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Children in the Web
2008-07-25
According to the Internet users who have children aged 5 – 15 using the Web, 83% say their kids spend time in the Internet by playing online. Every fifth respondent admitted that his/her child uses a P2P programe and reads blogs. The research company Gemius SA in conjunction with Fundacja Dzieci Niczyje has made a survey on parents’ opinions upon children’s online activity.
The aim of the research “Children online according to their parents” was to define the way in which the youngest Internet users use the Web according to their parents’ opinions. The respondents also evaluated different forms of online activity from the viewpoint of security for their children. The survay was conducted with the help of online questionnaires in the group of 1235 respondents having a child in the age between 5 and 15 who uses the Web.
Four years olds in the Web
As results from the research, children start their adventure with the Internet relatively early. Up to 16% of the parents admitted that their child had contact with the Internet at the age of 4 or less. Children use the Web mainly at home (98%) and at school (41%). Every fifth parent concedes that his/her child uses the Internet at their friends’ home.
For the youngest Internet users the Web is first of all a source of entertainment and communication. Definitely, the majority of the parents admitted that their child used online games (83%). According to the respondents’ opinion their children also spent time browsing www sites (50%) and communicating with others: with the help of e-mail (41%) or online communicators (33%). Every fifth of the respondents (19%) claims that their child uses P2P programmes. The children also visit blogs of other Internet users (18%) and write their own (16%).
Un(safe) Internet
Are the parents aware of the threat that unconcidered use the Internet poses to their children? The results of the research indicate that the majority of parents first of all evaluate as dangerous those online activities which are connected with transmitting personal data by their children: the place of living (85%) and their telephone number (79%). Not much fewer (75%) admits that meeting with a person met in the Web as dangerous.
Making personal e-mail available to the person met in the Web and placing photoes in the Internet is treated as perilous by 55% and 48% of the respondents, resepectively. At the same time, a relatively large group of parents cannot conclude which online activities of the youngest users maybe dangerous.
“The results of the research affirm us in a statement that educational campaigns should be adressed both to children and parents and we should talk about the safe use of the Internet from earliest years” – comments Łukasz Wojtasik from Fundacja Dzieci Niczyje. “This year we started a nationawide social campaign Stop Cyberviolence, dedicated to the matter of peer violence with the use of electronic media. We discuss the threats which pose Internet with pupils, parents and teachers”.
About the research - „Children online according to their parents” was carried out by Gemius SA in conjunction with Fundacja Dzieci Niczyje. Online questionnaires were emitted randomly during the time period of 01.02.2008 – 07.02.2008 on the websites using a free of charge version of stat24 or a free of charge weighed by stat.pl/PBI. The target group were respondents having a child in the age of 5 – 15 using the Internet. Totally 1235 questionnaires were assembled.
The results of the research were presented during a celebration of Safe Internet Day on 12 February 2008. Safe Internet Day was established on the initiative of the European Commission in the programme’s frame of Safer Internet, has been celebrted in Poland for the fourth time. The initiators of the festivity and the organizers of Polish activities in the frame of the programme were Fundacja Dzieci Niczyje and and Naukowa Akademicka Sieć Komputerowa (NASK).
Gemius SA was established in Poland in 1999. Over the last 8 years Gemius has developed its activity in many European countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Hungary and Great Britain). After winning a tender in Israel, Gemius also expanded beyond the Old Continent.
Fundacja Dzieci Niczyje – non profit organisation, since 1991 focused on widely understood help for abused children and also their parents and minders. Since 2003 the foundation has been conducting nationwide social campaigns connected with the safety of children and youth in the Web “Child in the Web”. Since 2005 FND has coordinated the project called Awareness realised together with NASK in the frame of European project “Safer Internet”. Since February 2007 FND helps young Internet users in dangerous situations in the frame of the project Helpline.org.pl, conducted together with the Foundation of the TP Group.
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