New research highlights – looking at digital relationships

27 Mar 2018 Becca Cawthorne

The UKCCIS Evidence Group have launched two new Research Highlights summarising recent research from the UK Safer Internet Centre and Childnet International looking at digital relationships and online sexual harassment.  

The Research Highlights Series

The research highlight series is conducted by the The UKCCIS Evidence Group, providing the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) with helpful summaries of relevant and new research. The Evidence Groups includes representatives from NGOs, academia and police. The Research Highlights Series aims to keep UKCCIS, and the wider public, up to date with current research.

Researchers and stakeholders are encouraged to inform the evidence group of recent and ongoing research.

Research highlight 126

From UKSIC partner, Childnet, this research forms part of Project deSHAME. Providing a summary of a large-scale study examining young people’s experiences of peer-related online sexual harassment in Denmark, Hungary and the UK. This qualitative and quantitative research, was conducted as part of Project deSHAME with 3,257 young people aged 13-17 years in Denmark, Hungary and the UK. It provides a unique insight into their experiences of peer-related online sexual harassment.

Research highlight 125

For Safer Internet Day 2018 the UKSIC conducted a large scale study looking at the role of technology in young people’s relationships, the impact of this on their wellbeing, and how they want the adults in their lives to support them.

Key findings:

  • The most popular platforms 8-17s are using to chat to their friends on a daily basis are YouTube (41%), WhatsApp (32%), Snapchat (29%), Instagram (27%) and Facebook or Facebook Messenger (26%).
  • Over half (54%) of respondents aged 8-17 said they would feel isolated if they couldn’t talk to their friends via technology
  • Over seven in ten (73%) of those aged 8-17 think it’s important for their friends to reply to their messages once they’ve seen the
  • In the last year, more than four in five (83%) of 8-17s have experienced people being kind to them online