Thaindian News

Wellington, June 16 (ANI): A survey has found that almost a third of kids in New Zealand have viewed violent or nude images online, despite their parents being the most alert where safe online habits are concerned.

The findings are based on a survey of the online habits of families from 14 countries, including New Zealand, the United States, Britain and Australia, reports Stuff.co.nz.

Of the more than 7000 adults and 2800 children aged between eight and 17 surveyed from the 14 countries, 200 children and 500 adults were from New Zealand.

The survey showed that many of the children surveyed in New Zealand had been faced with challenges such as approaches from unknown people online.

More than half (52 percent) had someone they did not know trying to add them as a friend on a social networking site, a quarter had accidentally downloaded a virus to their home computer and 24 percent had been bullied either online or by mobile phone.

Of the 29 percent of children who had seen a violent or nude image, the majority (33 percent) felt some responsibility and felt they should have been more careful, while 19 percent felt totally responsible.

While a quarter felt it wasn’t their fault at all, the rest said they felt very little responsibility because it was “just bad luck”.

Netsafe executive director Martin Cocker said there were increasing “challenges” for children, particularly because they spent more time on the Internet.

New Zealand parents were the most likely (84 percent compared with 71 percent worldwide) to have spoken to their children about practising safe online habits and more likely than most to check their children’s usage or browser history (61 per cent compared with 47 per cent overall).

But Cocker said New Zealand parents were not necessarily giving their children the right messages or monitoring what they did online.

More than a quarter of Kiwi kids said their parents had no idea what they did online. When their parents were asked the same question, only 4 percent said they had no idea what their children did online.

The findings have been published in the annual Norton Online Family Report. (ANI)