Americans More Comfortable with Kids’ Social Networking, Chat Room Use

Americans are growing more comfortable with young people’s use of the internet - including social-networking sites, chat rooms and email - according to the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee (CICAC), writes MarketingCharts.

Among the findings of the study conducted by Zogby International survey, together with 463 Communications, on behalf of CICAC:

• 27.7% of Americans in the 2008 survey said social-networking sites and chat rooms should be restricted to adults, compared with 35.3% who had said so in an identical 2007 survey (see table).
• However, many seniors over age 70 said children should wait until adulthood before chatting and social-networking: 38.3% said so in ‘08, up from 34.6% in ‘07.
• Just 2.8% of Americans said children should not have access to email until they are adults, down from 14.7% in 2007 (see table).
• Only 4.2 % of respondents said children should wait until adulthood before surfing the web, compared with 17.4% who said so in ‘07.
• Social-networking, however, is still a concern: 63.2% of those surveyed said children under 16 should not have access to social networking sites and chat rooms. (Most major social-networking sites require that users be at least 14 years old.)

“The survey results suggest that Americans are increasingly accepting greater use of new online technologies by our young people,” said Tim Lordan, executive director, CICAC. “Yet the survey shows that it may take some time for many Americans to become comfortable with how kids are social networking and chatting.”

About the data: The 2008 Zogby poll is a survey of 3,585 adults, conducted Jan. 21-23. The 2007 Zogby poll surveyed 1,200 adults and was conducted Jan. 24-26.