At TrackMyFone blog, we have been striving to ensure better digital safety of kids. It’s has always been our priority to promote and provide information and news that can help parents ace their kids online protection. We love that the topic is gaining influence and exposure nationwide.
A national poll was conducted on children’s health by C.S. Mott Children’s hospital and internet safety was replaced from 8th position to 4th this year. Almost half of the all major respondents agreed that internet safety is a peculiar health issue that requires resolution and recognition.
Bullying
The study also acknowledged that parents recognize that bullying is not a petty health concern. In 2015, a survey elucidated that almost 58 percent of the adults consider bullying to be a bigger threat than to issues like neglect and drug abuse.
The majority’s perception is actually quite correct. Some other studies reinstate the point that bullying can have more adverse effects, compared to the other two categories aforementioned.
Parents are not only the ones holding a similar opinion. YouGov, a recognized worldwide research firm—recently conducted a research for Vodafone Telecommunication Company. The study surveyed teens across states and asked them what their biggest issues were. Notably, 20 percent of the teens have accepted that they had been bullied, and due to which, they had considered committing suicide.
For many other teens, cyberbullying was recorded as a bigger threat than drug abuse. Also, the survey elucidated that digital bullying had far-reaching consequences; worse than conventional face-to-face bullying. It’s duly because teens have invested a lot of their time and effort to setup their digital life and it’s very hard to face criticism over there.
Cyberbullying Leads To Loneliness
When asked how cyberbullying made them feel, the response from most of the kids was that they felt completely alienated and lonely, consequently. This isn’t surprising though, as the purpose of bullying has always been to socially alienate a person from the society. It’s because kids know that people who have a lot of friends are not easy to bully—so if they are bullied, it’s due to their inability to socialize and make friends.
It’s also pretty reasonable to think that kids who felt like self-harming were the ones, who were lonely.
There is also another important implication to be considered from all of this. Kids who spend most of their time online are not able to form deep relationships, particularly because there isn’t much time left that they can spare for offline relationships.
The important implication of the aforementioned research is that 43 percent of teens responded that they wouldn’t stand up to help their friends because they believed that doing so requires motivational conversations and words that they don’t have. Teens who have many online friends, but not many offline friends, they find themselves without the support—when needed. It’s pretty obvious why wouldn’t they feel lonely when no is going to come to their rescue.
Bringing Awareness
From parents to teens to everyone every other source that we asked, they all believe that internet safety is important—but simply saying that awareness matters wouldn’t solve the problem. It requires action, especially from parents to help their kids focus more on real friendships.
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