School children across Ireland acknowledge their use of social media and online gaming is excessive, but need help to learn how to switch off. These are the findings from new research from online safety charity CyberSafeKids which showed that 51% of primary school children (8-12) and 67% of secondary school children (12-16) felt that they were ‘spending too much time online’.
The online safety charity asked over 5,000 primary and secondary school-aged children how they view their online activity. Almost a third of 12-16 year olds (30%) and over a quarter of 8-12 year olds (28%) said that they ‘find it hard to switch off from games and apps’. They also said that they ‘waste time online’ and this increased from 17% at the age of 8 to 66% by the age of 16.
The survey found that secondary school-aged girls where social media is the dominant online activity (55%) had a higher incidence than boys of experiencing negative feelings when they spend time online. Girls aged 12-16 were more likely than boys to feel; jealous of others (19% vs 4%), like they’re missing out (18% vs 5%), anxious (14% vs 3%), inadequate (5% vs 1%) and afraid (4% vs 1%). Boys continue to spend more time gaming than on any other online activity across primary (56%) and secondary school (36%).
There were also significant differences in the responses given by older girls and boys with regards to how they viewed their online activity. Girls had a more negative view of their online activity and were more likely than boys to have said that they ‘spend too much time online’ (70% vs 30%), ‘waste time online’ (48% vs 36%), and ‘find it hard to switch off from games/apps’ (34% vs 21%). Overall, only 43% of 8-12 year olds said they had a mostly positive experience online compared to 55% of 12-16 year olds.
To highlight this survey trend, CyberSafeKids hosted its fourth annual ‘CyberBreak’, on 20th October, which finished on Saturday, 21st October.
For more information on CyberBreak, go to www.cybersafekids.ie/cyberbreak
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