Forty per cent of Moldovan children under ten have accounts on social networks - study

Chisinau, 6 February /MOLDPRES/ - Four of ten children under the age of ten have already accounts on social networks and two thirds of the children aged 12-15 years daily access the Internet. The data is contained in a national study carried out by the La Strada International Centre. The study was unveiled today in the context of the Safer Internet Day.  

The head of the La Strada International Centre, Ana Revenco, said that the data of the research showed that one of the most risky behaviour of children in the online environment is the transmission of intimate photo and video pictures. “Almost 82 per cent of children have sent diverse messages, photographs and video recordings through the Internet in the last 12 months. Of them, each fifth teenager received photographs, video recordings with sexual content on the Internet. The study’s data also shows that, as usual, the teenager who received such information has not have a single experience of this kind,” Revenco said.  

According to Ana Revenco, teenagers’ tendency to meet persons they got acquainted with in the online environment is alarming too. Thus, each second child recognizes that he/she met in real life persons with whom they had initially got acquainted on the Internet.

The study’s data also shows that only nine per cent of teenagers appeal to parents when they receive requests to send information with sexual character and about 8.6 of all children aged 14-15 years in the last 12 months have sent photos and video recordings showing their body.   

The study’s authors said that the fact that every fifth teenager, aged 12-15 years, says that he/she knows nothing about the online security, while the rest of the teenagers have poor knowledge, which makes them easy victims for ill-disposed people.   

“Asked about ways parents inform them about online risks, most children said that, as usual, parents give them “moralizing lessons” or act extremely – isolate children from communication, take their laptops, tablets. What some parents do not understand is that abusers have not appeared now and neither their number increased with the Internet. Ill-disposed persons have always existed, they only adapted themselves to the new realities and some of them act online now. We must not be afraid of the Internet which, when used at its full capacity, is first of all, an excellent instrument of child’s development. You know, as we tell small children how they should safely cross the street, in the same way we should teach them elementary rules of safety on the Internet,” the head of the La Strada International Centre said.       

Revenco also said that, to enhance the level of residents’ informing about the safety of children on the Internet, the La Strada International Centre will carry out more activities on the next period. Most actions will regard risks of children sending intimate photo and video pictures and of online communication on subjects with sexual topics.   

(Reporter A. Zara, editor  M. Jantovan)