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Is the internet good for children?

Hosted by the Digital Futures for Children centre (DFC), Department of Media and Communications and 5Rights Foundation

In-person and online public event (Sheikh Zayed Theatre, Cheng Kin Ku Building)

Speaker

Professor Sonia Livingstone

Professor Sonia Livingstone

Chair

Professor Ellen Helsper

Professor Ellen Helsper

Public anxiety about children’s digital lives and wellbeing is reaching a fever pitch, marking a notable turnaround from the decades-long efforts to ensure children are fully digitally included, literate and empowered. While arguments rage over what’s wrong with ‘screen time,’ ‘online harms,’ and data-driven forms of exploitation, this lecture will examine how a children’s rights lens can help steer an evidence-based path towards better digital futures for children.

Meet our speaker and chair

Sonia Livingstone (@Livingstone_S) is a full professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. She has published 20 books and advised the UK government, European Commission, European Parliament, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Council of Europe and UNICEF on media audiences, children and young people’s risks and opportunities, media literacy and rights in the digital environment. She directs the Digital Futures for Children centre.

Ellen Helsper is Professor of Digital Inequalities in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE, where she also serves as Doctoral Programme Director for the department's PhD Programmes. Her research interests include social and digital inequalities; mediated interpersonal communication; participatory immersive digital spaces; and methodological developments in media and communications research. She serves on the Management Committee of the Digital Futures for Children centre.

More about this event

This event will be available to watch on LSE Live. LSE Live is the new home for our live streams, allowing you to tune in and join the global debate at LSE, wherever you are in the world. If you can't attend live, a video will be made available shortly afterwards on LSE's YouTube channel.

The Digital Futures for Children centre (@DFCcentre) facilitates research for a rights-respecting digital world for children. This joint LSE and 5Rights research centre supports an evidence base for advocacy, facilitates dialogue between academics and policymakers, and amplifies children’s voices, following the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General comment No. 25.

The Department of Media and Communications (@MediaLSE) is a world-leading centre for education and research in communication and media studies at the heart of LSE’s academic community in central London. The Department is ranked #1 in the UK and #3 globally in the field of media and communications (2021 QS World University Rankings).

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Featured image (used in source code with watermark added): Photo by Jonathan Borba via Pexels.

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