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A SURVEY OF parents suggests that nearly one in three are worried that their child may be groomed online, with cyber-bullying and accessing pornographic content also featuring high among parents’ concerns.
On Safer Internet Day, Irish charity CyberSafeKids has released the findings of a survey of 900 parents of children aged five to 17 conducted by polling firm Amárach.
29% of parents are extremely concerned about the risk of their children being groomed online, the survey found.
Other key concerns are the risks of cyber-bullying (26%) and accessing material related to pornography (25%) and self-harming (25%).
16% of parents are worried about children’s addiction to social media.
Overall, more than 80% of parents believe it is their responsibility to keep their children safe online.
However, 52% do not feel confident about how to teach their children how to stay safe on the internet. Only 28% use parental controls on children’s devices and many said their children’s internet access was only sometimes or never supervised.
The survey also found that 24% of 6-year olds have their own smartphone, while 45% of children aged 10 can use their smartphone in their bedrooms.
Alex Cooney, CEO of CyberSafeKids, said the research “identifies a worrying gap between children’s access and their parents’ ability to support them to be safe online”.
“Parents need to be aware that the safety of any child with unrestricted and unsupervised access to smart devices is at risk,” Cooney said.
She said it was “alarming” to find that “children as young as 5 are being allowed to use smartphones alone in their bedroom”.
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This push to allegedly save the children from the Internet is merely a cynical device to introduce censorship powers to control the flow of information and online dissent and has nothing to do with protecting children.
Censorship is likely to lead to more risks for children rather than less, because children are much more tech savvy than their parents and will either bypass any and all control measures put in place, by accessing darkweb or private networks to find whatever they want or what their friends tell them about.
If people want to protect their children and know what they are accessing online, try talking to them, tell them about your expectations regarding their behaviour, practical safety, and about not giving out personal information and meeting people in the real world.
@Dvsespaña: Isn’t AI wonderful? You’d almost think this was a human!
To be fair I don’t trust most adults with the internet lately.
Given the propensity of adults to swallow all the rubbish anti-vax, anti-immigrant, anti-card payment, anti-everything else that they see online, maybe their fears are well founded?
@Wombleman: what makes it rubbish?
@Patrick Dooley: The fact that the majority of it is nonsense and has been widely debunked time and time again, that the people pushing the nonsense most of the time don’t even believe what they’re saying, but either enjoy playing the role of the contrarian, or are making money from posting on controversial topics. How’s that?
@Jason Memail: your comment is very big on rhetoric but very thin on fact
@Jason Memail: 66% say we are taking too many migrants, that’s a majority
@Patrick Dooley: It’s possible to believe that Ireland is taking too many migrants without being anti-migrant – there’s a difference. Now do the anti-vax one.
@Jason Memail: no figures for the anti vax one
@Wombleman: a large proportion of them just want a vaguely morally justifiable excuse to act like pr7cks, and admire those who embolden them to do so, something exploited by many grifters online. The cause is only window dressing.
@Patrick Dooley: I’m going to go with the fact that only people with low levels of education and intelligence believe it.
I’ll add to that, the fact that most of it makes no logical sense at all. Although, that’s related to the first point I guess?
@Wombleman: that’s great and all, but it’s only your opinion, there’s nothing to back up your claim
@Patrick Dooley: People with high education are less likely than people with low education to believe in conspiracy theories. van Prooijen JW. ‘Why Education Predicts Decreased Belief in Conspiracy Theories’. Appl Cogn Psychol. 2017 Jan-Feb;31(1):50-58. doi: 10.1002/acp.3301. Epub 2016 Nov 28. PMID: 28163371; PMCID: PMC5248629.
@Tom Dillon: and who decides what a conspiracy theory is?
@Patrick Dooley: You’re the one asking for facts, and when you’re given them you want to move the goalposts. Should enter the Olympics with those levels of gymnastics!
@Jason Memail: I haven’t been given a single fact, I’m still waiting
@Patrick Dooley: “who decides what a conspiracy theory is?” Anyone with even the most basic critical thinking skills. Anyone who knows not to fall for the pseudo intellectual, ill informed or outright lying, ramblings of gombeens on the internet. Anyone who doesn’t need some narcissistic, small minded amadan to tell them what to be afraid of or what to be angry about. Anyone who can accept that the world is hugely random and that there doesn’t need to be a THEM behind everything. Any one who knows what Patternicity is.
@francis devenney: what lies?
@Patrick Dooley: We could start with “The government are going to fill up the islands with people from India” or how about “Ukrainians don’t need tax and insurance on their cars” or all the places that “were going to be used to house men of military age” (so anywhere between 15 and 65) and on and on and on. If someone has to lie to me to make me angry about something, I probably shouldn’t be all that worried.
@francis devenney: the men of military age is an example of the truth
@Patrick Dooley: What is military age?
@Jason Memail: depends. If there Irish there “working age” but if there foreign its “fighting age”
Barry Cowan….an utter fraud
Make people accountable for their actions online. It can be done – non-repudiation verifcation!!
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