Helping children build digital empathy on #SaferInternetDay

Digital interaction is a natural and integral part of daily life for many children. The way children play, explore, learn and grow is shaped by digital technologies like never before, and while this brings great opportunities and a multitude of benefits, it can also pose a risk to their wellbeing.

Today is the 18th anniversary of Safer Internet Day, a global awareness day that encourages all of us, as businesses, organizations, governments, policies makers and family members, to come together and play our part in ensuring the safety of children online.

This work is never more important; COVID-19 has accelerated the digital transformation of our everyday lives and significantly increased how much children depend on digital experiences for their education, entertainment and staying close and connected to friends and family. Our digital and physical worlds will only continue to fuse together more tightly, and we must act now to ensure digital experiences always serve the best interests and needs of children.

At the LEGO Group, we recognize and embrace our responsibility to promote and protect the rights and wellbeing of children. We engage with millions of children around the world, online and offline, every day and we aim to do our absolute best to inspire and develop them. This is why I am proud that on this year’s Safer Internet Day, we are joining forces with the DQ Institute, a world-leading digital citizenship and online child safety think-tank, to help empower children to become responsible digital citizens and give them the tools they need to stay safe and positive online.

The first step in our partnership is the launch of a series of interactive, fun experiences that will help children develop digital empathy skills. Through videos and quizzes children will have the opportunity to explore what digital empathy means and how it can help them be kind to fellow users and deal positively with cyberbullying or misinformation.

The DQ Institute partnership is just one of a number of initiatives we have undertaken to promote digital wellbeing. We were the first toy brand to have a digital product safety standard developed with UNICEF and we are committed to always providing a safe space for children to express their creativity online. Our LEGO? Life app offers a safe, creative social space where children can share their LEGO creations in a fully moderated community that requires verified parental consent and anonymity. The same safe space parameters will also be provided for our new LEGO? VIDIYO? experience, which gives children the chance to create their own music videos and share them safely online to engage with other young LEGO creators. It is our goal to ensure parents and caregivers know that our digital experiences are just as safe as our physical products. 

We also want to help parents and caregivers talk to children about online safety and, as children spent more time online last year, we launched the Small Builds for Big Conversations initiative aimed at families with kids 6 – 10 years old. Through a range of creative challenges, we are providing adults with an enjoyable, guided way to have conversations about this important topic.

I am really proud of the work we do to create positive, safe digital places for children but, as the digital transformation of our world accelerates, we must all do more to shape the digital world so that it contributes positively to society and to the development of children.

This requires us all to work together to enhance our collective understanding of the impact of digital technology on children’s rights and wellbeing. Companies and organisations must work together to tackle aspects of the digital world that are detrimental to children’s wellbeing. At the same time, policymakers and regulators must be encouraged to always adopt a more child-centric, rights-based approach to policy so that children’s rights are put first. And we ask that governments do all they can to foster good practices and develop progressive digital citizenship strategies that prepare children to build digital literacy skills, resilience, creativity and critical thinking to embrace what the future holds.

Children are the decision-makers, leaders and problem-solvers of tomorrow and the work we do today to help them flourish is crucial for all our futures. 

#SaferInternetDay #SID2021