Chat Rooms and Kids

Chat rooms pose growing threat to Irish kids
Monday, July 31 2006, by Maxim Kelly

"A shocking 11 percent of Irish children who have met adults posing as children online report they have been subject to attempted physical harm.
While a new survey on internet usage amongst nine- to 16-year-olds in Ireland shows most young people use the internet to meet their peers and reported a positive experience, the Minister for Education and Science, Mary Hanafin, said the findings were very worrying.
'This survey contains a wealth of information about how our young people are using all forms of modern technology to access the internet and communicate through it. Worryingly though, it seems very often that parents are not fully aware of the hidden dangers that are part the emergence of these new technologies,' she said."

And further...
"Over half of the 850 children surveyed said that their parents spoke with them very rarely or not at all about what they did on the internet, Twenty-seven percent said they had met someone new on the internet who asked for information like their photo, phone number, street address, or which school they attend: this is up from 19 percent in 2003."
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