The mobile Internet: Access, use, opportunities and divides among European children

Abstract

Kjartan Ólafsson is a lecturer at the University of Akureyri where he teaches research 2 methods and quantitative data analysis. He is also a visiting researcher at the Masaryk University in Brno. He has extensive experience in survey research and has played a key role in the design and implementation of a number of cross national research projects on children's media use. Amongst these are the 2010 EU Kids Online study, which has been a landmark project in the field of media studies in Europe, and the Net Children Go Mobile survey. AbstractBased on data collected through the Net Children Go Mobile survey of approximately 3,500 respondents aged 9-16 in seven European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania and the UK), this article examines the diffusion of smartphones among children, and contributes to existing research on mobile digital divides by investigating what influences the adoption of smartphones among children, and whether going online from a smartphone is associated with specific usage patterns, thus bridging or widening usage gaps. The findings suggest the resilience of digital inequalities among children, showing how social inequalities intersect with divides in access and result in disparities in online activities, with children who benefit from a greater autonomy of use and a longer online experience also reaching the top of the ladder of opportunities.

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