Kids start watching porn at age 6; flirting online at age 8
In Brief
According to a 2013 study of 19,000 parents, kids start watching porn online from as early as age 6 and begin flirting on the Internet from the age of 8. Kids are also lying about their ages when creating social network accounts on sites like Facebook.
According to a 2013 study published by Bitdefender, a security technology copmany that also offers parental control soutions, kids start watching porn online from as early as age 6 and begin flirting on the Internet from the age of 8. The study, "Kids and Online Threats", was conducted from over 19,000 parents worldwide.
Among the findings of the study:
- Kids are acting more like young adults when online.
- 3.45% of kids chat with their IM friends at age five.
- 2% of computer game addicts are five years old.
- 25% of kids have at least one social network account at age twelve, and 17% were social media users at age ten.
- 17% of those posting hateful messages online are 14 years old.
The categories that most interested kids and that parents blocked were:
- Pornography - 11.35%
- Online shops - 10.49%
- File sharing - 9.71%
- Social networks - 8.84%
- News - 7.13%
- Gambling - 5.91%
- Online dating - 5.77%
- Business - 4.58%
- Games - 3.14%
- Hate - 2.91%
- Other 30.17%
Graph credit: Bitdefender Case Study: Kids
& Online Threats
The findings of the complete report are available online here >>
Family Discussion Starters
Is it OK to lie about your age when creating an online account?
If one of your friends were to send you a link that made you feel uncomfortable, what would you do? Would you forward the link? Would you feel comfortable enough to let a parent, teacher, or responsible adult know about it?
What are some of the web sites or apps that kids talk about? What do those kids like about those sites or apps and what do they do when they access them?