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Our Studies > Cybercentres and Child Safety

Cybercentres and Child Safety

This study was undertaken and carried out by PROTEGELES, a Child Welfare Association on Information and Communication Technologies under the Child Ombudsperson request.

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Summary of the most relevant results

  • Thanks to this study we have been able to determine that the majority of children and young people going to a cybercentre don’t do it very often, that is to say less than two days per week. 82% of children go to a cybercentre just one day per week and 10% do it two days a week. However, 8% of children going to a cybercentre do it three to six days a week.
  • Results are also quite reassuring concerning time spent in the cybercentres by children and young people as we have found out that 71% of children surfing the net from a cybercentre spend less than two hours in the premises and 20% spend less than an hour. However, we should not forget that 29%of children connecting to Internet from a cybercentre stay connected for a considerable long time: 19% do it more than two consecutive hours and 10% do it for more that three hours. .
  • Children using cybercentres become loyal costumers, generally speaking: 87% of them usually go to the same place.
  • 86% of children and young people going to a cybercentre don’t do it on their own but with their friends. Only 14% of children go to a cybercentre alone, which proves that going to a cybercentre is still a group and entertainment-focused activity for children and teenagers.
  • Concerning children’s expenses at cybercentres, most of them (79%) spend less than 5 euros a week. On the other hand, 17% of children spend 5 to 10 euros a week and 4% spend 10 to 25 euros a week.
  • Playing computer games is the main reason for children to go to a cybercentre, as admitted by 69% of surveyed children. It is worth mentioning that there exists an inversely proportional relationship between age and time spent playing at a cybercentre, in other words, the younger the children, the more time they spend playing at cybercentres. When we look at behaviour differences according to children’s sex, we found out that boys spend seven times more time playing computer games than girls do 888% for boys to 12% for girls).
  • The second reason for children going to a cybrcentre is online chatting: 46% of young people spend most of their time at the cybercentre chatting with other Internet users. This is the case for twice more girls than boys: 68% of girls spend most of their time on a chatroom when in a cybercentre to 37% of boys.
  • The third most usual reason for children to go to a cybercentre is accesing their emails. 42% of children getting connected to the Internet from a cybercentre go there in order to use the e-mail. The remaining 58% state not using email services when in cybercentre.
  • Finally, in the fourth place behind playing, chatting and e-mailing, is SEARCHING FOR INFORMATION. 35% of children say that their main reason for going to a cybercentre is looking for information.
  • 15% of children going to a cybercentre to surf the net enter pornographic pages from the cybercentre’s computer and the percentage of 15-18 year old teenagers doing so is even higher: 21%, that is, one out of five.
  • 9% of minors using cybercentre’s computers to surf the web visit pages with extremely violent contents (sadism, executions, mutilations…) and the rate reach 12% when talking about teenagers doing so.
  • Concerning racist and xenophobic pages, 6% of children and 12% (one out of ten) of teenagers admit visiting them from cybercentres.
  • In those cybercentres that don’t have any filtering systems, young users can also enter pages where information about drugs consumption and drugs manufacturing is displayed, specially information on designer drugs. 7% of children and 12% of 15-18 year-old teenagers confess having managed to find this kind of information.
  • Entre los menores de 12 a 17 años, un 64% señala que no existe control alguno por parte de los adultos que regentan estos establecimientos .
  • As a conclusion, we can summarize that around 15 to 20 per cent of children connecting to Internet from cybercentres visit pages that may cause harmful or inappropriate effect on their growing-up process.
  • Among 12-17 year-old children attending cybercentres, 64% of them say that there is absolutely no adult control on these centres.
  • 72% of cybercentre users under 18 years of age affirm that cybercentres have no content-filtering software installed on their computers.
  • Furthermore, most cybercentres’ computers have peer-to-peer (P2P) software. This software allows internet users to share content files and data but they are mainly used as a tool to illegally download and copy files containing audio, video, games and software usually under valid copyright licences. 48% of minors using cybercentres’ services admit having found P2P software (KazAa and eMule) in the cybercentres they go to. Besides, children say that the cybercentres’ computers nave CD-recorder devices.
  • 19% of 12-17 year-old children connecting to Internet from a cybercentre admit having commited one or several of the offences detailed here after from cybercentres’ computers:
  • 12% admit making illegal copies of music, films, software, etc. at cybercentres.
  • 4% confess having threatened other Internet users (6% of teenagers).
  • 1% make both things.
  • The remaining 2% have not determined the illegal action they commit when using cybercentre to connect to Internet (bullying, names calling…)

As a conclusion, we would like to highlight what we think are the most crucial problems that will need to be tackled concerning minors using cybercentres: lack of appropriate information about safety rules, excessive usage, access to harmful contents and offence committing.

The study conclusions and other data are detailed and broken down according to age, sex and level of education (primary or secondary).

NOTE ON THE RESULTS

This study’s results concern only children surfing the net from cybercentres and not the totality of children connecting to Internet.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE STUDY

The characteristics of the study are detailed on its first pages. For its completion, one thousand 11-17 year-old minors of both sexes were surveyed at schools or in the cybercentres.