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32% of Irish children are talking to strangers online every week

Over half of nine year olds are on social media despite age restrictions, a new survey has found.

OVER HALF OF nine year olds are on social media despite social media age restrictions, a new survey has found. 

CyberSafeIreland, the children’s online safety charity which provides training on how to stay safe online, surveyed over 5,000 children, parents, and teachers who have attended its training sessions over the last academic year.

It found that 68% of eight to 13 year olds own their own smartphone, while 70% use social media and messaging apps.

Every week, 32% of children are talking to strangers online, with 18% speaking to strangers every day. 

The results reveal that 30% of children have rarely or never discussed online safety with parents. 

A total of 13% of children are also spending over four hours online, including almost 20% of 12 year olds.

The research also shows that 41% of eight and nine-year-olds are playing over-18s games, which as the report highlights can expose children to highly inappropriate and potentially damaging content. 

The results come as Ireland recently approved the digital age of consent as 16. 

CyberSafeIreland said it is concerned that there is not enough guidance and support out there for parents, teachers, social workers to deal with the variety of online risks that children are facing. 

The charity said the contact with strangers is of significant concern, stating there is a potential risk of sexual exploitation or grooming. 

It added that more must be done to protect children, and urged parents to have an ongoing dialogue with their children about safety online.

Alex Cooney, CyberSafeIreland’s CEO said it’s vital that the government does more to address this issue and goes further than its recent Action Plan on Online Safety to set clear time-bound targets by which the success of its policies can be measured.

“It’s also high time that social media companies did more to protect under-age users, and in the absence of these well-resourced companies stepping up to the plate then the government should appoint a Digital Safety Commissioner to enforce greater corporate responsiveness,” he said. 

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21 Comments
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    Mute gary mullen
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    Sep 10th 2018, 8:45 AM

    A lot of Adults need to be educated too, both parents and grandparents, in what to look out for, how to advise children, how to approach their children about people on the net and what to look out for and how to deal with kids spending 4 hours online, and how to monitor a child’s internet use or even how to set a time limit or block sites on a router. Educate the adult to educate the child.

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    Mute Vera Dawber Power
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    Sep 10th 2018, 9:34 AM

    @gary mullen: I totally agree Gary.
    Also if the children disobey …I’d go as far as taking the plug off the computer, No way in these scary times would I let my Grandchildren watch anything that I felt was unsuitable.

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    Mute Jodi
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    Sep 10th 2018, 11:20 AM

    The amount of excuses I hear from parents as to why their kids of 9/10 have smart-phones. It’s never the truth of “I wasn’t brave enough to say no”. I have two 12 year olds who don’t have phones, and only use the iPad for school research while we are in the room. We told them they would have them in a year for secondary school. Trust them to understand your reasons, stand firm, don’t give in cause their friend’s parents did. Peer pressure will continue to apply to drink, drugs, sex, etc – so set a good standard when they are young!

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    Mute Kendra Jackson
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    Sep 10th 2018, 11:59 AM

    One of my nephews was being rather unconcerned about talking to strangers online.
    Right up to the point where i told him that any of them could easily be me with a fake profile and checking up on him.

    I still enjoy the look of horror on his face. Fun times!

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    Mute Mrs Doyle
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    Sep 10th 2018, 3:55 PM

    @Kendra Jackson: that’s brilliant Kendra!

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    Mute Dáithí O Raghailaigh
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    Sep 10th 2018, 8:36 AM

    Unfortunately the internet and social media is moving too fast for us to catch up with it, Its about educating your kids of the dangers and informing them that someone saying their 12 might be a 50yo I tell them anything inappropriate I want to see it, also go into your router and set up the time you want the internet switched off also you can add a URL of sites you don’t want your kids to get into like porn

    48
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    Mute Mark McDermott
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    Sep 10th 2018, 4:17 PM

    @Dáithí O Raghailaigh: I agree with what your saying but lets be honest, how many parents even know what a router is let alone the address to access it.

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    Mute Sorcha Ní Shúilleabháin
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    Sep 10th 2018, 4:49 PM

    @Mark McDermott: The parents of most primary school children are in their 30′s or early 40′s..hardly dinosaurs who grew up not understsnding the digital age. Any responsible adult can push the off switch and use the word ‘no’.

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    Mute Gerard McDermott
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    Sep 10th 2018, 12:32 PM

    Parents are at fault. Give children a phone/tablet. Give them the wifi code. Give them everything they need. But then worst of all, they give them privacy to do what ever they want on the device by allowing them to have the device in their room at night.

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    Mute Pat Patovic
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    Sep 10th 2018, 7:26 PM

    @Gerard McDermott: Not correct. Lazy parents are. Normal parents explain to children what they can and can’t do and check up on them from time to time.

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    Mute Gerard McDermott
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    Sep 10th 2018, 8:14 PM

    @Pat Patovic: Pat, “lazy parents” are still parents. You can label them what ever way you want, they are still at fault.

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    Mute Luke Barrett
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    Sep 10th 2018, 10:31 AM

    Games open kids up to this majorly. But the thing is most sites and games have age restrictions. Hell even Google accounts shut down email accounts if your under 13 years old. But if you log on to any 18+ rated game it’s scary how many kids you can are playing it. Games parents need to be more aware as for policing sites that’s a lot hard as anyone can just edit the date of birth.

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    Mute Eamonn Kiely
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    Sep 10th 2018, 1:53 PM

    The Parent can control what their children do and see on the Internet via parental controls on computers and tablets.

    They can also put time limit access via the router in their home to allocate day of week and what time children can be on the Internet.

    The Parents needs to educate themselves on how to do this.

    Children should not have full access to the Internet without controls in place, firstly to protect the child from unsavory material and predators

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    Mute FlopFlipU
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    Sep 10th 2018, 10:10 AM

    The problem is the children are miles ahead on this stuff scary

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    Mute Loretta stiletto
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    Sep 10th 2018, 3:50 PM

    Young kids dont have money for phones and gadgets, someone buys them for them. just dont buy them .

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    Mute Siùsaidh Ni Bhriain
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    Sep 10th 2018, 1:26 PM

    32% of Irish children have useless parents…

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    Mute TamuMassif2019
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    Sep 10th 2018, 10:42 PM

    @Siùsaidh Ni Bhriain: Bad parenting now is called being too busy…

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    Mute Freedom from Abuse
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    Sep 10th 2018, 11:53 AM

    How I wish someone would get us across to Ireland for our training. I bet figures are worse – IWF states 96% of live streaming films are from girls aged between 8 and 13 and 96% are filming in their bedrooms on their webcams 40% are CAT A check out the copine scale it involves live sex with animals and brutality

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    Mute TamuMassif2019
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    Sep 10th 2018, 10:37 PM

    Is it all about collecting so called friends to build the numbers up and then these same children complain about bullying on line as they take photos of their naked selves… Do their parents not care or can parents not say to children now NO, its a 2 letter word called no?

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    Mute Ryan
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    Sep 10th 2018, 7:37 PM

    I am a ‘child’ and I probably talk or speak to strangers maybe every week the internet isn’t this big scary place where child predator are every where I am not saying that them type of people don’t exist obviously they do but it isn’t as bad as the media make it out to be and I think the general media should be educated on the topic.

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    Mute Ryan
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    Sep 10th 2018, 7:37 PM

    I am a “child” and I probably talk or speak to strangers maybe every week the internet isn’t this big scary place where child predator are every where I am not saying that them type of people don’t exist obviously they do but it isn’t as bad as the media make it out to be and I think the general media should be educated on the topic.

    1
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