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6th February 2024
05:25pm GMT
As it turns out it might not belong to their parents, it just might be their own personal phone.
A new survey conducted by Amárach, on behalf of online safety charity CyberSafeKids, has been released to mark Safer Internet Day.
Amárach surveyed 900 parents who have children aged 5-17 and found that 24% of six-year-olds have their own smartphone.
They also found that 45% of children aged 10 can use their smartphone in their bedrooms and shows that more than half of parents do not feel well-equipped to teach children how to stay safe online.
A fifth of parents said they feel that the benefits of the internet and social media outweigh the risks for children.
Over a quarter of parents revealed they are "extremely concerned" about the risk of online grooming, cyberbullying, and the risk of accessing pornography.
Yet just 28% of parents use parental controls on their child's smart devices.
CyberSafeKids is launching a new online safety parental campaign called 'Same Rules Apply' which highlights the need to approach parenting online in the same way as parenting offline, emphasising that the same rules should be applied in both worlds.
"It's alarming to find that children as young as five are being allowed to use smartphones alone in their bedroom," said CyberSafeKids Chief Executive Alex Cooney.
"Our 'Same Rules Apply' campaign seeks to support parents in approaching children’s online lives with the same care, attention and supervision that we apply to their offline lives," Ms Cooney said.
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