98.8% school children in urban areas have access to the internet: Report

Most of the school children in urban areas, about 98.8%, access internet, says a survey conducted across schools in 13 cities of India covering a sample size of 2,727 students.
 
The Telenor India WebWise report indicates that children are extremely vulnerable to account hacking, receiving inappropriate messages, being bullied online, etc. Cyber-bullying has also emerged as one of the major threats online and often it goes undetected as children do not discuss the issue with parents or teachers.
 
WebWise report published by Telenor says more than 43% of children use mobile to access the internet. A majority of them use it to find information for school projects, playing games, reading online books, listening to music and watching movies, social networking sites, email, etc.

 

Here are the key findings of the study:

• 54.8% children share their passwords with friends
• Majority of children were willing to approach their parents in case they experience any cyber harm
• Over 76% children are not aware of the Child Helpline 1098
• Facebook is the most favourite platform, followed by WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram
• Over 35% children have experienced their account being hacked while 15.74% shared that they have received inappropriate messages.
• 15% complained of being bullied online whereas 10.41% faced humiliation through picture/video that was uploaded on internet

 
Sharad Mehrotra, Chief Executive Officer, Telenor India Communications said, “As our children embark on this journey, it is our responsibility to ensure that iInternet becomes a window to a wealth of information for them. On one hand the WebWise Report highlights the vulnerabilities and cyber threats, and on the other hand, it presents us with insights that can help us to create focused awareness campaigns around safe internet practices.”

 
In 2014, a study done by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) indicated that nearly 180 million children will access the internet by 2017 in Telenor markets (13 countries) and up to 85% will use mobile devices as their point of access.  Amongst the 12 countries studied by BCG, children in India were in the highest risk category due to a combination of increased access, enabled by affordable Internet and smartphones, and lack of knowledge among parents and children on the safeguards against different types of cyber threats.