Most of the Maltese children interviewed for a Eurobarometer survey said they use the internet on a daily basis, for between one and two hours, during which they do research, play online games and chat with their friends but also to download music, films and games.
The survey, carried out in 29 countries, was aimed at increasing the knowledge about internet and mobile phone usage by children between the ages of nine and 14 years. The results of the study are to be used to contribute to designing the Safer Internet Programme, and to increase the impact of awareness building actions. The survey, carried out in group discussions, was also aimed at analysing children’s online behaviour and their perceptions of risk and safety related issues.
Respondents were asked to point out how they had learnt to use the internet. Across all groups the majority pointed out that there was an element of induction from parents or older relatives. After some time the respondents claimed to have been left to learn how to use the internet on their own. However there were certain respondents who pointed out that they learnt how to use the internet mostly on their own steam.
Very few respondents mentioned that they had learnt how to use the internet from school.
In the younger discussion groups, respondents seemed to agree that the restrictions imposed by their parents although unpleasant were to an extent necessary.
A number of both boys and girls aged nine to 10 said that they would rather look for information on the internet, not because they thought it was more or less credible than other sources of information, but because it was a faster and more pleasant way of doing so.
Interestingly, a few 12 to 14 year old boys knew that by deleting the history of the sites which they would have gone into there would have been no evidence of entering inappropriate sites.
The respondents mentioned that they would not send out information or pictures of themselves to strangers.
On illegal downloading of music, videos and films, a few children said that they would rather wait a few minutes in front of the computer waiting for a file to download than spend Lm5 on a CD. Most children were under the impression that downloading music, games or films for personal use was not illegal but if someone downloaded such files in order to make profit this was considered to be illegal activity.
Wirth regard to mobile phone usage, respondents in the 12 to 14 age bracket all owned a mobile phone.
In the nine to 10 years age bracket, a number of respondents said they would use their mobile phone to call their parents just in case anything cropped up while others said they would use their mobile to message a friend about a problem they encountered while doing their homework.
The respondents who did not own a mobile in the nine to 10 age group stated that their parents believed that they were still too young to own a mobile. In certain cases the parents promised a mobile to the children as a reward for achieving commendable results at school.
For boys aged nine to 10 and those aged 12 to 14, the use of SMSs seemed to be more for communication with friends rather than with parents.
The younger respondents seemed to be more inclined to seek assistance from adults in case problems are encountered while on the internet, as opposed to the older respondents who stated they would be inclined to deal with the situation themselves and take matters into their own hands.
The younger respondents and the 12 to 14 year old girls seemed to be interested to find out more about how to use the internet in a safer way. However, in the boys’ 12 to 14 year old group, the respondents felt that they had all the information that they needed to be safe when using the internet.