Study reveals risky online behaviour 'almost normalised' among young people

The internet has made our lives so much easier but many will agree when I say that it is not the safest place for youngsters. And, a new EU-funded study has proved that risky, delinquent and sometimes even criminal online behaviour is getting normalised among young netizens, more than ever today.

New research has found that one in every four 16 to 19-year-olds have trolled someone online and one in every three have engaged in digital piracy.

The study, which was conducted in nine European countries including the UK among 8,000 young people, also found that one in every eight surveyeeshadengaged in online harassment, one in every 10 hadengaged in hate speech or hacking, one in every five had engaged in sexting and four out of 10 had watched pornography.

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Julia Davidson, a co-author of the research and professor of criminology at the University of East London (UEL), said, "The research indicates that a large proportion of young people in the EU are engaging in some form of cybercrime, to such an extent that the conduct of low-level crimes online and online risk-taking has become almost normalised."

Davidson alsosaid that the research findings pointed to more male participation in such kinds of behaviour as compared to females, with nearly three-quarters of males admitting to some form of cybercrime or online risk-taking and 65 per cent of females admitting to the same.

The study was conducted in the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Romania. The country with the highest proportion of cyber deviancy was Spain,followed by Romania, the Netherlands and Germany.

In a questionnaire, young people were questioned about 20 types of online behaviour, including looking at pornography, posting revenge porn, indulging in hate speech and making self-generated sexual images.

According to the survey findings, about half of respondents engaged in behaviour that could be considered criminal in most jurisdictions, which includeshacking, money muling and non-consensual sharing of intimate images.

The survey also found that half of 16to 19-year-olds spent about four to seven hours a day on the internet while nearly four out of 10 spent more than eight hours a day online. And, the top five popular platforms among the group were YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok and Snapchat.

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