Parents ignorant of web risks

Parents are being urged to keep a firmer eye on what their kids are doing on the internet after research showed more than half of children have seen porn online.

According to research from the London School of Economics and Political Science, 57 per cent of 9-19 year olds have come into contact with pornography online, yet only 16 per cent of parents think their children have.

Children are using the internet for a variety of activities including homework (90 per cent), email (72 per cent) and games (70 per cent), yet fewer than half the computers online at home are located in a public room and 79 per cent of those with kids home access report mostly using the internet alone.

According to the report, most parents whose child has access to the internet do not allow them to give our personal information online, yet 46 per cent of kids claim to have given out details including their name, age and email address.

One third of kids have received unwanted sexual or nasty comments yet only about one in 20 parents appear aware of this.

Sonia Livingstone, professor of social psychology at LSE, said: "Parents need to be more aware of the risks their children are facing - especially as 8 per cent of young users who go online at least once a week say they have met face to face with someone they first met on the internet, 40 per cent say they have pretended about some aspect of themselves online, and 10 per cent say they seek out online porn on purpose.”

According to the LSE, the survey highlights the need to raise awareness through information campaigns to parents as well as children, and for parents and schools to talk more with kids about their time online while also respecting children’s net privacy.

John Carr, internet adviser to the children’s charity NCH, said: “This is a milestone study. It confirms some things that we already knew or suspected, and it provides many rich details which greatly expand our knowledge of children's use of the internet."

“The gap between what children are actually doing and what their parents think they are doing is a lot larger than many people would have imagined. It is a gap we must try to close.”