Poll: nearly 50% of year 10 students feel addicted to the internet

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addiction, devices, internet, pupils, social media, social networks, students, young people

Poll: nearly 50% of year 10 students feel addicted to the internet

Almost half of all 14- and 15-year-olds feel they are addicted to the internet, with more than three-quarters of similarly aged pupils taking a web-enabled laptop, phone or tablet to bed at night, according to a survey.

Of those who take a device to bed, the bulk are communicating with friends using social media or watching videos or films, the study of more than 2,200 students in nine schools across England and Scotland found. More than four out 10 girls felt they used the internet on a compulsive basis for socialising, the survey found.

The poll was carried out on behalf of Tablets for Schools, a charity led by technology industry groups such as Carphone Warehouse and Dixons that campaigns for the increased use of iPad-like devices in education. Despite its remit the group has now published an advice guide for pupils and schools about internet devices, advising they be switched off before bed and during study times, with set times allocated for online activity.

The study said fewer than a third of students who used web devices in bed said this was connected to homework, with those more likely to use a computer, phone or laptop in bed also more likely to report feeling addicted to the internet. There were some gender distinctions, with 46% of girls saying they sometimes felt addicted to the internet, as against 36% of boys, but significantly more boys saying they felt a compulsion towards computer games.

The peak age for feelings of addiction was year 10, where pupils are aged 14 or 15, with 49% of those pupils reporting this. The greatest use of devices in bed comes a year later, with 77% of year-11 pupils. Aside from email the most commonly used sites at home were social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat.

While most students told researchers they were positive about the internet, a number expressed alarm at their apparent inability to disengage. “It’s the first thing I look at in the morning and the last thing at night. It seems I’m constantly on it,” a year-10 boy said. Another boy, a year older, said: “When I’m on YouTube one video leads to another and I cannot stop myself from watching loads of videos and sometimes I’m up till about 2 o’clock in the morning just because I’ve been watching YouTube videos.”

The issue of internet addiction is much debated, with some researchers questioning whether it can be classified as a formal addiction. There is evidence that British children spend more time online than many of their European peers. A 2012 EU-wide study of children aged 11-16 by the London School of Economics found the UK was among the worst nations for indicators of apparently excessive internet use, with more than a quarter saying they spent less time with family, friends or on schoolwork because of being on the web.

 

Teachers To Be Given ‘Sexting’ Curb Guide

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Bullying, CEOP, guidance, images, internet, mobile phones, online safety, peer pressure, resources, school, sexting, support, teachers, Teens, young people

Teachers To Be Given ‘Sexting’ Curb Guide

Teachers are to be issued with a guide on how to deal with ‘sexting’ – the sharing of explicit photos or videos through mobile phones and the internet.

Amid a rise in pupils sending sexually explicit pictures, the advice pack, which is launched on Wednesday, offers tips on how to support a child whose image has been shared and whether the devices used should be searched.

A study by the NSPCC last year reported up to 40% of young people had been involved in ‘sexting’, and found teenage girls in particular were facing pressure from classmates to provide sexually explicit pictures of themselves.

Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Headteachers, welcomed the guidance.

He said: “The problem of ‘sexting’ – and the exposure of children to pornographic images through mobile devices – poses real and serious challenges for parents, head teachers and school staff.

“It exemplifies the way technology blurs the boundaries between school life and the wider world.”

The brochure – titled Sexting in schools: advice and support around self-generated images – will complement other resources already available to teachers, including ‘So You Got Naked Online’, produced last year by the South West Grid for Learning Trust.

Peter Davies, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, which helped develop the new document, said: “There are very real risks with this activity by young people, from bullying to the sharing of these images among sex offenders.”

The CEOP had seen an increase in young people sharing sexual images and videos of themselves with their peer group, he said.

Last October, the Internet Watch Foundation found that 88% of self-generated, sexually explicit online content of young people had been taken from its original location and uploaded onto other websites.

Statistics from the children’s charity Beatbullying suggested 38% of young people have received a sexually explicit text or email, while 25% have received a sexual image they found offensive.

Research by the charity also suggested over half of teachers (54%) knew pupils were creating and sharing explicit material of themselves.

