Parents Worried at Increasing Internet Usage by Teenagers and Children
Internet has become so accessible these days that a new research has shown that more than 30% of children and teenagers have internet access in their bedrooms, and that they are at liberty to use it without any supervision.
The statistics suggest that more than one third of the 12-15 age group in the UK can access the net right from their bedrooms, and more than half of them believe they are at full liberty to use it as and when they want. The Ofcom report also suggests that younger children in the age group of 8-11 have lesser independence in this regard, as though one in six has a bedroom net access, only one third of the kids in this group can use the net at their will.
The most astonishing part of the report is that among 5-7 year-olds, around 21% say that they use the internet without any adult being present in the room.
However, the problem is that though these children have some idea of the security settings on social networking websites that they are part of, they do not conduct the basic security checks that are otherwise necessary for the new websites they surf. These include enquiring whether the websites they visit have been visited by other people, knowing about the quality of material being accessed, using secure padlock systems, etc.
However, in improvement upon 59% of last year, around 69% of the group say that their public profiles can be accessed only by friends and family.
The figures in 2007 were quite low as compared to today, as only 9% of the 8-11 age group and 20% of the 12-15 age group had net access in their rooms. Moreover, even though the parents are worried about internet usage by their children, they do not install filtering software etc. to control it.
For the convenience of the parents, Ofcom has issued a guide on exercising control and filtering the contents accessed by children, when they have the internet in their rooms. The guide also suggests that the parents should talk to their children and tell them how to use the internet safely.
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