Youth (ages 15-24) is the most connected age group. Worldwide, 71 per cent are online compared with 48 per cent of the total population.
Children and adolescents under 18 account for an estimated one in three internet users around the world.
A growing body of evidence indicates that children are accessing the internet at increasingly younger ages. In some countries, children under 15 are as likely to use the internet as adults over 25.
Smartphones are fuelling a ‘bedroom culture’, with online access for many children becoming more personal, more private and less supervised.
About 29 per cent of youth worldwide — around 346 million — are not online.
African youth are the least connected. Around 60 per cent are not online, compared with just 4 per cent in Europe.
92 per cent of all child sexual abuse URLs identified globally by the Internet Watch Foundation are hosted in just five countries: the Netherlands, the US, Canada, France and Russia.
Taking a ‘Goldilocks’ approach to children’s screen time — not too much, not too little — and focusing more on what children are doing online and less on how long they are online, can better protect them and help them make the most of their time online.
Source: The State of the World’s Children 2017 “Children in a Digital World”, UNICEF