20 per cent of youths threaten people online

 ALMOST 20 per cent of youths between 12 and 18 admit that they have used the internet to threaten friends or acquaintances.

Twenty-seven per cent uses the internet to insult their friends and acquaintances using a false identity.

This was revealed in the Adolescents and Social Media report carried out by the Spanish Confederation of Educational Centre and supported by the European Commission. It shows that the use of violent language has increased on social networks, as a reflection of a society in which 55 per cent of youths justify the use of violence as a means of defending their rights. Twenty-five per cent would work for a company which issued violent content and 24 per cent would teach their children to use violence if necessary.

The study was carried out with 7,000 youths at 50 schools in Spain and Italy. One in four would be interested in using firearms but 12 per cent would sign a petition to legalise them, 56 per cent would sign a manifesto against violence and 30 per considers there should be laws to limit violent content in the media.

Forty-two per cent of youths spend more than three hours on their social network profile and 72.5 per cent has at least one profile, although only 14 per cent have a blog or upload videos. Only 30 per cent of youths who spend a lot of time online carry out activities with their friends, and while 67 per cent say their parents control how their studies are going and what they do in their free time, only 42 per cent of parents control what their children do online. Almost 50 per cent do not given them advice on how to behave online, 42 per cent do not watch the same TV programmes as their children and 73 per cent have never played videogames with them.

Sixty per cent of youths don’t talk to their parents about what they do online, 71 per cent do not know their parents views on politics or religion, and 75 per cent have had no guidance on how to manage their emotions.