• 42% of parents do not monitor the content of the messages sent and received by their teens;1
• 50% of teens (aged 13-18) frequently communicate online with someone they’ve never met in person;2
• 42% say they have posted information about themselves on the Internet so others may contact them;
• 30% have talked about meeting someone whom they have only met through the Internet;
• 12% have learned that someone they were communicating with online was an adult pretending to be younger;
• 37% have received a link to sexually explicit content;
• 11% were solicited online by adults and kept the incident from their parents;
• 28% of teens admit to daily using a code to signal to their correspondent that a parent is watching;
• 17% believe that online communication with people they do not know is OK because it is not “real.”
WHERE TO GET MORE INFORMATION
- General Internet Safety: www.NetSafeKids.org
- www.fbi.gov/publications/pguide/pguide.htm
- Internet Filtering Software: http://kids.GetNetWise.org/tools/
- Internet Safety Training: www.NetSmartz.org
- www.I-Safe.org
- Internet Crimes Against Children: www.ci.stpaul.mn.us/depts/police/icac/icac.html