Young Internet Users Are Engaging in Risky Online Behaviour

Recent research has suggested that young internet users are engaging in risky online behaviour including sharing personal information and playing internet games aimed at children of a higher age. Furthermore, around a fifth (18%) of children said that they had arranged to meet friends in an offline setting through the internet. Findings from the first survey, which looked at 1,162 school-aged children, found that those between the ages of 9-11 were particularly likely to be taking these kind of risks.

Young Internet Users Are Engaging in Risky Online Behaviour

Young Internet Users Are Engaging in Risky Online Behaviour
[Image: Nevit Dilmen via Wikimedia Commons]

In addition to this, a second piece of research has discovered that more than half of young people (55%) in England today see cyber-bullying as a part of day-to-day life. The survey suggested that these individuals accept that cyber-bullying will happen.

Survey findings also highlighted the amount of time which individuals were spending on the internet  and how they were using this time online. The research suggested that more than two fifths (43%)  went  online on a daily basis, and almost half (46%) spent over two hours on the internet each time  they  logged on. More than a fifth (22%) regularly spent time on the internet after 9pm and almost a  tenth (7%) were still online after midnight. A number of children – all of them school aged – reported  that their late night activity had had an effect on their performance during class the following day.

In terms of how children are spending their time online, the most popular sources of entertainment were playing online video games (23%), social networking (18%) and watching videos streamed over the internet (17%). A fifth (19%) said they played video-games with war-based content, and of these a large proportion admitted to playing titles which were targeted at much older children – such as the Call of Duty franchise which is suggested content for 18 year olds and above.

Perhaps most worrying for parents, around a fifth (18%) of those responding to the survey stated that they had met in real life with individuals they had initially met online. Although it is positive that the majority went with a parent or older sibling, one in three said they only took friends with them for this initial meeting.

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