ves, such as socialising and play, take place online. One responding local authority referenced a survey into young people’s internet usage across their city. The majority (91%) of secondary and sixth form pupils said they had a social media account. Around a fifth reported using the internet for more than six hours on a normal school day, and for longer at the weekend. Over 70% said that they had received messages from people that they did not know and about a quarter said that they had been asked to do something that they did not want to do. This echoes research by the Children’s Commissioner (2022), in which 45% of 8–17-year-olds said they had seen harmful content that made them worried or upset, including sexualised or violent imagery, trolling or content promoting self-harm, suicide or diet restriction. Online harm and abuse are areas of global concern, involving local and international factors, and keeping track of children and young people’s online lives is challenging for families and professionals whose IT skills and social media literacy are often less sophisticated. Qualitative evidence gathered via surveys and interviews pointed to an increase in concerns about online activities for children as young as 10. These included: • Parents seeking help as they struggled to cope with children ‘addicted to their phones’ with impacts being seen on sleep, school attendance and conflict in the home • The link between online activity and the increasing number of teenagers otherwise isolated from society • Children sharing explicit images on social media or sharing images of others, including financially motivated sexual extortion • Children and young people subjected to online exploitation, with perpetrators finding ways to target children who might be particularly vulne