Divyesh Singh. Munbai
Parents, watch out. The online activities childern could be making them victims of cyber harassment and bullying, leaving them mentally disturbed, says a survey.
Over seven in 10 Indian children have had negative experiences online.
These include virus or spam attacks, unwanted advances from strangers and email scams run by the cyber mafia, according to the survey. It says such instances have risen to alarming levels in the country, creating scope for psychological damage to children.
The survey - Norton Online family Report (NOFR) 2010 - carried out by software security company Norton, stresses on pparental control over children's online habits, besides highlighting safe use of the Internet. The children surveyed were in the age group 8-17 and they spent more than an hour online in a month.
Highlight the importance of thinking before clicking and downloading
Use a search advisor to help identify whether a website is safe or unsafe
Let your kids know that what happens to them online is a sared responsibility - children cannot take all responsibility forty - one percent of the children said they were angry after negative online experiences, while 40% said they were mentally upset. Nearly 30% said they felt scared after facing cuch a situation.
According to the survey, in most cases, parets were aware their children accessed the Internet regularly but they thought is was to play online games only. Some parents assumed that their children used the net for study - related work, while a few others felt it was to tald to friends.
Surprisingly, most of the parents did not know that their children were also using the Internet to download music or videos, which could lead to some cyber attack. Only one - third of parents under survey had firm rules at home for internet usage. According to the reeport, most children fall prey to online offers and lotteries, which are traps set up by cyber criminals. Many. Kids tend to divulge personal information which is later misuused. Also, clicking on popups and URLs leads to many problems.
An IT expert working with aleading MNC said, "These negative experiences could habe a great emotional impact on affected children. Parents need to know and pay more attention to their children's online activities".
Though most of the children accepted responsibility for some of their actions, lime downloading a virous or responding to an online scam or watching pornographic or violent images, they wanted their parents to support them in such cases.
Effendy Ibrahim, internet safety advocate and concumer business head, symantec, Asia, said, "Parents do not have any idea about what they are downloading or viewing whil surfintg the net. More parental control and involvement conld help deal with this problem."
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