eSafety and Sharing Habits with Family and Friends Among Children and Adolescents

The aim of this study was to examine eSafety, children’s and teenagers’ awareness of safe browsing, identify their Internet usage patterns, their habits of sharing their surfing experiences with parents and family, and the relationship between usage patterns, sharing habits, and socio-demographic attributes. This is a mixed-method study. A total of 345 participants from Israel completed questionnaires. The findings indicate that children and adolescents spend an average of 3.1 h a day surfing the Web. Their level of awareness of eSafety is medium–high. Young children have a more significant need to share and consult about dealing with Internet-related dangers, with others than do adolescents. It was found that many children and adolescents block channels of dialogue and sharing with their parents, fearing their parents’ reaction, especially parental criticism. Because of the complexity of the environment in which children live, involvement in the children’s lives is important

The results (zilka, 2018) show that the participants’ level of awareness is medium–high. The level of awareness of girls is lower than that of boys, and the level of awareness of the younger age group is higher than that of the older age group. There was found that the younger children visit fewer sites than do the older adolescents, and usually they visit certain sites, and therefore they feel less vulnerable; by contrast, the adolescents visits a large number of sites, some of which they reach randomly, following a Google search, etc., therefore the adolescents feel more vulnerable and more exposed than do the younger children. Level of children’s computer skills was high. We found that the Internet indeed occupies a significant place in the agenda of children and adolescents. The findings indicate that children and adolescents like to surf the Internet and prefer the Internet over other media. The children’s responses indicate that 97% use the Internet. In the study (Zilka, 2018), The children were asked to specify under which conditions they prefer to surf the Internet. The most common answer was that they liked to consume content on the Internet “at any time,” “almost always,” “under all conditions,” and the like. We found significant and positive correlations between the level of awareness of safe surfing, the need to consult and share with others, the volume of web surfing, and computer literacy. consult with others. The interviews revealed that children and adolescents would rather not involve their parents for fear of parental reaction such as “They should tell the teacher, in which case the situation will become more difficult,” or “They will forbid me to go online.” Therefore, in interviews they stated that they would prefer not involve their parents in “difficult matters,” such as the dissemination of an embarrassing picture on Facebook, harsh things written about them, having been sworn at, insulting things written about them, and the like. The interviewees also raised their fears of parental criticism of their conduct.