Despite Netflix hit Adolescence driving national conversation, no uptick in online safety apps

Ipsos UK today released new findings which reveal that in the weeks following Netflix hit Adolescence, there was minimal change in the average use of some of the country’s most popular parental safety apps.

Ipsos iris – the UKOM endorsed service that measures the online behaviour of audiences – saw a “limited impact” in the number of people in Britain using YouTube Kids, Microsoft Family Safety, Google Family Link and bark.com, before and after the show launched.

Adolescence has driven a national conversation about online safety of children, with calls for the series to be shown in schools. But in the two weeks prior to its UK launch on March 13, YouTube Kids (the top downloaded app in app store’s ‘kids’ category) saw an average of 566,000 users per day. Over the same two-week time period after, YouTube Kids saw an average of 582,000 users per day – a minimal change.

Google Family Link is regularly rated as one of the ‘best’ parental control apps. In the two weeks prior to Adolescence, it saw an average of 309,000 users per day. In the fortnight following, it saw 318,000 users on average per day.

Ipsos iris findings of parental control app usage is in stark contrast to Ipsos UK polling of British parents, which shows three in four (75%) say they’re concerned about what children are seeing, hearing or doing online. Over half (55%) say they use parental controls of apps for specific devices their children use.

Beckie Goodfield, UK Country Lead, Media Development at Ipsos said:

Adolescence has shocked the country into thinking more about the content children are being exposed to online. But Ipsos iris data – which measures genuine online behaviour – suggests there has been a limited impact in usage of some of the major parental safety apps, since the show launched. While the show has driven an important national conversation, we haven’t seen much of a change at all. This is despite parents regularly telling us they are deeply concerned about what their children see and hear online.

Technical note: 

• Ipsos iris is the UKOM endorsed service measuring the online behaviour of audiences. It uses a hybrid methodology combining metered data from a core 10,000 single-source panel with census site-centric measurement.
• Figures in release comparing an average daily usage in United Kingdom of 27 February to 12 March vs 13 March to 26 March.