Children indicated what their parents let them do on the internet, whenever they want to (Table 54).
Russian parents tend to quite
rarely control their child’s activities on the internet – less than 25% of parents limit their child using ICQ and instant messaging (17%), uploading music, photos or videos (22%), watching video clips (23%), having their own social
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restriction pertains to giving out personal information to others on the internet – about 40% of parents restrict this activity to various degrees.
If compared with the European figures, Russian parents apply almost no control over their child’s internet use.
Giving out personal information on the internet is the most regulated activity,
both in Russia and in Europe (39%).
Unfortunately, the same category remains the most vague one, as it is not quite clear how exactly parents can regulate this aspect. If we remember that all other internet activities seem to be barely regulated by parents, we can assume that the child’s “yes” to the personal information question does not reflect a real restriction, but rather what children might consider being wrong from the point of view of their parents. In all other categories Russian parents tend to control their children much less than it is the case in Europe. The difference is the greatest
in regards to giving out personal information (46% of difference) and uploading music, video and photos (40% of difference).
Do these differences depend on the child’s gender, age or their parent’s education? Parents restrict boys more frequently than girls, although the difference is insignificant. And when it comes to age groups, the difference becomes more vivid: parents mediate younger children much more often,
than 13-16 year old teenagers. The same
tendency reveals itself in the European research: parents of older children restrict their internet use less. Although in Europe, parents’ restrictive mediation even of 13-16 year olds is more active than in Russia. Thus, 20-22% of European parents do not let children use instant messaging whenever they want, whereas in Russia only 8% of parents restrict their child’s internet use.
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Table 54. Parents’ restrictive mediation of the child’s internet use, according to child
% who say that rules apply about whether they can…
9-12 years 13-16 years
Russia Europe
Boys Girls Boys Girls
Use instant messaging and
ICQ 35 30 8 8 17 38
Download music or films
on the internet 43 36 9 9 22 57
Watch video clips on the
internet 44 36 12 10 23 39
Have your own social
networking profile 31 22 9 9 16 47
Give out personal
information to others on the
internet 61 54 26 27 39 85
Upload photos, videos and
music to share with others 47 34 14 10 23 63
QC328: For each of these things, please tell me if your parents CURRENTLY let you do them whenever you want, or let you do them but only with your parent’s permission or supervision, or NEVER let you do them.
Note: The latter two options are combined to calculate the percentage for whom rules or restrictions apply.
Base: All children who use the internet.
What is the gap between children’s and parents’ answers regarding the
restrictive mediation of the internet use? The answers are shown in Table 55 and Figure 92.
Most of children and parents admit that there are no restrictions applied to the child’s internet use. However, there are slight differences when it comes to describing the character of parental restrictive mediation: 5% to 16% of parents and children reply differently to questions about parental control. The gap takes place when the parent
claims he/she restricts the child’s internet use, but the child disagrees with that. It looks like in such cases parents might not be in the know about what activities their child performs online and with what purpose; or their restrictions might be unclear to the child. Our numbers are similar to those received within the European survey, although there more parents believe that they do not restrict their children’s activity, when the latter think otherwise. In Russia, situations like this occur almost twice as rarely (about 10% in Europe and 5-6% in Russia).
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Table 55. Parents’ restrictive mediation of the child’s internet use, according to child and parent
Child: no Child: yes
Parent: no Parent: yes Parent: no Parent: yes
Use instant messaging and ICQ 76 7 5 11
Download music or films on the
internet 69 11 6 15
Watch video clips on the internet 66 11 5 18
Have your own social
networking profile 76 5 9 10
Give out personal information to
others on the internet 46 16 5 32
Upload photos, videos and music
to share with others 66 12 5 17
QC328 and QP221: For each of these things, please tell me if your parents CURRENTLY let you [your child is allowed to] do them whenever you want, or let you do them but only with your parent’s permission or supervision, or NEVER let you do them.
Note: The latter two options are combined to calculate the percentage for whom rules or restrictions apply.
Base: All children who use the internet and one of their parents.
Parents of both boys and girls apply restrictions on the internet use quite rarely: only every second parent of 9-12
year old apply some restrictions. Our
data is different from the European results, which reveal restrictive mediation taking place in the majority of cases.
There are no gender differences in getting restricted by parents, and there is a decline in restrictive mediation with children growing up. Both in Russia and Europe these results look similar, and
nonetheless quite a lot of European parents tend to restrict their 15-16 year
old children in terms of their internet
activity (78% vs. 27% in Russia).
Regardless age and gender, parents and children disagree a lot. It is possible that children either do not notice parental restrictive mediation or do not follow the applied rules.
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Figure 92. Parents’ restrictive mediation of the child’s internet use, according to child and parent
QC328 and QP221: Whether your parents let you [your child is allowed to] do this all of the time, only with permission/supervision or never allowed.
Note: The latter two options are combined to calculate the percentage for whom rules or restrictions apply.
Base: All children who use the internet and one of their parents.
Figure 93 shows regional differences in parental restrictive mediation.
Regional differences in Russia
are more significant than data gaps
between European countries. Thus, we
have 5% of parents applying some restrictions in Syktyvkar and 74% in Chita. Now compare it with 54% in Latvia and 93% in Portugal.
The Chita region leads in
restrictive mediation of child’s internet activity – both children (77%) and their parents (74%) agree on this point. 55% of parents in Kemerovo and Saratov, 52% of parents in Makhachkala, 61% in Kirov
have applied restrictions of various intensity. In the rest of the regions less than half of parents report about any restrictive mediation taking place at all.
There is a strong disagreement between parents and their children about whether the rules exist: in Kemerovo, Saratov, Kirov, Rostov-on-Don and Moscow children do not notice the restrictions which their parents claim to apply.
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Figure 93. Parents’ restrictive mediation of the child’s internet use, according to child and parent, by region
QC328 and QP221: Whether your parents let you [your child is allowed to] do this all of the time, only with permission/supervision or never allowed.
Note: The latter two options are combined to calculate the percentage for whom rules or restrictions apply.
Base: All children who use the internet and one of their parents.