11 Year Olds Have Adult Technology Skills but not the Maturity for Safe Internet Use - Latest AVG Digital Diaries
Instalment Reveals 'Digital Maturity' Issues
AVG (AU/NZ) sees this technical prowess exposing Tweens to pressures and risks they are not capable of protecting
themselves against.
Auckland and Amsterdam, 22 November 2011 - A global survey, including responses from 800 parents of 10-13 year olds in
New Zealand and Australia, has revealed the disconnect between the technological abilities of the tween age group and
the intellectual maturity necessary to make the right decisions in the many complex situations they face online.
To develop a better understanding of how our technology-centric society impacts the lives of today's youth, AVG Technologies, a leading provider of Internet and mobile security, has commissioned Digital Diaries, a series of studies that
examines the technology habits of different age groups.
Digital Maturity, the fourth instalment of research from the series, examines how the average 10 to 13 year old is using
the Internet. While tweens aren't managing stock portfolios or paying the mortgage online, their online activity closely
mirrors that of an adult. Ten to 13 year olds are spending large amounts of time on social networks, connected mobile
devices or engaged in online gaming.
The result: tweens are open to being led into complex social situations that require adult reasoning - long before they
are ready.
Michael McKinnon, Security Advisor at AVG (AU/NZ) Pty Ltd, the distributor of the award-winning AVG Internet and mobile security software in New Zealand, Australia and South
Pacific, said: "Children are online at such an early age that many have developed the technical maturity of adults by
their tween years. However, they have not developed the equivalent intellectual or emotional maturity necessary to make
the right decisions in the many complex situations they face online.
"It is important that parents understand the role technology plays in their children's lives to help their kids be as
smart and safe as possible whenever they are connected," he advised.
Who Knows Best?
The Digital Maturity survey shows that globally only 8 percent of parents believe their 10 to 13 year old is better
informed about the Internet than they are. Locally, this figure rises to 10 percent in New Zealand and 17 percent in
Australia.
Fathers are much more likely to consider themselves Internet experts than Mums, with only 2 percent crediting their
children with knowing more. In Australia, a quarter (23 percent) of mothers admit that their children know more about
the Internet than they do.
Watching Over Them
According to global responses, just over half of all tweens have their own PC and a significant proportion of those use
their PCs in their bedrooms - 44 percent in New Zealand and 36 percent in Australia which is in the middle of the range
between 81 percent in Germany and 11 percent in the Czech Republic. This indicates there is often no consistent,
real-time parental supervision in place.
Parents seem to be in the dark about what their kids are up to online. Six in 10 (61 percent) New Zealand parents and
only half (54 percent) of Australian and have gone into their kids' computers to monitor their activities. This compares
with the US where 72 percent have done so.
And less than half (48 percent New Zealand and 43 percent Australian) of the parents have logged onto the social media
profile of their 10-13 year old child. In both countries, Mums are more likely to check up on their kids than Dads.
While the survey suggests that a majority of parents surveyed (92 percent) feel they are savvier about the Internet than
their children, there is room for much concern about their kids' online activities.
All Things Social
A staggering 58 percent of parents admit their 10 to 13 year olds have access to mainstream social networks, directly
contravening the established minimum age restriction to join Facebook at 13 years.
For ten year olds in New Zealand and Australia the figures are 37 and 32 percent respectively but by the time they are
13, more than three-quarters are registered on the major social media sites via a PC and almost half (47 percent in New
Zealand and 48 percent in Australia) via their mobile phones.
According to their parents, 12 percent of New Zealand 13 year olds are spending more than an average of 11 hours per
week on social networks.
Just Playing Around
Having a games console is now the norm for this age group: 21 percent of New Zealand and 28 percent of Australian tweens
are even spending an average of more than an hour a day on them.
McKinnon said: "Adults often take for granted the decades of daily, hourly, minute-by-minute training we call upon every
time we engage with other people. And not even we can navigate social situations without having to reconcile a host of
complex issues, from simple etiquette to gross invasions of privacy, sexual inappropriateness and social bias.
"The Digital Maturity survey provides encouragement to parents to help tweens develop the skills to use online networks
with confidence. Importantly, parents and tweens also need to speak up if they detect an issue."
McKinnon believes the dangerous gap between the age of digital maturity and the age children achieve adult levels of
emotional and intellectual maturity is essentially a perfect storm for tweens: "The phenomenon creates a situation where
teens are determining the rules of engagement and the result is an environment that is often devoid of basic social
courtesies and ethics.
"Mutual respect for openness and privacy within a family is a fine line to be negotiated, be it in the real or cyber
world. We know that to protect children throughout their lives, parents have to engage, set boundaries and help kids
navigate both their physical and online societies," he said.
Other key findings of 10 to 13 year olds' online experiences are:
• Cyber bullying is the highest, at 9 percent, in Australia and the US, which is above the all countries' average
of one in 20 tweens having been victims. Although not the highest, cyber bulling in New Zealand is at percent.
• 59% of New Zealand parents say they know their kids' passwords. In the US, this peaks at 78 percent.
• Tweens in Italy (90 percent), Czech Republic (86 percent) and UK (83 percent) are the most prolific users of
SMS, while France (61 percent) and Australia (62 percent) used the service the least. In New Zealand, 69 percent of
tweens use SMS.
• Tweens in the UK (36 percent) are more likely to own a Smartphone than their US (28 percent) and French (16
percent) counterparts. Only 15 percent of New Zealand tweens own a Smartphone.
• Italian (76 percent) and Spanish (72 percent) tweens are most likely to have their own personal computer, while
New Zealanders (40 percent) and Canadians (53 percent) are the least likely to.
About AVG Digital Diaries Campaign
Digital Diaries is a year-long look at how technology is affecting childhood, with each stage looking at a different age
group.
The first stage of AVG's Digital Diaries campaign was called Digital Birth and was released in October 2010 and covered 0-2 year olds. It found that on average infants acquire a digital identity
at six months old.
The second stage called Digital Skills was released in January 2011 and found that for two-to-five year olds 'tech' skills are increasingly replacing 'life'
skills.
The Digital Playground study, which was released in June 2011, interviewed 2200 mothers with Internet access in New Zealand and Australia, North
America (US, Canada), the EU5 (UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain) and Japan with children aged between six and nine
years old. This suggested that 51 percent of six to nine year olds frequent children's social sites but are generally
unprepared for the dangers lurking within them.
The Digital Maturity study interviewed over 4,000 parents with Internet access in New Zealand and Australia, North
America (US, Canada), the EU5 (UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain) and Japan with children aged between 10 and 13
years-old.
ENDS