More than 10% of children have been cyberbullied

MORE than one in 10 children using the internet have been bullied, contacted by strangers or come in contact with sexual or violent images online.

And the problems are likely to get worse as more young people use the internet regularly, the EU has warned as it rolls out a safer internet programme.

Irish parents are very aware of the dangers and supervise their children’s use of the internet more closely than any others in the EU, a survey has found.

Eight out of 10 children between the ages of 6 and 17 years surf the internet regularly, almost all on their family computer.

The survey showed that Irish youngsters were the least likely to ask their parents for help, but they were the most closely supervised, with 80% of parents saying they stay near them when they are online.

Almost 100% of parents said they do not allow their children to give out personal information, chat with people they do not know in real life, or join chat rooms.

More than half are not allowed use emails or instant messaging and more Irish family computers have monitoring and/or filtering software than almost any other nationality in the EU.

But 11% of parents said their children asked them for help because of their encounters on the internet.

This was because their children had been contacted by a stranger, or had been bullied or harassed by others or had come in contact with unsuitable sexual or violent images.

Parents surveyed said their greatest concerns, in order, were that their children would view sexual or violent images; be bullied or find information about anorexia, suicide or self-harming.

They were also concerned about their children being groomed by paedophiles setting them up to make contact with them for sexual purposes.

Almost two-thirds of youngsters have mobile phones — 11% of them are just six years of age while 95% of 17-year-olds have their own phones.

An estimated 15% of the mobiles have internet capability, varying from 1% of the phones used by 6-year-olds to 19% of those owned by older children.

The EU agreed yesterday to spend €55 million to make the internet safer for children by funding public awareness campaigns; providing network points for help and developing technology to fight illegal content.

Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, said: “Children dive into the world of internet and mobile technologies very early and often become fully fledged technology-savvy, web-surfing teenagers.

“Because these technologies help them study and give them exciting new ways to socialise with others, they are often faster to use them than their parents. We need to make sure that whenever they use online or mobile services, they can recognise potential risks and deal with them.”