In preparation for Safer Internet Day, the annual day promoting the safe and responsible use of digital technologies, Ipsos (a global market research and consulting firm) released the results of its survey on behalf of the Save the Children organization on the subject: Consensus in the digital environment: perception and awareness among teens and adults.
The purpose of the survey was to explore the subject of consensus on the Internet, understood as the ability to exercise a free and informed choice in its regard.
Today, both adults and children live in a highly social context, with an average of more than 5 online profiles per person. Both youth and adults are also increasingly connected via smartphones (95% of adults and 97% of young people have one), but they are almost completely unaware of the consequences of their activities online. Neither adults nor young people are very interested in the history of their online profiles or in maintaining them. Instead, they seem to focus exclusively on the importance of being present “here and now.”
According to Save the Children: “The results of the Ipsos survey reveal that adults and young people share the same knowledge, the same levels of awareness of the consequences of their behavior online and often the very same behavior. This is worrying if we stop to think that it should be the adults who provide guidance for youth in our complex and continually evolving world and in the world of digital technology in particular.”