THE RESEARCH
PhD Findings -What children aged 7 to 10 are seeing online.
A PhD by Dr Catherine Knibbs into accidental and purposeful exposure to violence and gore in the under-10 population.
Children are exposed to screens in the home, at relatives, friends and in many other contextual settings such as school, public or school transport and out of school clubs and activities. Violent and gory content can be accessed b y children through purposeful searching, algorithmically driven feeds and a lack of controls preventing access to content, that in media ratings falls beyond their chronological age.
This occurs in several cases in the study when children are unsupervised, and in some cases in what Cath calls 'by proxy viewing'TM when other people around the children are watching or playing content that can be seen or heard by children who are present.
These provide opportunities of risk and screen-based trauma to the children and can result in developmental media trauma effects.
This is not a parenting failure. This is a systemic failure and the use of media effect literature is synthesises with trauma and child development theories in the first multi systemic research to address these issuesw.
It requires a systemic and 'whole-istic' response.
Recommendations and findings are shared below as these are released online.
For more information please contact Cath using the form below or reach out on her press page
Most research misses this age group as having their own voice entirely.
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When we talk about online harm, we tend to focus on teenagers because that's the age at which social media is gated, rated and legal (and of course ethics often prevents research with younger children). We build policy for 13+-year-olds.
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But the children sitting in my clinical room over the last 16 years, and events that happened to my children and others i worked with in schools in 2010 told a different story.
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I've worked with six and seven-year-olds describing what they had seen. Eight-year-olds who had stopped sleeping. Nine-year-olds who had normalised what they watched because no adult had ever told them it wasn't normal. and the age rage of 10 and above have, since 2010 been the age group with which we give a phone.
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Yet Ofcom research shows children as young as two have devices in their hands, and four or five year olds can be left unsupervised watching videos (I know because i wrote about these in my books)
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This research exists because those children needed someone to take them seriously and to do the research ethically, developmentally situated and not re-traumatise them, as I have seen in many online safety research studies conducted, for many years, where trauma is not handled with care when asking about digital and online life.
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The PhD exam commended my high level of ethics, safeguarding and holding of trauma given I worked with this age group. This forms the backbone of the highest recommendations to those who study children in the online safety and trust & safety space to stop asking children directly about material that can and does result in stressful or traumatic responses.
WE need to protect children in online safety research going forward.
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We need to protect children online and this study hopes to communicate how we can do this effectively, with safeguards, with compassion and with the rigour of good ethics for this age group to discover what we can do for their protection online and when in the presence of others who may inadvertently create an event of media and screen based trauma.
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Key findings
FINDING 01
10 out of 16 children in the study were showing signs of stress and trauma comparable to the diagnosis of Post trauma stress after exposure to violent or gory content on a device or screen
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Children in the study drew and talked about their feelings and thoughts after viewing content they themselves called 'inappropriate' that either they engaged with purposefully through gaming and the use of other online mediums, were exposed to through algorithmic driven feeds, were exposed to via others in their proximity; playing, or watching violent or gory content.
These drawings and reported feelings and thoughts that the children shared mirror responses in those with Post Traumatic Stress.
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FINDING 02 coming soon...
Bring this research to your organisation.
Keynotes, training, and consultancy drawing directly on the PhD findings.
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What this means for you
If you're a parent
If you're a teacher or safeguarding lead
If you set policies at local or national level
Parental controls aren't enough. Build the conversation now, before they need it.
Your detection systems need a disclosure-friendly partner. Training staff to create the opening matters more than monitoring.
The Online Safety Act does not address under-13s adequately. The research evidence base for younger children is growing and policy needs to catch up.