The current study was prepared on the basis of data obtained by conducting a research on online safety of children in Moldova, carried out by the International Center “La Strada” during June-August 2013, which was aimed at collecting information about children’s behaviour online. In addition to analysing data, the study includes recommendations for specialists interested in ensuring the protection of children online. The research method consists of the survey based on a questionnaire applied to a sample of 939 children from 235 different regions of the country, that are in camps designed for relaxation and recovery of children and adolescents, in the summer of 2013.

The study aimed to investigate the practices of Internet access and online activities and behaviour of children in cyberspace, with particular emphasis on the study of the main risks online: contacting people that children do not know in the real world, online communications and proposals of a sexual nature, exchange of personal data, exchange of photos and videos with people they met online, offline meetings with people they met online, accessing pornographic materials, etc.

Internet access during the day
• Over 68% of children between 12-16 years old, access the Internet between 14.00-22.00 hours.
• More than ¼ of children access the Internet in the morning hours, which is a time designated for studies (during the school year).
• Boys access the Internet more often in the morning (32%), while girls – during night hours (15.6%).
• Children from urban areas access the Internet during night hours (16.7%) more than children
from rural areas (13.3%).

The length of time children spend on the Internet
• 35.3% of children spend 1-2 hours online, while 28.6% - spend from 3 to 4 hours.
• Approximately 12% of children spend more than 7 hours online.
• A third of the children who access the Internet during the period between 22.00-8.00 stay longer
than 7 hours in cyberspace.
• The older the children are, the longer is the duration of Internet usage
• The living environment determines the duration of Internet access, the urban habitants surpassing
those in rural areas.

Internet access devices
• 55.4% of children and teenagers use a single device for internet connection, 30.4% - use two devices, 11.3% - three devices and 2.9% - up to four devices.
• 3/4 of the interviewed children use the computer as a device for internet connection, ¼ use a laptop and approximately 1/5 access Internet from a mobile phone.
• Between the hours 8.00-14.00 the tablet device is used more often (30.4%), mobile phone (26.1%) and smartphone (22.8%), while between the hours of 14.00-22.00 – a PC is used (62.6%).

The purpose of accessing the Internet
• Accessing the Internet is aimed primarily at viewing profiles on social networks (85%).
• Approximately 80% use the Internet for academic purposes, especially girls and rural students.
• The webcam is used by 34.5% of respondents. Most often appearing in this category are boys and
children living in rural areas.

Online behaviour of children
• Approximately 70% of children surveyed (mostly girls and children from rural ares) have sought new contacts via the Internet in the past 12 months.
• Approximately 12 % of respondents mentioned sending video sequences to a person known only through the Internet, that has not been previously met in real life.
• 19.7% of children added people they have never met before to the friend lists of the social networking sites and have exchanged data with someone who they have only met by online communication.

Problems that children have faced on the net
• 60% of children have encountered viruses and/or spam, and 53.5% indicated that their passwords
have been hacked on one of their social networks.
• 13.3% of respondents viewed Internet pornography unintentionally.
• 12% of children do not know how to react to certain offensive situations that they may stumble upon on the Internet.
• 30% of the respondents would not take any action, and would ignore these situations, and about 7% of teens would conceal them.
• Only 35.1% of teens would notify their parents, especially girls and 12 year olds from rural areas.

Online communication of a sexual nature
• 47.3% of children who made acquaintances online and whom they communicate with exclusively in the cyberspace, where asked to meet in the real world.
• More than 11% of the children indicated that Internet acquaintances have made indecent proposals. This is especially indicated by 12 year olds (29.9%).
• Sexual topics are discussed by 7% of the total number of interviewed children, amongst which are
15 year olds (31.8%), 16 year olds (25.8%), boys (66.7%) and children from urban areas (53%). However, most often these topics are discussed among children who access the Internet from 14.00-22.00 hours (62.1%).
• Over 50% of the adolescents in the study met at least once with persons they met online (excluding relatives).

 

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