Kids research special: privacy and security

newmediaage reporting:
Kids have a ‘post now, think later’ approach to social media.
While kids are savvy in some respects when it comes to their online privacy, they rarely have any idea of the digital footprint they are leaving behind or consider the long term consequences of what they post.
Mobiles phones being used as a way to bypass content blocked or restricted by parents.
The use of smartphones is harder for parents to monitor or restrict so kids are using it as a means of always being in contact with friends, via social media, but also as a way to access content that they aren’t allowed to.
Discovery’s Renuka Gupta said, “As smartphones are now becoming the norm it means access to the web is more instant. One of the kids told us that when he isn’t allowed to watch his favourite content on TV or on the computer, he just goes to his room and uses his iPhone.”
Kids are lying about their age to get on social networks and access content
As the research found last year, kids lie about their age to get onto social networks. It was the case that kids would only lie by a year or so, for example 12 year olds lying by just a year to be able to get onto Facebook or Twitter. But the age to which kids are now trying to get onto social media is getting younger, with many of the kids in the 9-11 age group now saying they’d lied to get onto Facebook or Twitter.
Research by youth agency Dubit foudn that 44% of UK children aged 8-12-years were using Facebook.
Siobhan Freegard, founder of parenting site Netmums said that there will always be a challenge in protecting curious children.
“When presented with a barrier that says ‘only enter if you are 13 or over’ and a question ‘are you over 13?’ and all that is needed is a simple ‘yes’, then this will not present much of a challenge to a curious child,” said Freegard.
A change in the research this year was also a trend towards kids lying about their age to access age restricted content online, particularly on video sites such as YouTube.
http://www.nma.co.uk/4000684.article?cmpid=NMAE01&cmptype=newsletter&email=true