Engl. transl.: National Survey on Child Safety on the Internet HR Kids Online

The first Croatian representative survey on children's digital habits and children's safety on the Internet was conducted in November 2017. The study involved 1,017 children aged 9 to 17 and their parents, with the participation of a parent who was better acquainted with children's digital habits. In our sample of parents, 78.4% of the respondents were mothers. The study involved 524 boys and 493 girls, of whom 307 were children aged 9 to 11, 377 children aged 12 to 14 and 333 children aged 15 to 17. The survey was conducted in households and is the first such survey on a representative sample ever conducted in Croatia. The research was conducted as part of a large international EU project (Global) Kids Online. It is the largest European project in the field of research into the relationship between children and the Internet. The project explores the benefits and risks of using the Internet among children aged 9 to 16 (in some countries 9 to 17); children's exposure to electronic violence, sexually explicit content and offers; the manner and intensity of Internet use depending on age and socio-economic characteristics, and the role of parents, teachers and the environment in the protection and education of children about the dangers of the Internet. It is expected that the results of the research, comparable to the 18 European countries that conducted the research, will be used to develop national and local education policies, and will significantly affect the activities of many stakeholders involved in protecting children's rights on the Internet, encouraging critical thinking by raising awareness of the threats and opportunities of online exposure in children. By participating in this research, Croatia has joined the world standard for monitoring the safety of children on the Internet, and the research itself is a key prerequisite for creating educational policies in this area, but also the basis for quality guidelines for improving the safety of children on the Internet. In parallel with the preparation and publication of the national report, a comparative analysis of the results of all European countries that conducted the survey, which will be published in February 2020, on the occasion of the International Safer Internet Day . The Society for Communication and Media Culture, as a coordinator, conducted the research in cooperation with the Electronic Media Agency, the City of Zagreb (Većeslav Holjevac Elementary School), Hrvatski Telekom, the Croatian Network Regulatory Agency (HAKOM) and the Center for Missing and Abused children (CNZD). The research was also supported by the Ministry of Science and Education and the Ministry of Demography, Family, Youth and Social Policy, and the research itself was conducted by the Ipsos Puls agency.

"Kids ages 9 to 17 still spend more time hanging out and having fun with friends face to face, rather than in online activities. Most children write homework every day and do others school obligations outside of school hours, and most of them engage in activities outside the home each week as well sports and other physical activities." Ciboci et al, 2020, 5 "Cell phone / smartphone owns 82.4% of children aged 9 to 11, 95.5% of children aged 12 to 14 and 99.1% of children aged 15 up to 17 years." Ciboci et al, 2020, 6 "A total of 61.0% of children have their own profile on a social network or website for playing video games which they currently use, of which 53.8% are girls and 67.8% are boys. The use of social networks is growing with child age - 35.0% of children aged 9 to 11 years, 68.1% of children aged 12 to 14 years and 76.8% children aged 15 to 17 have their own profile on a social network or website for video games they used at the time of the research." Ciboci et al, 2020, 15 "So far, 30.2% of children have communicated on the Internet with a person they have not met in person. It is more often the case among boys (33.5%) than girls (26.6%), and most children in the group of 15 to 17 years (50.3%), while they are followed by those aged 12 to 14 years (29.2%) and 9 to 11 years (10.2%)." Ciboci et al, 2020, 20 "In addition to communicating with strangers on the Internet, the survey showed that so far 14% of children met in person with a person they met online where such activities grow with age so this is more often for children aged 15 to 17 (26.8%), followed by children aged 12 to 14 (12.0%), and finally 3.0% of the youngest children aged 9 to 11 years. We must note that we are talking about the total 14% of the sample, or about 138 children." Ciboci et al, 2020, 20 (translated by the coder)