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Develop policies and products that are age appropriate by design and consider using age assurance.
Age-appropriate products and services depend on children’s developmental milestones and life circumstances. Innovators and policy makers must consider the role of parents and caregivers, states and businesses in realising children’s rights to provision, participation and protection in accordance with the child’s evolving capacities and the gradual acquisition of autonomy.
This is one of 11 child rights principles applicable to the digital environment. Together they encompass the full range of child rights covered by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
Summary of the key evidence from ySKILLS
Summary of the key evidence from ySKILLS
ySKILLS shows that, on the one hand, children’s digital skills improve with age, but on the other, age alone does not guarantee that children will gain skills in all dimensions or that they will master them fully.
Generally, however, older adolescents have higher digital skills to manage their online presence and they achieve beneficial outcomes in terms of psychological and social wellbeing.
“We have an illusion, it seems, that young people are born with a mobile phone in their hands these days and that they automatically possess all the skills needed to handle it, but it is like you are giving a Ferrari to a five-year-old and saying: go ahead and drive.” (labour market expert, Finland)
ySKILLS is an EC-funded research network aiming to identify the actors and factors that undermine or promote the wellbeing of children aged 12–17 in a digital age. More about ySKILLS
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