This article offers an original contribution to the crucial question of how digital media impacts children and young people's everyday lives. Focus groups with young people aged 11-21 years, and interviews with teachers in schools in England revealed digital media can be a source of contention between young people and their parents or carers. Our research revealed that children and young people have a paradoxical relationship with the Internet because they feel both free and unfree online. They reported the Internet offered a 'safe haven' and form of 'escape', and at the same time they were also concerned about how their data was being used and described feeling the need to conceal their online activities.