European research on children’s internet use: Assessing the past and anticipating the future

In this article, we reflect critically on the research agenda on children’s Internet use, framing our analysis using Wellman’s three ages of Internet studies and taking as our case study the three phases of research by the EU Kids Online network from 2006 to 2014. Following the heyday of moral panics, risk discourses and censorious policy-making that led to the European Commission’s first Internet Action Plan 1999–2002, EU Kids Online focused on conceptual clarification, evidence review and debunking of myths, thereby illustrating the value of systematic documentation and mapping, and grounding academic, public and policy-makers’ understanding of ‘the Internet’ in children’s lives. Consonant with Wellman’s third age, which emphasizes analysis and contextualization, the EU Kids Online model of children’s online risks and opportunities helps shift the agenda from how children engage with the Internet as a medium to how they engage with the world mediated by the Internet.