Analysis of Risky Behaviour: Key Findings

These are the key findings from the second release of data from the survey Young Canadians In A Wired World: The Students’ View (October 2001). The findings focus on areas of risk such as children and youth exploring private and adult-only chat rooms, meeting Internet acquaintances in person, being exposed to sexually explicit and hateful material and sharing personal information.

(Data collection and analysis for the student survey were conducted by Environics Research Group for the Media Awareness Network. The research was funded by the Government of Canada.The margin of error for this sample is +/- 1.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.)

Risky Behaviour by Children and Youth in Private and Adult-Only Chat Rooms

Almost one third (30%) of 9-10 year olds indicate that they go into chat rooms. For 11-12 year olds, the rate is 58% and for 13-14 year olds, the rate is 70%. This climbs to 72% for 15-17 year olds.
The likelihood of young people visiting private and adult-only chat rooms also increases with age. Of those respondents who visit chat rooms, 26% of 9-10 year olds visit private and adult-only chat rooms. This percentage increases to 37% for 11-12 year olds, 54% for 13-14 year olds and 66% for 15-17 year olds.
Both boys and girls visit chat rooms at similar rates across all age groupings but boys are more likely than girls to visit private and adult-only chat rooms. Fifty-six per cent of the young people who visit private and adult-only chat rooms are boys compared to 44% who are girls.
Of all young Internet users, only 39% have a household rule about talking to strangers in chat rooms.
The majority of youth who visit private and adult-only chat rooms indicate that they are at home but unsupervised when using the Internet (85%) and that they have no household rule relating to this practice (82%).

In-Person Meetings with Internet Acquaintances

Of all young Internet users, 25% of children and youth have been asked, by someone they've only ever met on the Internet, to meet face-to-face.
Fifteen per cent of all young Internet users have met in person at least one individual whom they first met on the Internet.
Of those respondents who did meet someone in person, most went with a friend (41%) compared to 15% who went alone. Only 6% were accompanied by a parent or other adult. Of the youth who went alone, more males (73%) than females (27%) were likely to put themselves at risk in this way. The likelihood of going to meet an Internet acquaintance increases with age.
Of the 15% of respondents who went to meet someone in person, 12% say they had a bad experience. (Overall, this represents less than 2% of young Internet users). In an open-ended question, survey respondents characterized these "bad experiences" in a variety of ways - ranging from "didn't like the person" to "person was fat/ugly". The more serious responses (made by 18 young Internet users from the entire survey sample) included "person wanted/made sexual contact", person was "violent" and "person used vulgar/sexual language".
Of those who have met someone in person that they first met on the Internet, 67% indicate that they have no specific rule in their household against this behaviour.

Exposure to Sexually Explicit Material and Sexual Comments

More than half of young Internet users (53%) have received pornographic junk mail. Of these, the vast majority (78%) did not tell their parents.
Almost one quarter (24%) of youth have received pornography on the Internet from someone that they have met only online.
Across all age groups, boys are more likely than girls to have received pornographic junk mail and to have received pornography from online acquaintances.
Almost one-half of youth in secondary school say someone has made unwanted sexual comments to them on the Internet. Girls are more likely than boys to have received unwanted sexual comments.

Online Bullying and Exposure to Hate

One quarter of young Internet users (25%) say that someone has e-mailed them material that said hateful things about others. Of those, 35% did nothing about it. Twenty-nine per cent of those respondents replied to the e-mails themselves.
More than half of all young Internet users (56%) use instant messaging. Of these, 14% indicate that they've been threatened while using instant messaging.
Sixteen per cent of young Internet users say they have posted comments on the Internet that were hateful toward a person or group of people. Of those, 60% were male.
Among youth in secondary school, only 21% say they have household rules about saying insulting things in their instant messaging or e-mail.

Divulging Personal and Private Information

Twenty-one per cent of young Internet users indicated they would give out both their name and address online in order to win a prize in a contest. Boys (60%) are more likely than girls (40%) to do this.
Almost half (45%) of the respondents who would give out both their name and address to win a prize do have a rule in their household against that behaviour.
Most respondents surveyed have their own e-mail account (71%). Of these, 81% have a free Web-based account. When registering for these free accounts, 86% indicated their gender, 68% provided their real name, 29% their address and 20% their phone number. Youth in secondary school are more likely to report having a free Web-based e-mail account.
About one-quarter of youth (22%) have their own personal Web site. Fifty-seven per cent of these youth provide their e-mail address on their Web site, 26% provide their full name and 22% provide a photograph of themselves.
More than one-half of youth in secondary school say they never look at the privacy policies on Web sites they visit.
Of all young Internet users, 60% have household rules about not giving out personal information about themselves or their family.