Six-Year-Olds Now Watching Online Porn [Study]
A new study shows children as young as six are watching online porn. Another disturbing takeaway from the report? Children are also flirting online at the age of eight.
The study was published by Bitdefender, the creator of some of the internet’s best antivirus software. The company correlated their results of an online survey of parents, along with data compiled from its parental control services.
The Bucharest-based antivirus firm looked at what sites parents choose to block, as well as what sites children access regularly. The results showed that almost a quarter of kids in the study had at least one social network account by the age of 12. Seventeen percent had social media accounts by the age of 10.
Bitdefender’s study shows that children will lie about their age when they create a social network profile. On Facebook, they must be at least 13 to sign up. The company’s Chief Security Strategist Catalin Cosoi, stated:
“Kids nowadays are acting like young adults online — just give them an internet-connected device and they will find a way to things parents would like to ban forever.”
Those things include watching porn online, even for children as young as six. Cosoi added:
“Knowing that online dangers go beyond pornography, to hacking and suicide websites may help parents protect their kids’ life on- and offline.”
Along with online porn, the study showed that the age of kids accessing instant messaging and computer games is decreasing. About 3.45 percent of kids chaffing with friends on instant messenger are five. Also, two percent of computer game addicts are also five-year-olds.
The company also found that teenagers leave instant messaging for younger kids. Meanwhile, teens prefer to access “hate” websites, which allow children to share what they hate, as well as use inappropriate language. More than 17 percent of children who read or post hateful messages online ate 14-year-olds. They are followed by 15-year-olds at 16.52 percent, then kids aged 16 at 12.05 percent.
Do you allow your children to access the internet unsupervised? What parental blocks do you place on the computers they use?
[Image via ShutterStock]
