Iceland

EU Kids Online

In brief

Like the other Nordic countries Iceland has been an early and eager adopter of digital technologies. Almost all children in Iceland have access to the internet at home and the vast majority have access in their own bedroom. The pattern of use is similar to that of the other Nordic countries. Internet use starts early in life and children have access through their own devices (mostly laptop computers and increasingly through mobile devices). In terms of risks and opportunities Iceland falls into the group of northern European countries where children have been described as "experienced networkers".

Highlights

The Icelandic EU Kids Online team has benefited from good collaboration with the National Parent´s Association in Iceland (Heimili og skóli) which has carried out regular surveys amongst children and parents since 2003. For the survey in 2013 several questions were amended to facilitate comparison with the 2010 EU Kids Online survey.
In 2014 the Icelandic government drew on policy recommendations from the EU Kids Online project in its work on a revised family policy and an action plan for policies to support children and young people.

Icelandic team

Kjartan Ólafsson is a lecturer at the University of Akureyri in Iceland where he teaches research methods and quantitative data analysis. He is a member of the International Advisory Panel of the EU Kids Online project and was active in designing the methodologies used in that project. He has been involved in various cross-national comparative projects on children.

Thorbjörn Broddason is Professor of Sociology at the University of Iceland. He has been instrumental in the establishment of Sociology, Media and Communication Studies and Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iceland. Amongst his research is the long-term project Children and Television in Iceland which originated in 1968 and continues to this day.

Gudberg K. Jonsson is technical coordinator and programme manager of the Icelandic awareness node, SAFT-Iceland. He completed his BA in Psychology from the University of Iceland in 1994, and has since studied at the Doctorale, Psychologie de la Cognition et de l'Interaction, University of Paris and as a postgraduate at the Department of Psychology, University of Aberdeen.

Links

http://saft.is/english

Contact

Kjartan Ólafsson
lecturer, faculty of humanities and social sciences
University of Akureyri
Solborg v/Nordurslod
IS-600 Akureyri
Iceland
tel: +354-460-8665
email: kjartan@unak.is|

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Available studies

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