The newly-published guidance was developed by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, a child protection charity, Securus Software, which provides online safety systems to over 3,200 schools, and Medway Council, whose existing advice for Kent schools was incorporated into the recommendations.

The Department of Education and the National Association of Headteachers also supported the development of the resource.

The pack will include advice to teachers about how to respond if a child tells them about ‘sexting’ they have been involved in, as well as how to handle explicit images, manage student reaction and prevent further incidents.

Case studies in the document highlight the devastating impact the sharing of explicit images can have on children’s lives and the challenges faced by schools in dealing with it.

Facebook Is The Worst Social Networking Site For Bullying, New Report Says

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abuse, Bebo, Blackberry Messenger, Bullying, Cyberbullying, Depression, Facebook, harassment, internet, self-harm, social networking sites, Teens, trolling, Whatsapp, young people

Facebook Is The Worst Social Networking Site For Bullying, New Report Says

Facebook is the worst social networking site for internet trolling, and bullying is now more prevalent online than anywhere else, a study has suggested.

Some 87% of teenagers who reported cyber abuse said they were targeted on Mark Zuckerberg’s site, while around one-fifth of youngsters were picked on by Twitter trolls, the report showed.

Those most frequently victimised were 19-year-old boys.

According to the report, 49% of those targeted by bullies were victimised off-line, while 65% of teenagers were subjected to abuse in cyberspace.

Only 37% of those who had experienced trolling ever reported it to the social network where it took place, the report found.

Emma-Jane Cross, CEO and founder of the charity BeatBullying, said many young people were suffering in silence.

“Bullying both on and off-line continues to be a serious problem for a huge number of teenagers and we cannot ignore its often devastating and tragic effects,” she said.

“We work with hundreds of young people being cyber-bullied or trolled so badly that it can lead to depression, truancy, self-harm, or even force them to contemplate or attempt suicide.”

The study, for internet site knowthenet.org.uk, found a number of social networking sites had become “popular forums” for trolls.

Some 13% of the 13 to 19-year-olds consulted claimed they were targeted on BlackBerry Messenger, 8% said they were picked on by trolls on Bebo and 4% said they were victimised on Whatsapp.

Fewer than one in five (17%) teens said their first reaction would be to tell a parent and only 1% of those surveyed said their initial response would be to inform a teacher.

Around 34% of those who were picked on by trolls said their experiences lasted more than a month.

Knowthenet, which released the study, has now launched a “trolling hub” offering advice on how to deal with online bullying.

Opinium Research consulted more than 2,000 teenagers for the study.

A Facebook spokesman said: “There is no place for harassment on Facebook, but unfortunately a small minority of malicious individuals exist online, just as they do offline.

“We have a real name policy and provide people with simple tools to block people or report content which they find threatening so that we can remove it quickly.”

Links to report concerning behaviour on Facebook exist on every page of the site meaning users can report any piece of content.

Children are ‘upset’ by online violence, study finds

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abuse, behaviour, Children, Cyberbullying, family, internet, sexting, social media, social networks, violence, young people

Children are ‘upset’ by online violence, study finds

Children are as upset by violent videos on YouTube that feature animal cruelty or beheadings and by insensitive Facebook messages from divorced parents as they are by online bullying and pornography, according to the biggest survey of young British people and their internet use.

The research will be unveiled by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) on Tuesday – the 10th annual Safer Internet Day – when a charter of rights and responsibilities for children online will also be launched. The findings suggest that government policy, spearheaded by David Cameron, to block sexual content and pornography through parental controls and filters via internet service providers only goes part of the way to securing the online safety of children.

The survey, conducted for the council by academics, asked 24,000 children 25 questions about internet use, including “have you ever seen anything online that has upset you?” Hundreds of schools around Britain were enlisted to help canvass the children, who were aged up to 16.

Andy Phippen, professor of social responsibility at Plymouth University, who helped to devise the report, said: “Upset is caused by a broad range of issues, very varied, and not all sexual content.” One memorable answer from a primary school child who was asked what most upset him was “when my Dad told me on Facebook he didn’t want to see me any more”.

The report, Have Your Say, is consistent with research Phippen was already carrying out. The examples he heard included: a video of a zebra being killed, “someone swearing at me”, “a picture of my baby brother, who I don’t live with any more”, and a picture of a cat that “looked like my pet that had to be put down”.

