6th February 2024

Safer Internet Day 2024

What is Safer Internet Day?

Safer Internet Day is a globally celebrated day every year to promote positive internet usage and online safety. It started as an intuitive of the EU safe borders project in 2004 and was then taken up by the Insafe network in 2005. Since then it has been largely coordinated by the UK Internet Center. It takes place on social media platforms and the internet all around the world! The use of hashtags helps to promote the movement.

When is Safer Internet Day?

It is celebrated on the second Tuesday of February every year, this year it falls on the 6th of February.

What is this year’s theme?

This year’s theme for Safer Internet Day is “Inspiring change? Making a difference, managing influence and navigating change online”. 

What is the objective of Safer Internet Day?

The objective of Safer Internet Day is to promote internet safety, but to also hear feedback from children on how we can create a safer internet environment and how they use the internet. Every year, questions are raised to try and figure out how to make a positive change. The questions that are being asked this year are:

• What issues really matter to young people?
• What changes do they want to see?
• How can we all work together to advocate for them moving forward?

These questions can help to create conversations that shape the way we talk about online issues and the ways we react to them. Safer Internet Day says they want these questions to help respond to online issues for “not just one day, but throughout the whole year”.

Ways in which teachers can teach their students about how to stay safe online

Having lessons on Safer Internet Day as well as internet safety all year round is a start on how teachers can show their students how to stay safe online.

Let the students have a voice! Ensuring that you ask students questions and listen to their answers is an excellent way to find out how they stay safe online, let them be ambitious, listen to their issues and help them to find solutions. 

Make sure to educate students early on online privacy and safety, keeping their information private as well as their usernames and passwords needs to be an issue that is addressed as they start getting involved with the online world. It goes without saying, that they should be told not to share any information with online strangers. Showing students curriculum-appropriate online safety videos approved by your school can be an excellent way for them to understand online safety as it keeps them engaged.

Previous Safer Internet Days

Safer Internet Day 2022

In 2022, Safer Internet Day was celebrated on the 8th of February with the theme being ‘All fun and games? Exploring respect and relationships offline’

The survey conducted then found some interesting results:

• 48% of young people say if they couldn’t game online anymore, they would feel like they’ve lost a part of who they are
• Playing games online has helped 61% of young people spend more time with friends virtually than they have done in real life
• 52% of young people who play online games say it’s taught them to respect others
• 61% of parents (with children aged 8-17) have been alerted to a new person within an online game that their child is unsure about

(Statistics from the Safer Internet Website)

Safer Internet Day 2014

The Safer Internet Day in 2014 was celebrated on the 11th of February with the theme being ‘Let’s create a better internet together’ That year a survey was taken in which 21,566 young people aged 7-19 responded to some questions. 40% of them had created an app, website, game or blog. Multiple other questions were asked to investigate the creativity and use of technology among young people.

The difference in topics in 2014 and 2022 shows how different the themes can be and that the objective is different each year. With this year’s theme, we hope you enjoy the Safer Internet Day and that you can get some valuable information across to your students this year.