Engl. transl.: Young Children (0-8) and Digital Technology

This report presents the first for Bulgaria qualitative study of the experience of children up to 8 years in the use of digital technologies. The study was conducted by the National Center for Safer Internet, coordinated by the Applied Research and Communications Foundation and the Parents Association. 10 families with at least one child under the age of 8 and with different socio-economic status, educational profiles and ethnicity were interviewed. The research methodology was developed and tested by the European Commission's Joint Research Center, applied at the time of the study in 14 countries. The study is part of the project "Empowering Citizens’ Rights in Emerging ICT" and aims to shed more light on how young children, their older siblings and their parents perceive and use digital technologies, how this affects family relationships, how parents direct and develop digital skills of their children and what their main concerns are. Based on the results, recommendations were prepared to parents, teachers, businesses and institutions.

Most of the interviewed children have been using digital technologies since the age of six, and many of them started at the age of 3-4. Half of the children of the interviewed families can be classified as users of the basic knowledge network, and the rest as independent users. As a rule, those who have older siblings become active digital users at a very early age and learn by watching or imitating. At this age, children are mostly consumers of content, but also love taking photos and videos. Many children cannot read and write well enough to surf the Internet. According to the parents, the children use only sites and applications that are familiar to them and that have been checked and installed by their parents. Tablets and smartphones are children's favorite devices, as they are more perceived as personal property of children, while desktops, laptops and TVs belong to the whole family. Technology is rarely used for anything other than fun, especially by children from lower-income families. On the other hand, in these families, parents also share significant benefits from the use of digital devices. Some children also use their devices for communication -i.e. Viber or Skype, mainly to communicate with relatives who do not live in their city. All children love to play games on different devices. An equally popular way to spend free time is watching movies, animations, TV series or videos. Six children under 8 have Facebook profiles, although this is a violation of the social network requirements for the minimum age of registrants (14 accordingly to the national law).