Children and Adolescents Online

The Kids Online Latin America meeting: Perspectives for the production of regional indicators on children and adolescents online took place last Monday (06/01), bringing together experts to discuss ways to produce Latin American indicators on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) by children and adolescents.

The event, organized by the Regional Center for Studies on the Development of the Information Society (Cetic.br), of the Brazilian Network Information Center (NIC.br), was marked by the exchange of experiences and gathered twenty participants from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Ecuador. These participants represented national and international academic organizations as well as institutions related to child protection, such as UNICEF and UNESCO. Representatives from the EU Kids Online network, which has been conducting studies on this topic within the European Union since 2006, were also present.

Mario Volpi, UNICEF project officer in Brazil and coordinator of the Adolescent Citizenship Program, highlighted the importance of conducting national-scale surveys, which help to understand the different realities that coexist in a single country. Volpi also emphasized the importance of bringing children and adolescents into the debate about Internet use, rather than just addressing the issue from the adult perspective.

UNESCO's regional communication and information advisor for Mercosur and Chile, Guilherme Canela, stressed the importance of indicators for the formulation of public policies but acknowledged the existence of different agendas for the matter in the region. He further reinforced the need to monitor current social changes and policies. Echoing Volpi's words, he advocated for a shift from a perspective centered on online risks and opportunities towards one of promoting and protecting the rights of children and adolescents in this context.

This was followed by a presentation from Ellen Helsper, a researcher at the London School of Economics and a member of the EU Kids Online network, who conducted a quantitative study on ICT use by children and adolescents in 25 European Union countries in 2010. Helsper provided a brief history of the project, sharing some challenges encountered in the planning and execution of the study. In the afternoon, Cristina Ponte from the New University of Lisbon complemented Helsper's talk by discussing the history of building a research network for conducting the study and analyzing its results.

Cetic.br shared its experience in adapting European materials and conducting the TIC Kids Online Brazil survey, a pioneering study in the region on the subject. Important issues relating to study planning, such as sample construction, questionnaires, and field application, were detailed to share practical lessons learned with regional partners planning to conduct similar studies.

Throughout the meeting, participants were encouraged to share experiences from their countries, enriching the debate on the production of indicators in the region. The possibility of creating a Latin American cooperation network, similar to what happens in the European Union, was also discussed. Some studies are scheduled to take place in the coming months, and it is expected that it will be possible to compare basic indicators for different countries.

The third edition of the TIC Kids Online Brazil study, conducted by Cetic.br, is scheduled to be released in the second half of 2015. Check out previous editions on our website.

This content was automatically translated with the support of artificial intelligence.