GLOBAL KIDS ONLINE ARGENTINA: Research study on the perceptions and habits of children and adolescents on the use of technologies, the internet and social media

There are over 13 million children and adolescents in Argentina (INDEC, 2010). Technology is an essential part of their existence, impacting on their way of learning, expressing feelings and emotions, having fun, and communicating. In the past few years, 6 out of 10 children and adolescents have communicated using mobile phones, and 8 out of 10 have used the internet to that end.1 For children, social media is a common way of communicating and interacting with the world. They build their identity around their interactions both in the ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ world. Activities such as chatting, online gaming, browsing and exchanging information and content are regular habits in their everyday life and also in the exercise of their digital citizenship. The combination of a qualitative and quantitative approach was designed on the basis of the specific characteristics for this study. The topics involved in relation to internet use included matters such as access; practices on the internet in general and on social media in particular; risks and vulnerabilities; as well as the social environment on the internet. Some of the results show that adolescents, on average, access the internet for the first time at the age of 11 (the trend shows an increasingly earlier access age). Likewise, the device mostly used to surf the internet is the mobile phone (for 9 out of 10 respondents), followed by desktop PCs and laptops (59%). Regarding frequency, more than half of adolescents expressed that they access the internet all the time. In this aspect in particular, girls spend more time on the internet than boys. When asked about the place where they use the internet, they identified their home or the homes of relatives and friends as preferred places

-Children are accessing the internet at an increasingly younger age (average age of first internet access is 10.8) -Children prefer mobile gadgets due to their practicality and portability -"Although parents are not the first people with whom they share their problems related to the internet, they are the first who give advice in the event of serious situations" (Ravalli & Paoloni, 2016, p. 47). -More than half of the boys and girls use the internet all the time, and almost access the web at least once a day. -"In terms of skills and practices, the activities most frequently performed by children and adolescents are the search for things on the web, mainly through search engines such as Google or Yahoo" (Ravalli & Paoloni, 2016, p. 47). -Almost all adolescents interviewed use social media and have at least one Facebook profile -Almost half of respondents have their social media profile as public, particularly boys. -Most of the children admit to having at least one disturbing experience in the past year on the internet. Such as watching obscene stuff, violence, bullying or discrimination.