone is a lead member) the group reviewed new research on children’s engagement with the internet in light of new risks and safety issues arising.

Press

• )
  Sonia Livingstone and Alicia Blum-Ross wrote a feature for Digital Parenting magazine, which is distributed to schools around the country, on how parents can find quality content and feel good about what their children are doing online, rather than simply watching the clock.
• (The Guardian)
  Sonia Livingstone contributed to this open letter arguing that screen time guidelines for parents needs to be based on robust evidence, as opposed to hyperbole about children’s lives online.
• )
  Alicia Blum-Ross and Sonia Livingstone wrote a blog post for Mumsnet about how parents should pay attention to more than time when it comes to their children’s digital activities.
• )
  Sonia Livingstone has been blogging periodically to help policy makers and researchers understand what the upcoming GDPR will mean for children.
• Alicia Blum-Ross was interviewed for this article in the Daily Beast about ‘sharenting.’

2016

Publications

• BOOK Published by NYU Press, and co-authored by Sonia Livingstone and Julian Sefton-Green based on fieldwork at an ordinary London school, The Class examines young people’s experiences of growing up and learning in a digital world. The research explores youth values, teenagers’ perspectives on their futures, and their tactics for facing the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.
• BOOK: This book, published by Cambridge University Press and co-authored by Julian Sefton-Green, examines learning as a life-wide concept, the study reveals how 'learning identities' are forged through complex interplays between young people and their communities, and how these identities translate and transfer across different locations and learning contexts.
• In this policy brief Alicia Blum-Ross and Sonia Livingstone argue that ‘screen time’ advice for families is out of date, in relationship to current practice in families and in terms of the emerging evidence base from research.
• In this article, Giovanna Mascheroni, Sonia Livingstone, Michael Dreier, and Stephane Chaudron explore how parents manage the digital media practices of children younger than eight across Europe.
• In this journal article Sonia Livingstone debates the intellectual and political choices media and communications researchers make when they frame their work in terms of effects (often risk-focused) or rights (drawing on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child).
• In this journal article Alicia Blum-Ross and Sonia Livingstone argue that over the past decades the rhetoric around digital media and learning has become more instrumental as youth media initiatives using technology – from filmmaking to coding – have become institionalized.
• This journal article by Julian Sefton-Green and Ola Erstad dissects an interest in the term, ‘learning lives’ in order to explicate the meaning(s) of the phrase and to set up a series of challenges for research into young people’s learning.
• This submission of written evidence by Sonia Livingstone and Alex Chernyavskaya to the UK Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee’s sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools discussed research conducted for the European Commission and for Child Safety Online.
• This report by Julian Sefton-Green and other researchers outlines the context and research questions behind a Europe-wide project investigating young children, digital technologies and changing literacies.

Press

• (ParentZone)
  Sonia Livingstone and Alicia Blum-Ross wrote a blog post for ParentZone arguing that children have extremely diverse needs, including additional needs and disabilities, and that blanket scree-time advice does not often address these.
• (BBC Radio 4)
  Alicia Blum-Ross addressed parental concerns about screen addiction and whether it matters that children are attached to their phones, tablets, and computer games.
• (BBC Radio Scotland)
  Alicia Blum-Ross addressed a new Ofcom report saying children now use the internet more than they watch television.
• (The Guardian)
  Alicia Blum-Ross was interviewed for this feature in the Guardian Magazine about whether parents should share information about their children online.
• (The Motherland Podcast)
  In this podcast, Sonia Livingstone and Bethany Koby, co-founder of Technology Will Save Us, discussed the difference between passive and positive screen-time, online safety, and how to make tech a force for good in your home.
• (BBC2) & (BBC Radio 4)
  Alicia Blum-Ross appeared on the Victoria Derbyshire programme on BBC2 (segment starts at 24:11) and the Today Programme to discuss ‘sharenting’ and whether parents should share their child’s A-level results online (last 5 minutes of broadcast). 
• (The Telegraph)
  Sonia Livingstone was featured in this article in the Telegraph in which journalist Zoe Brennan worried about the heavy reliance she and her children have developed on ‘screen time’ during the school holidays.
• (CEOP National Crime Agency)
  In this interview for the CEOP National Crime Agency, Sonia Livingstone talks about her research into young children online and how their families are responding to the challenges of parenting in the digital age.
• (NPR Education)
  Anya Kamenetz of NPR interviewed Sonia Livingstone about attitudes many parents have regarding their children’s screen time and internet use. Sonia argued that parents need to develop more positive approaches to ‘screen time.

2015

Publications

• Sonia Livingstone and Svenja Ottovordemgentschenfelde were part of an international team of researchers reporting on how young children use digital technologies at home, including tablets, computers, gaming consoles and other devices.
• Based on a consultancy for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport this report is aimed at policy-makers offering an evidence-based narrative about children’s routes to viewing hard-core pornography

Press

• In this interview with the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳’s Patrick Gearty, Sonia Livingstone discussed how the digital has reconfigured the lives of children and families and the complexities surrounding discussions about keeping children safe online.
• (ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Research)
  In this interview with the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Research Impact channel, Sonia Livingstone discussed the EU Kids Online project, explaining its aims, and the key differences and similarities across countries. 
• (ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ British Politics and Policy Blog)
  Digital technology advances are opening up new ways to communicate, with the potential to enhance student–teacher relationships. Sonia Livingstone followed a class of London teenagers for a year to find out more about how they are, or in some cases are not, connecting online.
• Public lecture at the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ by Sonia Livingstone, February 2015. Are children’s rights enhanced or undermined by access to the internet? Charters and manifestos for the digital age are proliferating, but where do children fit in? Sonia Livingstone addressed this and other concerns in this public lecture at the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳.

2014 and earlier

• This report looked at how parents can support their child’s internet safety by sharing positive experiences online. It drew on the findings of an EU Kids Online survey of more than 25,000 9-16 year olds in 25 countries and shows that when parents actively mediate their child’s internet use, this is associated with both lower risk and harm.
• This book chapter by Sonia Livingstone drew on insights from The Class offered insights into how social, digital and learning networks enable or disempower young people by tracing shifts in meanings, practices and values in their everyday lives that are full of digital technologies.
• This book chapter by Sonia Livingstone and Brian O’Neill explored the current state of children’s right on the Internet and called for a new framework to ensure child protection, provision and participation online.
• This article by Julian Sefton-Green addressed the notion of learning transfer to make sense of how we learn across social contexts and what learning might mean in more informal domestic circumstances.
• This report by Julian Sefton-Green investigated the phenomenon how we think about and organize learning places that are like schools but not schools.
• This report by the Connected Learning Research Network (which has funded both The Class and Preparing for a Digital Future) proposes an approach to education called ‘connected learning’ which is socially embedded, interest-driven, and oriented toward educational, economic, or political opportunity.

• , ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Thinks

For more information, please contact: s.livingstone@lse.ac.uk and a.blum-ross@lse.ac.uk

Twitter