Why Do You Need BeNetSafe?

CURRENT INTERNET FACTS

  • 87% of U.S. teens ages 12 to 17 currently use the Internet, representing about 21 million youth. Of those, approximately 11 million teens go online on a daily basis. (Pew Internet and American Life, "Teens and Technology," July 27, 2005.)
  • The size of the wired teen population surges at the seventh grade mark. While about 60% of sixth graders use the Internet, by seventh grade the number jumps to 82%. (Pew Internet and American Life, "Teens and Technology," July 27, 2005.)
  • 47% of children have received e-mails with links to pornographic websites. (Symantec market research report, June 9, 2003)
  • 30% of teenage girls polled by the Girl Scout Research Institute said they had been sexually harassed in a chatroom. Only 7%, however, told their mothers or fathers about the harassment, as they were worried that their parents would ban them from going online. (Girl Scout Research Institute 2002)
  • 86% of the girls polled said they could chat online without their parents’ knowledge, 57% could read their parents e-mail, and 54% could conduct a cyber relationship. (Girl Scout Research Institute 2002)
  • 81% of parents and 79% of teens state that teenagers aren’t careful enough when giving out information about themselves online. 65% of parents and 64% of teens say that teenagers do things online that they wouldn’t want their parents to know about. (Pew Internet and American Life, “Protecting Teens Online,” March 17, 2005.)
  • 27% of teens said that they have known a friend to actually meet someone whom they only knew online (Teen Research Unlimited, “Topline Findings from Omnibuss Research,” October 2005.)
  • Online teens admit that they frequently communicate with people they have never met: 54% have Instant Messaged a stranger, 50% have emailed a stranger, and 45% have participated in a chat room discussion with a stranger (Teen Research Unlimited, “Topline Findings from Omnibuss Research,” October 2005.)
  • 28% of teens said they use code words on a daily basis to hide their online conversations from their parents – example: “PIR” means “parent in room” (Teen Research Unlimited, “Topline Findings from Omnibuss Research,” October 2005.)


Worrysome Headlines

If you are certain that your child is safe, you can relax. For many parents, however, these daily headlines have become a horrifying reality:

This list of headlines could go on forever, but your child's innocence cannot. Spend time in your child's world.