Research conducted by iconKids & Youth for Kaspersky Lab has uncovered the harsh impact of Internet over-dependency among children across the globe.
About 55 percent of children were qualified by the research as dependent on the Internet. These children are twice as likely to conceal potentially risky online activities from their parents and use content, inappropriate for their age.
The survey of 3,780 families with children aged 8 to 16, conducted across seven countries, found that dependency on the Internet has a marked impact on kids’ behavior and actions.
When asking children to score key aspects of their daily life between 1 and 10, their ability to learn and interact with peers and parents suffers as children get older. This trend was most notable in relationships with parents, with Internet dependent children showing a steady worsening in their parental relationships as they get older.
A third (36 percent) of kids dependent on the Internet freely share their home address details online, compared to just a quarter (25 percent) of those who are non-dependent. They are also more likely to share information about the places they visit often (60 percent vs. 41 percent), expensive purchases made (41 percent vs. 27 percent) and where their parents work (36 percent vs. 26 percent).
Children at the younger end of the internet dependent spectrum are more likely to share this information than older kids.
Family relationships are also at risk, with Internet dependent children twice as likely (50 percent) to communicate less with their parents than those not dependent on the Internet (25 percent), as a result of their connected devices.