A third of children ‘have viewed net porn’
The National Centre for Technology and Education (NCTE) carried out an investigation into children’s online behaviour in conjunction with four Scandinavian countries.
It found that 80% of Irish children have access to the internet at home although only 12% said they used it every day, compared to 46% of children in Sweden. Almost one in five children have been invited to a face-to-face meeting by another internet user and 34% have viewed a violent website, either accidentally or on purpose.
The EU-funded study by the centre in Dublin City University involved 732 children aged 9 to 16 years from 18 Irish primary and secondary schools. A Norweigian institute surveyed almost 8,000 children in Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark.
Despite the findings, internet education in schools is working well. Around 67% of Irish children had received instructions in school on how to use the internet and they were much more aware of the dangers than their Scandinavian counterparts. In Ireland, 83% of children knew it was dangerous to give out their address compared to 61% in Norway and 62% in Iceland. And 81% of Irish children were aware of the risks of meeting a stranger compared to 55% in Norway.
The NCTE warned parents that although filtering software can block most of the harmful websites, it is not foolproof. “A lot of children can turn them off,” NCTE project officer Sinéad Thornton said.
The ISPCC said parents had to learn about new technologies such as the internet and mobile phones because they were now part of everyday life. “The internet is a fantastic tool and there is no need for parents to do something extreme like throwing the computer in the bin,” chief executive Paul Gilligan said.
But he said the Government and internet service providers had to take action to combat the “barrage” of pornographic spam being sent to children’s e-mail accounts.
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