According to the study covering 2,370 participants (1,185 parents and 1,185 teens and tweens), 77 per cent of the children said they had created their Facebook account even before they became 13 years old. Facebook mandates that the user be above 13 years to sign up and use the social networking site.
Also, 81 per cent of the children in India in the age group of 8-16 years said they are active on social media networks compared to 70 per cent in the US and Singapore.
While 69 per cent said they have published photos, 58 per cent said they have posted their email addresses, 49 per cent name of their schools, 46 per cent their full birth date and 42 per cent said they have posted their phone number.
“Due to the proliferation of connected devices like smartphones and laptops, there is an unprecedented level of personal data available online now, expanding the risk canvas exponentially,” Intel Security Group India Development Centre Head of Operations Venkat Krishnapur told reporters here.
Increased education and use of technologies like parental controls, content filtering and creation of activity logs will play a huge role in empowering parents to ensure a safe digital footprint for their children, he added.
“The good news is there are open conversations between parents and children but work is still required on ensuring that these go beyond casual chats,” Intel Security APAC Consumer Marketing Director Melanie Duca said.
It is imperative to focus on ensuring children understand the consequences of their actions as well as agree on good Internet etiquette, she added. Interestingly, 82 per cent of the children surveyed said they are concerned about maintaining privacy of their personal information.
Almost half (44 per cent) of the children surveyed said they would meet or have met someone in person that they first met online. “While this is down from last year’s 53 per cent, it still is risky behaviour. Also, when it comes to online activity, parents believe (48 per cent) that the worst thing that could happen to their children is interacting with strangers online,” Duca said.
The study found 86 per cent parents claiming to know the kind of activities that their child regularly participates in while online.
Interestingly, 56 per cent children said they would change their online behaviour when they knew their parents were watching and 43 per cent children use anonymous names or aliases for their social media profiles. Most used social apps were Facebook (74 per cent) and WhatsApp (57 per cent).
While the number of ‘likes’ or ‘favorites’ it takes to make a child feel happy was very diverse (from less than 25 to more than 100), only 13 per cent said these do not matter to them. One out of four children polled said they know other people’s password and 61 per cent said they have accessed those people’s accounts without them knowing, the study found.
While 91 per cent of the parents polled claimed to have had a discussion with their children about the risks of social media, interacting with strangers is not one of the primary topics.
The most discussed topics are cyber criminals and identity theft (71 per cent), privacy settings (62 per cent), cyberbullying (57 per cent), online reputation (53 per cent) or popularity among friends (52 per cent).
Only 17 per cent of parents said they are interested in finding out if their children are interacting with strangers online, indicating that while they believe such behaviour may be risky, the knowledge has not translated into remedial action, the study said.
Interestingly, while 90 per cent of parents indicated that they would monitor all of their child’s online activities across all devices if they could, 64 per cent children said they would hide some of their online activity from their parents.
The report found 43 per cent children active on social media saying they have witnessed cruel behaviour on social networks, while 52 per cent indicated that they have bullied people over social media themselves.