Phippen said: “There is no silver bullet to crack child safety online. Government’s obsession with filtering is OK, but too narrow.”

Sonia Livingstone, professor of social psychology at the London School of Economics, told the Oxford Media Convention last month that LSE research, which asked 8,000 children aged nine to 16 about the disturbing things they had seen on the internet, supported this picture. She added: “There is a lot of attention given to pornography and bullying on social media, but they also mentioned beheadings, flaying, cruelty to animals.”

Professor Phippen agreed: “Any channel used for communication is potentially a channel for upsetting content, but certainly YouTube is the most prevalent as far as video content is concerned.”

Livingstone said that the issue of online bullying was not covered by efforts to filter out inappropriate content. “Filtering is only about content on established websites”, while filtering and blocking controls could be very clunky to use and problematic.

However, Have Your Say also finds many positive aspects to the internet. The survey shows that what under-11s do most is play games on sites such as Moshi Monsters, followed by schoolwork and keeping in touch with friends. For older children, social networking takes over from playing games.

“I think, in this age group, violent images and upset from abusive nasty comments from their peers are the concerns. It is spoken about as so and so is so mean to me. Cyber bullying – they don’t use that term,” said Phippen. Evidence from the children of being groomed or facing predatory behaviour online is also scanty.

Accessing pornography online, the main concern of parents responding to a government consultation last autumn, did not feature highly in the teenagers’ responses. But there is a growing problem of “sexting” messages in school, when pupils share personal sexual content via smartphones and tablets. Phippen said one answer was better education. “You come back to media literacy. About understanding how to conduct yourself online and what the impact can be of behaviour, when you don’t see the impact of your behaviour, on the victim in front of you.”

Pro-Ana Sites Encourage Extreme Dieting And Eating Disorders In Girls

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anorexia, Eating Disorders, internet, young people

Pro-Ana Sites Encourage Extreme Dieting And Eating Disorders In Girls

Thousands of young girls are using dangerous pro-ana websites that encourage users to ‘starve for perfection’.

According to a new report, Virtually Anorexic – Where’s The Harm?, funded by eating disorder charity beat and internet safety organisation Childnet International, hundreds of websites that encourage extreme dieting and eating disorders are being used with alarming regularity.

The research by University Campus Suffolk notes how ‘pro-ana’ sites, which promote the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, encourage weight loss via dieting competitions, advocate diets of just 400-500 calories per day and champion “thinspiration” (where images of celebrities such as Victoria Beckham and Keira Knightley are used to idealise a certain look).

According to the report, these websites are extremely influential. Many boast communities of thousands of members, with forums and chat rooms available to share tips to hide eating disorders and find an “anabuddy” for support.

Natasha Devon, co-founder of Body Gossip, a campaign that promotes natural, healthy and realistic beauty, said that although the intentions of sites are not always intended to be damaging, the emotional state and vulnerability of users often leads to mutual encouragement.

She told HuffPost UK Lifestyle: “People assume they would automatically know if they were on a pro-anorexia or pro-bulimia website. The press often portrays them as being quite obvious in their intention.

“The reality is that quite often they are just support groups set up on social networking sites by people with the best intentions, but they attract users who are unwell and are completely unregulated.

“It’s important to remember that eating disorders are a mental illness. Even if you’re on an ‘extreme diet’ or training regime you’re not in the best frame of mind. People who still struggle are certainly not in a position to be giving advice to others. Often users of these support groups simply egg each other on.”

In a statement, Dr Emma Bond, author of the report and senior lecturer in Childhood and Youth Studies at University Campus Suffolk (UCS) outlined her recommendations for change:

“People, especially parents and teachers need to increase their awareness so that young people can be helped. We need to encourage young people to develop critical media literacy skills and the media should be more responsible in not publishing pictures of very thin models and celebrities because young people wish to emulate them.

“Eating disorders are not going away, if anything they are becoming more common. We need to alert people to the dangers of harmful content on the Internet. Everyone needs to understand better the risks online and the harm that eating disorders can do to young people”

The report was funded by social investor Nominet Trust.