Enabling children to control what appears on their social media feed could contribute to fostering media literacy and keeping children safe online. This results pack contains details of an online randomised control trial to test different ways to encourage children to choose to use content controls to restrict exposure to harmful content during the sign-up process of a mock social media platform.
The trial found that defaults were the most important factor in nudging children to stick with a reduced sensitive content feed (69% stayed with the choice ‘don’t recommend harmful content’ when this option was pre-selected). This was higher than when the option to choose a reduced sensitive content feed was not pre-selected (51% in the control arm and 54% in the ordering arm). However, a significant minority of children chose to change the default. The main reasons children gave for not using the content restriction tools were; so that they could see what was on the platform (56%), because they knew they could change it later (41%), and so that they would not miss out on content their friends might see (32%).
These findings provide evidence that the use of defaults can be effective in encouraging children to sign up to platforms using a reduced sensitive content feed, however they are not a foolproof method for changing behaviour.
This pack was produced by the Behavioural Insights Team for Ofcom.