19 Jul 11: A survey was conducted by McAfee-Synovate to know how safe are Indian children online. This survey was only limited to affluent and upper middle class households of 10 cities – Cochin, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Pune, Mumbai and New Delhi. The survey was conducted on 500 children (between the age of 9-17 years) and 496 parents.
This survey stated various statistics on online behavior and awareness of cyber safety among urban youth. The findings say that on an average kids spend 1-2 hours online everyday. 64% of the children aged between 9-12 are exposed to social networking and 12% of them shared their parents credit card details, 30% of them shared videos, 40% of them shared photographs, 57% of them shared school details and 58% of them shared their home addresses.
On the whole, only 50% of the youth were aware of the security software, 62% have no security software installed, 32% were unaware of cyber threats.
Further, it was found that Pune has only 4% of its youth as victims to frauds. Mumbai ranked 1st with 40% in the aspects of kids exposure to adult content, while Bangalore stood second with 28%. Mumbai also stood highest in cyber bullying levels.
The parents are not much aware of the cyber threats to which their children are exposed. 42% of children don’t share their online activities with their parents and 20% said that they are not happy when their parents advise them on what to see on Internet.
As per this survey it was found that only 64% of the Hyderabad youth have personal computers, while on an average of 80% of children in every other city (except Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune) had personal computers.
The other important percepts from the survey are:
- Delhi kids have lowest awareness about the security system. 100% of users revealed their personal info online.
- Pune youth showed highest level of transparency between parents and children on online activities.
- In the city of Ahmedabad, the parents are least aware of the possible cyber threats faced by children.
- 100% of the users were victim of frauds.
- In Ludhiana, parents are involved least in providing their kids the online safety.
Source: Times of India