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A QUARTER OF children aged between 8 and 12 have been upset by harmful content online, according to new figures published by CyberSafeKids.
Additionally, 21% of children between the ages of 12 and 14 had similar negative experiences online, including encountering scams, harassment, horror, and sexual material.
CyberSafeKids’ annual Trends & Usage Report, ‘Left To Their Own Devices’, shows that for 8-12 year olds, this most commonly occurred on YouTube (37%) and Roblox (23%), a child focussed online gaming platform.
For secondary school children aged 12 to 14, Snapchat (41%) and TikTok (30%) were identified as the most common platforms where these negative experiences occurred.
The report surveyed over 7,000 children in the academic year 2023-24 and found that 42% of 8-12 year olds, and 62% of 12-14 year olds do not talk to their parents about their online activity.
The report also shows that parents are less involved in their children’s online lives than in previous years.
Less than half (43%) of primary school children reported having “mostly positive” online experiences in the last year. YouTube (75%) WhatsApp (41%), Roblox (40%), Snapchat (36%) and TikTok (33%) are the most popular platforms for this age group.
The report found 35% of 8-12 year olds can go online whenever they want, rising to 61% for 12-14 year olds in secondary school.
38% of 8-12 year olds gamed with strangers online while almost 65% were contacted by a stranger during an online game.
55% of children aged 8 to 12 did not tell a parent when bothered, confused or upset by harmful content or unsolicited contact, rising to 63% for 12-14 year olds.
“The report’s findings demonstrate how important the age of access, online safety education and family supervision are for children and young people,” CyberSafeKids said in a statement accompanying the report.
“Negative experiences such as cyberbullying, seeing harmful content and unsolicited contact occurred less often for children who were supervised and made smart choices regarding their privacy, interactions and activities online.”
Children with unlimited access to the internet were more likely to have experienced cyberbullying than those who had time restrictions.
“This highlights the dangers of reduced parental supervision, unrestricted access, and insufficient online safety education,” the online safety charity said.
82% of 8-12 year olds already have their own social media or instant messaging account, regardless of a minimum age restriction of 13 on most popular platforms, the charity said.
The charity also said that education on online activity and initiatives to limit phone use in schools were important measures to combat negative experiences for children online.
CyberSafeKids CEO, Alex Cooney, said the report shows “the vital need for online safety education in schools”.
“Children are under-prepared and ill-equipped to be online. Algorithms that serve up often inappropriate content are hugely problematic for children. Our data shows how popular social gaming environments such as Roblox are with young children, yet they fly under the radar for regulation requirements.”
She called on the Government to urgently address what he called a “serious gap” in this with regard to Roblox.
The charity recommended making age verification mandatory for access to online services and legislating for a minimum age at which online platforms can provide services to children.
It also recommended making online safety and digital literacy “the 4th pillar of the education system” and delivering public awareness campaigns on the issue, including encouraging smartphone-free schools.
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Excellent article, the Irish state must have the best minds on this. Apple may be a one-off, but if anything is found re the Apple tax arrangements the investigators will be looking at other multinationals located in Ireland.
Apples is not a one off but at least they can justify their tax deal with the amount if people they employ here. There are several companies who employ very few here that have similar deals
The EU is not interested in how many people they employ. They are interested in tax rules. And they will fine if they find fault and as usual not care about potential damage to the people of Ireland.
It’s quite shocking how people wrap themselves in the national flag to defend these highly questionable tax arrangements. Apple has made staggering profits, paying hardly any tax in Ireland or elsewhere in the EU. It contributes very little to the Irish or European economy. In a time where the poor and vulnerable are paying the highest cost for economic crisis it is only fair that these multinationals pay a fair share.
It’s not that black and white. They leave Ireland – then say goodbye to over 3000 jobs in Cork. It would be catastrophic to the area.
indeed it would be “fair” that Apple does not take advantage of a favourable tax deal with Ireland. It would be “fair” that it paid tax in France for the profit made in France. The point here is that it would be a serious blow to the Irish economy because, yes, we are partly funded by the money we unfairly allow companies to not pay into other countries’ tax coffers. Any return to “fairness” here would be our loss. So if you want fairness, be prepared to pay more tax, Dom, as we may soon lose the taxes (unfairly) paid by Apple here.
If there is proved to be a sweetheart deal with Apple, as opposed to Apple taking advantage of a loophole, we should not defend the indefensible. We should close the gaps open to creative accounting, remove the Double Irish loophole and lower the corporation tax rate to 9% to offset losses. Our tax regime should be airtight legally, but low in percentage.
Hi Neil
Thanks for the comment.
The matter is not one of defending the action, it is about defending the country from having to pay a fine that would wreck the public finances. Companies are now being fined close to €1Bn. A similar or larger fine would do horrible damage to the country.
Bye, bye apple. The core is now rotten. Time to plant the seed somewhere else. USA up to its old tricks again.
Apple metaphors. Nice.
Scary
Are people not aware you or I would go to prison if we engaged in the same practice’s as Apple and the rest. Tax dodging is tax dodging end of. While they might benefit cork., they do nothing for our economy as a whole. So we continue to get hit with more taxes while these parasites avoid contributing.
13 trillion folks and that is only the tip of the iceberg of what these parasites are hiding in taxes globally. Wake up.
so say they find ireland and apple clean does this mean the irish state can sue the US senate and newspapers and media that actually might not of done any back checking at all so we could get rid of water charges and property tax cause that would be swell but you know thats a if ireland are clean sure we will be grand ;)
Our problem is we think if we don’t give into these big companies they will leave, now its too late we did it once too often. The Governments have over the years sold this Country
as a free for all, just look at the expense of medicines here the highest in Europe. Our government thinks thats ok.
Sure they will pay they wont say a word
Lets show them by uniting next Saturday for the water rates, and we wont stop there.
Why do we sell ourselves short
Interesting.
have your say