Internet Safety: Online Teen Statistics [Infographic]

The Internet isn’t safe for children to spend their time, alone, unmonitored, with a wide open Internet connection. It’s important to put safeguards in place to keep your kids safe while they have fun on the web–as it can become unfun really fast. Pornography and other pitfalls are too close for comfort!

As much as I safeguard the web for my younger children, it is just as important to do this with my teens!

Take a look at some of these troubling online teen statistics:

[Click for Larger]

A few things really jumped out at me:

• 88% of teens say they have seen someone be mean or cruel to another person on a social network.
  
• 93% of boys (63% of girls) are exposed to porn online before the age of 18.
• 70%: percentage of boys who have looked at online porn for at least 30 minutes straight.
• 18% of boys (10% of girls have witness rape or sexual violence online.
• 50% of victims who fall prey to sexual online predators say they are in love with their predator.

There are a few more things in this infographic that I found troubling, but here’s the bottom line, I think:

Be a pro-active parent with online safety, and those who are youth pastors should be made aware of what their youth group members are being exposed to and help them as best they can.

What do you think?

[via Best Counseling Degrees]

Eric Dye

Proprietor of ChurchMag

I am a blogger, business owner and lover of coffee. I spend most of my time as Programs Director for Open Church, but you'll also find me as a writer and editor for ChurchMag and ChurchMag Press. All while enjoying my family and sipping espresso in Italy.