Introduction

Rapid adoption of the internet and other online technologies is presenting policy makers, governments and industry with a significant task of ensuring that online opportunities are maximised and the risks associated with internet use are minimised and managed. Online opportunities are the focus of considerable public and private sector activity, and diverse ambitious efforts are underway in many countries to promote digital learning technologies in schools, e-governance initiatives, digital participation and digital literacy. The risks associated with the technologies are receiving similar attention through national and international initiatives that address child protection, cybersecurity and privacy, and through discussions explaining the potential for state and/or self-regulation.

Policy initiatives assume particular circumstances, understandings and practices applying to children, their parents and teachers. These assumptions may be more or less accurate and well judged, and at worst, they may be unnecessarily anxious or already out of date. Herein lies the value of direct research on children's contemporary experiences across diverse contexts. But although technological and regulatory change since the early 2000s has been accompanied by research seeking to understand the social shaping and consequences of internet use, early research tended to be more descriptive than theoretical (Wellman, 2004). However, since researchers seek to understand and predict children's online experiences, mere descriptions of survey findings are insufficient.

Consequently, a central feature of the EU Kids Online project has been to develop a theoretical framework within which its findings can be interpreted because, in the absence of theory, three problems occur. First, it is difficult to say what ‘findings’ mean since they are open to multiple interpretations – for example, is a certain percentage large or small, surprising or banal? Second, findings tend to be mere lists of percentages that cannot be connected to the findings of other studies, either in the domain of children's internet use or in relation to other studies of risk in childhood, the nature of parenting, or the role of the internet in adolescent development. Third, theory is needed to generate predictions and, so, to go beyond the particularity of any one data set in order to anticipate the consequences of different combinations of factors in future situations.