half of India's children have met or want to meet strangers online: Study

48% parents say meeting strangers online is the worst thing their kids could do but only 17% are keen to know if the kids are actually doing it

The day when Facebook's founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg is in India to promote his internet for all campaign and get more users on its social network, a report by Intel Security points towards the flip side of use of social media by children.

Seventy seven per cent of the children surveyed had created their Facebook account even before they became 13 years old, which highlights the lack of screening for children opening accounts. Nearly 44 per cent of the children polled by Intel Security's Teens, Tweens and Technology Survey confessed to have met or willing to meet someone in person whom they first interacted online.

 

The study, which examined the online behaviors and social networking habits children aged between eight and 16 years in India, also surveyed the concerns of parents. About 48 per cent of the parents surveyed considered interacting with strangers online as the worst thing that could happen to their children.

However, only 17 per cent of parents are interested in finding out if their children are interacting with strangers online, indicating a lack of remedial action, despite the caution.

While 91 per cent of parents claim to have had a discussion with their children about the risks of social media, interacting with strangers is not one of the primary topics. Cyber criminals and identity theft stands out to be the most discussed topic by parents with their children. Privacy settings, cyberbullying, online reputation or popularity among friends are the other relevant topics that parents discuss with their kids.

While about 81 per cent of the children surveyed are active on social media networks, 77 per cent of them had created their Facebook account even before they became 13 years old.

About 43 per cent of the children active on social media claim to have witnessed cruel behaviour on social networks, while 52 per cent have themselves bullied other people over social media. Of these, about 27 per cent made fun of others, 24 per cent made fun of others' physical appearances and 23 per cent tagged mean pictures.

One in every four children knows others' passwords. About 61 per cent of them have even accessed these accounts without the knowledge of the owners.

"Due to the proliferation of connected devices like smartphones, tablets and laptops, an unprecedented level of personal data is now available online, expanding the risk canvas exponentially. We believe that increased education and usage of technologies like parental controls, content filtering and creation of activity logs will play a huge role in empowering parents to ensure a safe digital footprint for their children." said Venkat Krishnapur, Head of Operations for Intel Security Group's India Development Centre.

Nine in 10 parents indicate that they would monitor all of their child's online activities across all devices if they could. However, a majority of the children indicate to hide some of their online activity from their parents, revealing serious lacunae in the monitoring system. Interestingly, while majority of the parents claim to know the kind of online activities that their child is taking part, more than half of the children revealed that they would change their online behaviour when they knew their parents were watching. About 43 per cent children also use anonymous names or aliases for their social media profiles.