Is the Internet Good for Children?

By Sonia Livingstone

While the internet is a crucial space for children to communicate and play, it also has major consequences for their lives. How much screen time is acceptable for children? Can digital games be safe for children? Is social media bad for children's mental health? Parents, politicians, journalists, researchers and the general public are all weighing in on these increasingly contested questions.

To the question, "Is the internet good for children?" it is easy to answer, "It depends". But on what? And for whom? In this book, Sonia Livingstone, an internationally recognised scholar on children's rights, helps to bridge opposing perspectives and reach consensus in this contentious debate. Providing five guiding principles to understand children's digital lives, Livingstone sets out ways to improve the internet to better meet children's needs and fulfil their digital rights.

Nuanced and compassionate, Is the Internet Good for Children? is a must-read read for anyone who wants to better understand the effects of the internet on children.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1509520031
• ISBN13: 9781509520039
• Release Date: June 2027
• Publisher: Polity Press
• Length: 140 Pages