As per a study on school students in February 2020, one in every three adolescents face online abuse. The study was conducted by a Ngo, Child Rights and You (CRY) along with Forum for Learning and Action with Innovation and Rigour (FLAIR) to assess the pattern of Internet use and online safety. The survey was conducted among 630 adolescents, aged between 13-18 years from eight schools in Delhi and NCR.
Salient Takeaways of the Survey
Some of the salient takeaways of the survey are as follows:
(i) One in every three adolescents, exposed to the Internet, are victims of cyberbullying and other forms of online abuse. The study also states that about half of the users have some level of addiction.
(ii) Adolescents can easily access the Internet and 93 per cent of them using the Internet facility at their homes.
(iii) It also shows that there exists a gender disparity in access to personal devices with 60 per cent boys and 40 per cent girls in possession of a dance.
(iv) Thirty per cent of adolescents had a negative experience online.
(v) Ten per cent of adolescents experienced cyberbullying.
(vi) Ten per cent had either their mobile misused or account hacked.
(vii) Twenty-three per cent had seen a morphed image or video online. However, only half of these incidents were reported by teenagers.
(viii) The study reveals that students lack awareness about the Internet safety guidelines developed by the NCERT.
(ix) It found that nearly forty eight per cent of students to be either mildly or moderately addicted to the Internet. In 1 per cent students, the level of addiction to the net was found to be very high.
(x) However, the exposure to the Internet is not disadvantageous for everyone as forty per cent of students used Internet to take help in their studies where forty per cent of them used the Internet for extra-curricular activities.
(xi) Fifty per cent of students used the Internet for both studies as well as extra-curricular activities.
Recommendations of the Study
The study strongly recommends that familiarity with the Internet Safety rules and the skill to use them for reporting. Should be included in the school curriculum. It also recommended that the central government’s child protection scheme should include avenues to build infrastructure to deal with cybercrimes against children. It was also emphasised that schools should recognize increase in online crimes against children and develop strategies on preventing, reporting, and redressal.