A research on online risks among children in Europe reveals worrying trends for too strong restrictions of children in their online activities as well as a lack of adequate protection measures. The new study “EU Online Kids: Final report III” gives new perspective on the differences in the online behavior of children (and parents).
The Bulgarian children could be defined as semi-supported risky gamers, according to the new classification. This category also includes such countries as Romania, Cyprus and Estonia. Their common characteristics are the higher proportion of children in the moderates group of opportunities, but they also have a relatively high proportion of intensive gamers and a below average level of young networkers. They have the highest proportion of children in the higher risk/harm group (7%) and average proportions of children in the other risk and harm groups. In this cluster, the group of children whose parents apply restrictive mediation is least frequent compared to other countries in the research.
Luiza Shahbazyan from the Safer Internet Center at the Applied Research and Communications Fund, responsible for the research execution in Bulgaria, explained: “In Bulgaria and the other countries in this category, such as Romania and the Czech Republic, could be seen a wide variety of parenting practices and children’s interests. This represents a huge challenge to the organizations and institutions, developing policies, services and resources in this field, but at the same time provides a good basis for public discussion of the various practices that help parents and children to find the “right way” to each other on the Web. Such discussion should be made in the school as an institution, acknowledged as an authoritative source of information on Web safety for both children and parents.
To read facts for Bulgaria, please click: HERE
To read the full report, please click: HERE
Source: safenet.bg
Photo: log.bg
