UK children under 9 years of age at risk of cyber-bullying

Children in the UK are at high risk of cyber-bullying, a survey from AVG finds.

A total of 20 per cent of UK children have experienced some form of cyber-bulling, coming second to 25 per cent of children in Spain.

The average UK child aged between 6 and 9 years of age spends around 4.2 hours every week on social networking sites.

This was the highest level of usage above the USA, Australia, Japan, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

CEO of AVG Technologies, Inc,  JR Smith says:  “The data in the latest wave of our research is compelling. We must start talking to our children about online safety before we hand them an internet-enabled device.”

“Unintentionally, we’re all likely to have handed our child a cell phone or internet enable device to our child with the only hint of concern being for the device itself. So, we need to approach our children’s first exposures to technology like we do with any other activity having associated risks, and instil a culture of safety and awareness.”