Risks, opportunities, and risky opportunities: how children make sense of the online environment

Although many hopes and fears about children’s experience of the internet have been expressed in policy, academic research, and by parents and other stakeholders in children‘s futures, there is little research examining children’s perspectives. This chapter reports on UK findings from the EU Kids Online qualitative study that give children a voice on these matters, allowing 9-year olds to describe their experiences and express their views about online risks. It examines how children encounter online risks and opportunities, how the make sense of and react to these experiences, the strategies they use to prevent or cope with potentially negative online experiences, and those online experiences that children regard as being negative but which are not normally part of the risk agenda.