Kids more addicted to online friendships: report

Staying in touch is not the same anymore as it was about two decades back. The inception of social media websites has drastically changed way people communicate or keep in touch with each other.

While there is no harm in having a digital presence, a report has suggested that the networking sites are taking a heavy toll on kids, as they are getting addicted to online friendships, which has a lot of drawbacks.

According to new research carried out by Kaspersky Lab and iconKids & Youth, it is mostly pressure from peer groups that force kids to join networking sites and keep pace with their friends.

Moreover, parents provide their kids with connected devices to help them maintain contacts with their friends, and children have claimed that they use these devices because their friends do so. The connected kids survey also pointed out that 52 per cent of parents provide their children with mobile devices so that they can communicate with their friends on social media platforms.

44 per cent of young people say they use a connected device because their friends do and one third of kids (32 per cent) keep in touch with their friends more often online than offline. It has also been revealed that the importance attributed to online friendships is as much as real world friendships for many children. 

Over two fifths of kids (42 per cent) have claimed that they are equally afraid to lose friends online and offline, and one in ten (11 per cent) are more afraid to lose friends online than offline.

Use of modern communication platforms is a major online activity for young people, including social media (35 per cent) and messaging apps (35 per cent).

The research also elucidates that the older children get, the less likely they are to meet friends face-to-face, preferring to use instant messengers, social networks and SMS to communicate.

76 per cent of kids aged between eight and ten prefer real world contact, as opposed to only 46 per cent of teenagers aged 14-16.

Andrei Mochola, Head of Consumer Business at Kaspersky Lab, comments: "Online communication has become such a substantial part of modern kids’ lives that parents should be paying extra attention to it."

Pointing out the threats related to online platoforms, he said, "Kids are now experiencing peer pressure to use online tools as part of everyday communication and it’s important that parents are as vigilant as possible to the threats and aware of what their kids are doing on the Internet."

"It is also very important to talk to the child, explain online dangers and the advantages of communicating in the offline world. Online safety programs allow parents to see what is happening with their children online and to take measures when needed to protect them," he added.