Spain

[ES] Concern about the exposure of minors to harmful audiovisual content increases in Spain but parental control is rarely implemented

IRIS 2023-10:1/13

Azahara Cañedo & Marta Rodriguez Castro

According to the latest Spanish Household Panel Survey, carried out by the National Commission on Markets and Competition (Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia – CNMC), the concern about the exposure of minors to audiovisual content that could be detrimental to their physical and mental development is very high in Spain. However, perceptions vary depending on the age of the child. On the one hand, in households having children between 0 and 6 years of age, the concern revolves around explicitly violent content. On the other hand, in those households that have teenagers between 12 and 15 years of age, the percentage of concern is higher for content that may show dangerous behaviours that could be imitated.

The study shows that 86.1% of Spanish households having underage members are aware of the existence of child protection schedules on television, while this percentage drops to 72.6% when it comes to those who are aware of the tools for blocking or filtering audiovisual content. However, it is noteworthy that most of the households do not run any parental control options. Thus, 77.55% of the sample recognise that they do not have any parental control activated for traditional TV content, while in the case of VOD platforms and social media, this figure is reduced to 62.6% and 60.6%, respectively. In all cases, there was a significant increase with respect to previous years. 

Beyond the confirmation of a greater concern about content disseminated through social media , the data also indicates that there is no understanding of how to complain or protest about audiovisual content for minors. Almost 75% of the sample confirms this. In this vein, 96.4% recognise that, in the last two years, they have not complained or protested about any audiovisual content aimed at children and teenagers.