15 FACTS ABOUT INTERNET SAFETY

By Kate Esposito

These 15 facts about Internet safety mostly concern children using the Web. While adults can use past experience to judge whether they are in a threatening or dangerous situation, children have less knowledge of what is unsafe. Unfortunately, there are people online who look to use this naiveté to their advantage. If you share these facts with your kids, or use them as guidelines as to what they should and shouldn't do when using the computer, you can help your child avoid becoming the victim of a predator or an identity thief. These facts are accurate as of December 2008.

15 Facts About Internet Safety

Facts from National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

1.       About 15 percent of youth between the ages of 10 and 17 have had a person contact them over the Internet with a message that was sexual in nature.

2.       About 4 percent received a sexual solicitation that's considered aggressive, i.e. the person sent them gifts or asked to meet offline.

3.       About 35 percent saw nudity or other sexual material online, and only 27 percent told their parents or guardians.

Facts from Rochester Institute of Technology

4.         According to Kidsafe, nearly 50 percent of children in kindergarten or first grade report talking with people through websites. Only half have parents watch their online activity.

5.       While 48 percent of kids in kindergarten or Grade 1 report to have seen content on the Web they were not comfortable with, 28 percent did not tell an adult.

Facts from Harris Interactive

6.         The Kidsafe website also states that about 32 percent of kids in their teens hide their browsing history from their parents or guardians to try to prevent them from seeing which sites they visit.

7.       Many teens, about 16 percent, have email addresses and social networking names that they don't want their parents or guardians to know about.

8.       About 11 percent of teens report knowing how to turn off parental controls, which you can use to block certain types of Web content.

Facts from Cox Communications National Summit on Internet Safety

9.       This national summit agreed that most kids, about 90 percent, have used the Internet since they were nine years old or younger.

10.    Almost 35 percent of tweens, ages 11 and 12, use social networking sites. Many post personal information; some even share their phone numbers and addresses.

11.    About 27 percent of tweens put a fake age in their profiles online.

12.    About 28 percent have had a stranger contact them through an online channel.

13.    Of the tweens that have been contacted, 18 percent don't tell their parents or guardians and 11 percent actually chat with the person.

General Facts

14.    Child predators often hang out on social networking, gaming and chat sites to try to find their victims.

15.    Many children are trusting of anyone they meet that seems nice, even if they meet them online.

From safety.lovetoknow.com/15_Facts_About_Internet_Safety