Youngsters are not as much at risk when on the internet as popular opinion would have us believe but kids still need help, writes the government’s macro-economic advisory agency CPB in a report out this week.

Less than a quarter of children between 9 and 16 say they have seen pornographic content on the net while 15 percent has been confronted with sexually explicit messages (‘sexting’), researchers found.
Large number
A third of the youngsters has online contacts with people they have never met and 6 percent goes on to arrange a meeting. Less than 5 percent admits to being bullied on the internet, a stark contrast with earlier research by communications think-tank SIRE which put the percentage at 41 percent.
The CPB percentages, small though they are, still represent a large number of youngsters at risk. Of the 90,000 children who had met the person they had chatted with 7,500 qualified the experience as ‘unpleasant’. However, some encounters can end disastrously while cyber bullying, which affects 60,000 children, can cause psychological trauma and long-term effects such as depression and loneliness. Watching internet pornography can lead to feelings of sexual frustration and insecurity at a later age.
Active role
The CPB also found that developing more computer skills makes for a better assessment of internet risks. At the same time these improved skills mean that children are exposed to a greater number of risks which they are not yet sophisticated enough to handle adequately. To counteract this the CPB researchers advise parents to take up a more active role in making their children ‘internet savvy’. The earlier the better, they write.
Out of sight
In a comment in nrc, researcher Nathalie Sonck admits that parents are not always in the best position to take on cyber risks. ‘All too often the children’s computers are out of sight. The kids are in their rooms or they access the internet via a laptop, a smart phone or a tablet computer. Parents are not very internet savvy themselves and would do well to develop their own computer skills. A relatively simple thing such as installing internet filters could help avoid certain risks.’