Swiss youth on the web

January 15, 2010 / Marco D'Alessandro

Do you know which internet forum your child visits on a regular basis? If not, then you are in the same position as the majority of parents. This is what is revealed by the latest survey conducted by SWITCH's Junior Web Barometer. The survey shows that 69 percent of the 13 to 20 year-olds questioned have unrestricted access to the entire contents of the web on their home computer.

In order to establish the behaviour of children and young people in the internet, SWITCH launched a comprehensive survey on the topic in 2009. Those questioned were all former participants in the Junior Web Award who had jointly designed their own homepage as their entry for the award. The study centred on the pupils' self-assessment:  

·       How do they rate their internet know-how?

·       Do they have their internet consumption under control?

·       Are they aware of the potential dangers at all?

All in all, 27 teachers and 575 pupils took part in the anonymous survey, with the children's group (6 to 12 years) being questioned separately from the young people's group (13 to 20 years).

 According to the survey, just under half the pupils use the internet on a daily basis, with boys (55 percent) making clearly more frequent use of it than girls (39 percent). While children aged between 6 and 12 primarily use the internet for playing, young people are chiefly interested in chats, e-mail exchanges and the virtual fostering of friendships.
 

In response to the question of how good their own internet knowledge is, the young people's group shows a particularly high level of self-confidence: 85 percent consider their knowledge to be "good" or “very good”, while that of their main teacher is viewed as comparatively poor (57 percent). The situation is different for the six to twelve-year-olds: here, 77 percent consider their main teacher to be competent – but only 64 percent view themselves as competent.  

There are also major differences between children and young people when it comes to the awareness of dangers: according to the survey, 30 percent of the 6 to 12 year-olds are afraid of coming across "nasty people" in the internet or things that could frighten them (24 percent). The 13 to 20 year old surfers have virtually no worries in their everyday surfing – apart from a fear of being victim to undesirable spam avalanches (15 percent) or landing on "fake" websites (14 percent).  

Check out the SWITCH Junior Web Barometer online (see link below).

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