INTERNET THREATS AND SAFETY METHODS AMONG CHILDREN IN SRI LANAKA

Now-a-days internet has become a vital part in our life style. In every aspect of our lives, internet has become a part of them. Internet is essential in each and every field and profession. It has become a common and a well-known thing among everyone from the small child to adult persons which means every person in the society is aware about the internet. That means even the small children are aware about what is called internet. In today’s society, children are growing with the technological environment so that it’s not a new thing or magical thing for them further.

Internet has both advantages and disadvantages. When concentrating about the advantages, e-mail facilities, access to information, online shopping, online chat, downloading services can be considered as the main advantages. Identity theft, loss of confidential information/data, theft of network resources, damaged personal reputation; financial losses are the common disadvantages.

  

When using internet, one should be aware about all of those. But, the pathetic situation is when children are using the internet, they are only aware of the benefits of the internet most of the time. Although they are using internet, they don’t know anything about internet threats. So that as a result, automatically they become victims of the internet threats.

Lack of awareness of the internet threats can cause negative consequences on children such as child abuse, sexual harassments, child pornography etc. If no precautions are taken, children and young people can come across serious dangers and become the victims of internet crimes.

If the children are allowed to use internet, they should be made aware by the parents about the internet threats as well as safety methods.  If using those methods, one can avoid the threats and use internet safely without getting affected by any bad impact.

In the course of surveying the research which is the awareness level of internet threats and safety among children researchers tried to carryout a particular structure of the field. Followings were made as the conclusions based on the analysis of relevant literature, the results of questionnaire survey and the findings about the awareness on internet threats and safety among students of both schools.

The study was carried out with view point of identifying the awareness level of children about internet threats and safety methods in Sri Lanka. Though internet is providing many opportunities for children, it has exposed the children to a greater risk due to limitation in awareness about threats and safety. Though many researches have been carried out in this context, after reviewing the literature it was notorious that majority of these studies have been conducted primarily on Western economies. Therefore the study was designed to fill the existing gap in literature and accordingly research objective was set out. The scope was limited to from the grade nine to thirteen students in selected two schools due to the information accessibility.

The sample was collected using stratified sampling method in a way to minimize the sampling error and information was gathered mainly using a questionnaire. Further secondary data was also assisted in drawing an appropriate conclusion. The SPSS software was used in analysing the gathered data through survey. The findings indicated that nowadays almost all the students  have internet access device and daily browse and most of the students are spending approximately one hours browsing internet especially playing online games. Further it was observed that there was no any relationship between parental mediation and awareness level about internet threats and safety among children. However the educational level and concern about threats protecting behaviour are highly affect to the awareness level among children of internet threats and safety.

However it has to be noted that the research is subjected to certain limitations including generalization of the findings among students in other provinces in Sri Lanka since the sample was obtained only from the western province and Sabaragamuwa province.