Some scary statistics regarding child safety online
Posted on July 17, 2007
Filed Under Fatherhood |
These are statistics compiled by Protectkids.org.They highlight the dangers that our kids face while online.
- By the end of 1998, more than 40 percent of all American homes had computers, and 25 percent had Internet access. This trend is expected to continue. Children and teenagers are one of the fastest growing groups of Internet users. An estimated 10 million kids are online today. By the year 2002, this figure is expected to increase to 45 million, and by 2005 to 77 million.
Youth Internet Safety Survey
- Only 1/3 of the households with Internet access are proactively protecting their children with filtering or blocking software.
Center for Missing and Exploited Children
- 75% of children are willing to share personal information online about themselves and their family in exchange for goods and services.
eMarketer
- About 25 percent of the youth who encountered a sexual approach or solicitation told a parent.
Youth Internet Safety Survery
- One in five U.S. teenagers who regularly log on to the Internet say they have received an unwanted sexual solicitation via the Web. Solicitations were defined as requests to engage in sexual activities or sexual talk, or to give personal sexual information.
Crimes Against Children Research Center
- One in 33 youth received an aggressive sexual solicitation in the past year. This means a predator asked a young person to meet somewhere, called a young person on the phone, and/or sent the young person correspondence, money, or gifts through the U.S. Postal Service.
Youth Internet Safety Survey
- 77% of the targets for online preditors were age 14 or older. Another 22% were users ages 10 to 13.
Crimes Against Children Research Center
- 75 percent of the solicited youth were not troubled, 10 percent did not use chat rooms and 9 percent did not talk to strangers.
Crimes Against Children Research Center
- Only 25% of solicited children were distressed by their encounters and told a parent.
Crimes Against Children Research Center
- Only 17 percent of youth and 11 percent of parents could name a specific authority, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), CyberTipline, or an Internet service provider, to which they could report an Internet crime.
Youth Internet Safety Survey
These statistics reflect the use of the internet in most developed countries. The increasing use of the internet as a place where young people meet and communicate socially has introduced a range of new opportunities for them to be exploited. Most parents are unaware of the dangers faced by their children online.
What is needed is for parents to provide their children with the resources to be able to guard against any unnecessary danger. Just like we teach our children at a very young age not to cross the street without an adult, then as they get older to look both ways before they cross and then we allow them to venture out on their own as they mature the same applies to web use.
At a very young age it is very important for a parent to be in total control of their children’s online environment. But, as they mature it become more a matter of supervised learning. Children don’t know what they don’t know.. Hopefully by controlling the level of risk and implementing the appropriate safeguards children can use the web safely.
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