Online
Victimization: A Report on the Nation's Youth
Click here to view the entire report.
This report is based on
interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,501 youth ages 10 to
17 who use the Internet regularly2 and found that
- Approximately one in five
received a sexual solicitation or approach over the Internet in the last
year.
- One in thirty-three
received an aggressive sexual solicitation — a solicitor who asked to meet
them somewhere; called them on the telephone; sent them regular mail,
money, or gifts.
- One in four had an unwanted
exposure to pictures of naked people or people having sex in the last
year.
- One in seventeen was
threatened or harassed.
- Approximately one quarter
of young people who reported these incidents were distressed by them.
- Less than 10 percent of
sexual solicitations and only 3 percent of unwanted exposure episodes were
reported to authorities such as a law-enforcement agency, an Internet
Service Provider, or a hotline.
- About one quarter of the
youth who encountered a sexual solicitation or approach told a parent.
Almost 40 percent of those reporting an unwanted exposure to sexual
material told a parent.
- Only 17 percent of youth
and approximately 10 percent of parents could name a specific authority,
such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, CyberTipline, or an Internet
Service Provider, to which they could make a report, although more said
they had "heard of" such places.
- In households with home
Internet access, one third of parents said they had filtering or blocking
software on their computer at the time they were interviewed.3
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Escaping or Connecting? Characteristics of youth
who form close online relationships
Click here to view the entire report.
This report used
the data from the above-mentioned national sample of Internet
users, ages 10 to 17, to explore the characteristics of youth
who had formed close relationships with people they first met
online4 and found that
- Fourteen
percent of youth reported close online friendships and 2
percent reported online romances. Girls were slightly more
likely than boys to have close online relationships with 16
and 12 percent, respectively.5
- Girls aged 14
to 17 were about twice as likely as girls who were 10 to 13 to
form close online relationships.6
- The two problem
characteristics associated with close online relationships
were high parent-child conflict and being highly troubled. The
girls with high levels of parent-child conflict reported
yelling, nagging, and taking away privileges by parents at a
higher level than the other girls. The highly troubled girls
had levels of depression, victimization, and troubling life
events at a higher level than the other girls in the sample.
Girls in either of these categories were more than twice as
likely as the other girls in the sample to have formed close
online relationships.7
- Boys who had
low communication with their parents, and who also reported
that their parents were less likely to know where they were
and who they were with than the other boys in the sample were
the most strongly associated with close online relationships.8
- Girls and boys
who reported high levels of Internet use and home Internet
access were more likely to report close online relationships.9
- Youth with
problems were more likely to have formed online romantic
relationships, been asked by online friends for face-to-face
meetings, and attended face-to-face meetings with people they
first met online.10
- Youth who
communicate well with their friends and family have people to
talk with about online encounters; can get advice about
behavior they find weird or unnerving; and, therefore, develop
a sense of appropriate and inappropriate online behavior.
Youth with problems may be less likely to get good advice and
feedback.11
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