A recent survey revealed that 51.5 per cent of children have been cyberbullied in South Africa.
Co-founder and VP of global sales at Digimune, Simon Campbell-Young said, “The reason for this is the increase in connected societies, more and more people are online, especially the youth. There is clearly a lack of good cyber education and defensive tools.”
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Digimune, a digital identity, privacy and social media protection company, surveyed 200 South African parents in February 2021 to gauge their views and concerns around children and digital threats. The results revealed that children in the respondents’ communities have been a victim of the following cyber threats:
- 35 per cent of children have been a victim of cyberstalking
- 36.5 per cent of children have fallen victim to online shaming
- 43.5 per cent of children willingly share their personal information on online platforms
- 54 per cent of children have accessed inappropriate content via digital platforms
- A staggering 51.5 per cent of children have been cyberbullied
Campbell-Young offered the following tips to protect you and your family:
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- Education is key
This is the first awareness step. The vast majority of children have access to a wide variety of online devices – either shared or their own device – from a young age. By the age of 10, 30.5 per cent of children have their own smartphone and 41.5 per cent have access to a shared smartphone.
It is thus imperative to take time to learn about the internet – the good and the bad. This is the first step.
- Limit the time spent on the internet
Cyberbullying has increased in SA during lockdown as more and more family members spend longer periods online. Parents are also allowing their kids to spend more time online, which has been an overspill from the past 12 months, in terms of online education.
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- Be cautious of the information you share online
A number of cases have occurred locally and abroad where kids have had indecent imagery of themselves uploaded onto social media platforms.
Sharing less information online, being aware of the signs, managing your digital footprint, utilising a monitoring tool and takedown service such as digimune.com can help you protect kids from becoming victims of cyberbullying.
- Monitor your children’s devices
A lot of parents feel overwhelmed within cyberspace and it is normal. Parents need to be able to monitor devices and monitor content.
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