Subjective versus objective knowledge of online safety/dangers as predictors of children’s perceived online safety and attitudes towards e-safety education in the United Kingdom

Children are spending increasing amounts of time online prompting practitioners and parents to raise concerns about their online safety. However, the impact of children’s subjective versus objective knowledge on their perceived online safety and attitudes towards e-safety education remain unclear. Questionnaires were used to assess children’s (N = 329, aged 8–11 years) perceived online safety, subjective and objective knowledge of online safety/dangers, and attitudes to e-safety education. While participants generally reported feeling safe online and perceived that they had a good awareness of online dangers and how to avoid them (subjective knowledge), they tended to be poor at articulating for themselves exactly what those dangers were and how they personally could elude them (objective knowledge). This was especially true of boys and younger children. Moreover, only subjective knowledge of online safety/dangers significantly predicted perceived online safety. Together, these findings suggest that some children may think that they know how to stay safe online but lack – or at least be unable to articulate – objective knowledge that could actually keep them safe. Consequently, there is a need to assess children’s objective knowledge of online safety/dangers and to provide appropriate education for children who currently lack it.

"what children think they know about online dangers/how to stay safe online corresponds only weakly with what they can actually articulate about these things. Moreover, while the overall level of subjective knowledge of these issues was high (3.44 on a 1–4 scale), participants could only articulate on average about two distinct responses to suggest they actually had that knowledge. These results suggest a degree of complacency that might leave some young people vulnerable online and make risks more likely to lead to harm for them... while boys had significantly lower objective knowledge of online safety/dangers than girls, they also felt significantly safer than girls. While both subjective and objective e-safety knowledge together significantly predicted perceived safety, it was only subjective knowledge that did so uniquely (i.e., after controlling the variance it shared with objective knowledge). Again, this might suggest that some young people are complacent, i.e., “I think I know about online dangers and how to avoid them, and so I can feel safe online”. The more desirable situation (i.e., “I do know about online dangers and how to avoid them, and so I can feel safe online”) was not apparent in present study and suggests e-safety educators should strive to promote more objective knowledge of online dangers and how to stay safe while using the internet." (Macaulay et al., 2019: 387-8).