Protecting children on social media – Views on age limits

Respondents were surveyed on their concerns relating to children's use of social media and asked to indicate their level of concern on a variety of issues. The surveyed topics included exploitation, violence, addiction, data protection, pornography, terrorist content, recruitment to crime and exposure to conspiracy theories.

The survey question asked: ‘To what extent are you concerned or not about each of the following issues when children use online services or platforms?’

Results

The vast majority of people in the EU are concerned about the safety of children online. More than eight in 10 people in the EU are fairly or very concerned about a list of threats that the use of online services and platforms poses. Between 80 % and 89 % of respondents indicated consistently high levels of overall concern regarding children’s use of online services or platforms, depending on the issue asked about.

Concerns about children being approached by those seeking to exploit them as well as encountering violent content online are the biggest worries. Nine in 10 people (89 %) expressed being fairly or very concerned about these issues. The results for different concerns are shown in Figure 1. Over half of people are ‘very concerned’ about these issues. Between 43 % and 54 % of all respondents, depending on the issue asked about, indicated being very concerned.

Figure 1 – Concerns about safety of children when using social media

NB: N = 26,453

Question: To what extent are you concerned or not about each of the following issues when children use online services or platforms? Answer categories: Very concerned, Fairly concerned, Not very concerned, Not at all concerned, Don’t know.

Source: FRA, 2026

Despite consistently high levels of concern, there is a certain variety in opinions across EU Member States. The level of overall concern is highest in Spain, where nine in 10 respondents expressed concerns on any of the issues. Comparatively high levels of concern were also reported in Luxembourg, Lithuania, Slovenia, France, Ireland, Portugal and Italy (all on average above 90 % concerned).

Still very high levels of concern (but comparatively lower with respect to other Member States) were reported in Romania (ranging from 66 % to 71 % - depending on the issue asked about), Germany (71 % to 82 %), Hungary (71 % to 83 %) and Croatia (75 % to 81 %).

The most variation in concerns across the different online threats is found in Finland. Almost all Finnish respondents are worried about children being approached by people who want to exploit them (97 %), while fewer but still a high percentage of people (72 %) expressed concern about children encountering conspiracy theories. Similarly, in Sweden, Malta, Denmark, Czechia and Estonia, the levels of concern differ more strongly depending on the issue asked about Figure 2 shows the percentage of respondents by country that are fairly or very concerned that children may encounter violent content online.

Women are slightly more often concerned than men about the threats the use of online services pose. Older people are somewhat more often concerned than younger people about the threats. These differences can be observed consistently across multiple issues, but the gender and age differences are not very strong.

For example, when asked about how concerned they are that children may encounter violent content online, 81 % of respondents below the age of 18 (aged 15-17) were fairly or very concerned compared to 89 % of respondents aged 18 and above. The biggest difference in the level of concern by age can be found with respect to children encountering conspiracy theories. 63 % of those aged 15-17 indicated being fairly or very concerned compared to 81 % of those aged 18 and above.

Figure 2 – Concerns about safety of children when using social media, by country (%)

Children may encounter violent content

NB: N = 26,453

Question: “To what extent are you concerned or not about each of the following issues when children use online services or platforms? They may encounter violent content.” The percentage includes those that indicated being ‘very concerned’ or ‘fairly concerned’, whereas the remaining respondents either indicated being ‘not very concerned’ or ‘not at all concerned’ or ‘don’t know’. The orange line shows the EU average.

Source: FRA, 2026