What Your Kids Are Not Telling You: Kids' Internet Use Facts
34% of kids surveyed said they communicated online with people they did not know.
After surveying 1,500 youth between the ages of 10 and 17 during 2005, researchers at the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire have good and bad news to report.
According to the survey results, released in August, there has been a decline in online sexual solicitation of youth. But exposure to unwanted pornography and online harassment and bullying has increased.
+ 34% of youth Internet users saw sexual material online that they did not
want to see.
+ 55% of homes with Internet access had filtering, blocking, and monitoring software on their computers, up from just 33% five years earlier.
+ Online harassment increased to 9%, from 6% in 2000.
+ About 1 in 7 received unwanted
sexual solicitations, a decrease from the 1 in 5 reporting the same in 2000.
+ Incidents in which solicitors made or tried to make offline contact with youth did not decline. Four percent of those surveyed reported such aggressive contacts.
+ 14% of solicitations were from offline friends and
acquaintances, compared to only
3% in the first survey.
+ 44% of harassers were offline acquaintances, compared with 28% in 2000.
+ 34% of those surveyed said
they communicated online with people they did not know.
Source: Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University
of New Hampshire
