Internet Safety Day 2021: eSafety Commission Julie Inman Grant releases alarming new figures

To mark worldwide Internet Safety Day on Tuesday, eSafety Commission Julie Inman Grant, released new statistics which showed one in four teenagers had a negative online experience of cyber bullying, harassment or unwanted contact from a stranger in the six months to September 2020.

The survey of 627 young people aged 12 to 17 found teenagers spend an average of 14.4 hours a week online and use an average of four different social media services. Three in ten children had been contacted online by a stranger.

Ms Grant said parents were the front line of defence.

Waldara parent Mel Aggenbach said trying to keep children safe and grounded amid constantly developing technology was a minefield.

"My view on technology is kids need to have access to it because it's really important for education these days," she said.

"So you can't do a blanket no device or no internet rule, you need to have kids become good digital citizens who are aware of their digital footprint and try to help them interact responsibly."

Mrs Aggenbach said she had two main rules for her children, Angus, 15, Matilda, 14 and Hugh, 11, no devices in your room and no devices at family dinner.

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"When you look at digital bullying a lot happens at night and kids also need to turn their brain off," she said. "Having a screen or a TV in their bedroom can cause bad sleep patterns in kids and they need to know when to switch off.

"Even if it's just messaging if you look at the science behind it when they get a message they get a hit of dopamine.. and that doesn't encourage them to rest."

Mrs Aggenbach said like most teenager and pre-teens her children had made a couple of missteps online but it was important to discuss these to help the teens become responsible online.

Her biggest concerns were online grooming and the impact of misleading social media.

Mrs Aggenbach said it was important to remind children that what people's lives looked like online was often different to reality and physically photos were often manipulated by filters, photoshop and facetune.

"[Social media] creates a false expectations of how perfect someone's life might be," she said.

"Our kids sit at the dinner table talking about something as if it's fact, and we say 'do your really think that's what happened?'.

"We try to question them, 'do you really think someone's life is that perfect, that they don't have bad days?'

"It's easy to make yourself look ten times more amazing than you are, so it's about managing kids expectation of reality versus what's on screen."

Parenting in the modern era is extremely different to generations gone by, Mrs Aggenbach said.

"We have a generation of adults who can't even fathom the amount of information coming into their brains each day," she said.

"We have an obligation to help them navigate it.

"When we went to schools, people used to pass notes... nowadays it's online. Kids need to understand if they don't even want something seem or read then they should never post it.

"Snapchats can be a real challenge, it's gone, but it's always there. Potential employers if they look up your history and you've sent a nude or said something mean it's all going to come back in your digital footprint."

But it's not just children who fall into the trap of revealing too much online, says Mrs Aggenbach, who works in IT for an app company.

Adults often inadvertently publish too much online, from where they live to when they're on holidays, which can make them easy targets for burglars.

Albury-Wodonga Optus franchisee Wally Pasuqali said the company had a number of guides to help parents discuss online safety with their children.

"It's important to monitor [their social media]... and have some screen free time," he said.

"The big thing with my kids is getting a good balance of screentime and non-screen time."

Mr Pasuqali said internet safety should be a major focus of all parents

"For a social media point of view the information shared can be there forever and you can't remove that," he said.

"It should be at the forefront of anyone's mind, and people should make sure to have a safe place to talk about things that happen on social media with your kids.

"Sometimes it's more about listening and understanding the issues generated by social media. We just don't quite get how social media impacts young people... in the past it wasn't nearly as prolific."

Mr Pasquali said he personally was most concerned about cyber bullying and how quickly what was thought to be one-on-one conversation can be shared with hundreds or thousands of people.

"School yard fights used to happen from a physical point of view on the schoolyard, now it's happening on social media in different ways," he said.

"It's really important to support young people in a situation where something has happened on social media as it can be just as damaging [ as schoolyard bullying] and create a very emotional situation."

Mrs Aggenbach said being online can be great for teenagers who have access to podcasts and topics to inspire them.

"The information available to children is mind blowing and fabulous but it's important as parents to teach them to have the right filter on and to be objective about the information they're seeing and not just accepting as fact," she said.

The eSafety Commissioner said teenagers' increased use of technology can offer many benefits, but there are downsides. Ms Grant said it was important to 'start the chat' about online safety which children.

For more information on starting a conversation with your children you can visit Optus' digitalthumbprint.com.au.