Fact Sheet: Microsoft Canada and Youthography Internet Safety Survey

Microsoft Canada Co. and Youthography Internet Safety Survey
Results from January 2009 poll of 1,065 Canadian youth, aged 9-17 years.
For the purposes of this fact sheet, "tweens" are aged 9-12 and "teens" are aged 13-17

Social Networking

Young people are confident that they know the dangers and are taking measures to be safe online, yet many of them reveal personal information on social networking sites that predators may leverage, such as a profile picture (39%), home town (16%), name of school (20%), relationship status (22%), photos of friends and family (20%) and e-mail address (21%).

One-third of youth (37% of teens and 24% of tweens) have accepted a friend request from someone they do not know, usually because it is a "friend of a friend" or because they want to meet new people.

Some highlights of the findings include:

--When asked for parental consent to join a social networking community or online gaming community, 86% asked their parents.

--When youth are online, 62% use social networking sites.

--Less than 2% post their phone number, home address, or images of them doing "unacceptable" behaviour.

--Girls are more likely than boys to make their profile pictures public.

--60% of youth who got up in the middle of the night to use the Internet used it to talk to someone.

Online Gaming

The survey indicates that online gaming is very popular with youth. One in 3 youth (53% males) play video games in online communities. As with social networking, online gaming can raise concerns for youth and parents because players have an opportunity to interact with strangers when playing online.

In the gaming community, 65% of male gamers play with strangers using online chat and 1 in 5 of those who play in online communities make contact (phone, email, in-person) with someone they have only ever met while online gaming.

--24% of gamers are harassed when playing online; of those, 44% reported the gamer, 36% stopped playing the game and 29% kicked the person off the game.

--Almost 40% of gamers have witnessed other players being harassed; of those, 30% reported the gamer and 27% did nothing.

Adult Content and Sexual Behaviour

Young people not only use the Internet to seek out information about topics of interest but also to actively seek out adult content. While many have sexual content sent to them, 1 in 4 males uses search engines to find adult sexual content and more than 25% of males visit sites that have pictures or videos showing violent acts, fighting or racist content.

--1 in 3 males has visited an online site that has pictures/videos of adult sexual content.

--1 in 4 males actively seeks out adult sexual content using a search engine; 45% of those used the family computer to access the adult content.

--Of the 12% of youth that get up in the middle of the night to go online, 1 in 3 males go to sites that are off limits, including gambling sites; 46% of those who get up access the Internet from a computer in their bedroom.

--Of those who get up in the middle of the night to go online, most indicate that it affects energy level, school work, concentration and mood throughout the day.

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is aggressive online behaviour including insults, harassment and defamation. Young people may not only be the victim of cyberbullying - they may witness another person being cyberbullied, or even cyberbully themselves.

The survey results indicate that online bullying, like playground bullying, is common. Forty percent of respondents have been cyberbullied. Of those, 43% were female and 38% were male.  Teens are more likely than tweens to be cyberbullied (51% vs. 23%).

The positive trend in cyberbullying is that parents are being informed when it occurs. One in 10 parents has been contacted by other parents about cyberbullying. In other cases, a teacher (5%) or another person of authority was contacted (4%). Tweens are more likely than teens to contact a teacher (12% vs. 4%).

--16% of youth cyberbully other kids (1176), and almost 60% of respondents said there were no consequences to their bullying. Half did it because they were being bullied first.

--47% of grade eights and 53% of grade nines were cyberbullied on the Internet, compared to 15% of grade fours.

--63% youth agree that people who bully online also bully in person. 60% agree people bully because it's "cool." Almost half believe that people bully because they've been bullied by someone else.

--In general, 67% believe people bully online because they can do it without getting caught. More than 75% thought because people bully because it is easier than face-to-face confrontation, 58% believed it is because the bully is not happy with their own life, and 25% feel it's because there are no emotional consequences.

General Internet Usage and Online Behaviour

The survey indicates that youth rely on the Internet for communication with friends and family, online gaming and research for school work. Most of their time spent on the Internet is for leisure, including social networking, reading entertainment and news sites, and reading blogs and other items about topics that interest them.

Some general highlights of the findings include:

--On average, 9-12 year-olds use the Internet for just under two hours a day while 13-17 year-olds are on the Internet for three hours a day.

--Young females primarily value the Internet to socialize with friends (68%) compared to young males, who value the ability to play games (68%).

--Every youth surveyed believes there is at least some danger in using the Internet. Most cited viruses (53%) and strangers having access to personal information (43%).

--Teens are more likely than tweens to use the internet to "deal with stress," (26% vs. 12%) "escape problems," (14% vs. 7%) or "avoid family problems" (19% vs. 7%).

--39% feel the Internet is a place where they can be anonymous.

--1 in 4 kids has an avatar, and 12% change their gender or age.

--15% of all respondents have had their passwords stolen.

--84% of respondents have had a discussion with their parents about the dangers of the Internet, and 86% of youth have punishments for not following household rules for Internet use.

--73% of tweens don't have computers in their bedrooms, compared to 48% of teens. 41% of parents supervise their children when they are online. The parents of tweens supervise their children more than the parents of teens (59% vs. 29%)

--76% say they are very careful about the personal information they give out online.