Last week, the UK media saw a flurry of attention around the publication of the final report of the Byron Review, Safer Children in a Digital World. It looks at the need to protect children from harmful or inappropriate material, both online and in games, and is based on data from 346 respondents, 93% of whom were children.

Interestingly, most of the blogosphere coverage centres around the impact on gaming, but there are some good pieces about its recommendations for the way children should be educated about online risks.

Ewan McIntosh points to the Times’ coverage of the report, which says that

[Byron calls] for a massive campaign to educate parents, teachers and childcarers about how to ensure that children get maximum benefit from the digital world without being exposed to its dangers.

Ewan suggests that educating children about online risks without introducing them to danger is akin to trying to teach someone to swim without a swimming pool, and I suspect there’s some truth in this.

The Telegraph’s initial report cautioned of a media backlash:

Parents and politicians cannot make this world wholly safe. Maybe the best they can offer, for all the talk of education and crackdowns, is to equip children better to deal with hazards placed in their way by adults. Byron's findings sound moderate and balanced. That may not defuse a media firestorm about the (largely unproved) evils of the internet.

The ippr’s own research on the subject, due to be published fully in April, reveals gaps between parents’ knowledge and that of their children:

“My mum will ask sometimes ‘is it safe?’ but she doesn’t really know” (Girl, 16, ABC1)

“Everyone lies about their age ‘cos I think it’s like if you’re under 18, your profile gets set to private” (Girl, 15)

“We have restrictions at school but we can just get an administrator’s account and take them off” (Boy, 14)

“Restrictions stop you going on bad sites, like games sites and stuff. If you take them off you can go on anything” (Boy, 14).

“I want to spend less time ‘cos what I do on it is just really pointless – like MySpace is just really addictive” (Girl, 17)

“First it was like everyone was on MSN, then everyone sort of has Bebo, now everyone who had MSN moved on to Facebook so it’s just what everyone’s doing at that time” (Girl, 16)

“Some things they [parents] don’t understand and they ask me to explain it to them but they still don’t understand” (Girl, 13)

A cause for concern? Yes. A cause for panic? No. There’s a clear message here about the need for greater education and understanding. An acknowledgement that children will learn how to bypass content filters at school — I did — and that they’ll end up speaking to people online who their parents don’t know.

Attempting to deprive children of access to valuable resources (particularly in schools) is likely to lead either to black market trading — borrowing teachers’ access passwords to social network at lunchtime — or legitimised evasion — what are you supposed to do when a school project calls for research into marketing of alcoholic drinks? What’s important is that children understand the risks involved in these interactions, and that their parents and teachers understand their value.