About 37 percent of students in grades five to nine have shared personal information with people they met online, according to a survey released yesterday by the Child Welfare League Foundation.
Among the respondents who said they had given personal information to so-called “online friends,” the most common information they shared was their real name (59.9 percent), the survey showed.
This was followed by personal photographs (45.5 percent), the name of the school or which class they attended (39.7 percent), their location (27.7 percent), their mobile phone number (26.9 percent) and their e-mail address (15.5 percent), it found.
According to the survey, 9.3 percent of the 484 students who said they had shared personal information, said they shared information such as body weight, or chest, waist or hip measurements.
The survey also found that 84.7 percent of respondents’ parents have taught their children about Internet safety, while 94.4 percent of respondents’ schools included it in their curriculum.
However, it also showed that 41 percent of respondents believed that what their parents had taught them about Internet safety was not helpful to solve problems they encountered online.
The survey showed that 20.5 percent of respondents had received “special requests” from people they met online.
Among the 271 respondents who said they received such requests, 57.2 percent said they were asked to participate in video calls, while 46.5 percent said they were asked by an “online friend” to enter into a romantic relationship.
About 36 percent received requests to meet alone in person, and 25.1 percent were asked to provide nude or intimate videos or photographs, the survey showed.
Over the past six years, the amount of time spent by children on the Internet has doubled, the foundation said.
In a 2014 survey, it found that children spent an average of 12.98 hours per week online.
However, in this year’s survey, respondents reported an average of 27.2 hours of Internet usage per week, the foundation said.
The survey, conducted from May 13 to May 29, collected 1,321 valid samples, and had a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 2.69 percent, it said.
Among the survey’s respondents, 51.3 percent identified as male, 46.6 percent identified as female and 2.1 percent identified as “other,” it said.
False identities, emotional blackmail or threats are among the several ways people on the Internet might attempt to trick children into sharing intimate photographs, the foundation said.
As it was likely that children would encounter situations on the Internet that they cannot solve on their own, the foundation urged parents to regularly discuss Internet usage with their children and seek to build trust in tackling such topics.
It also encouraged children to practice rejecting inappropriate requests from people they meet online, and urged schools to focus more on Internet safety to help students identify and avoid dangerous situations online.
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