HMD survey reveals horrific child safety danger in the online world

A shocking new survey suggests more than 40 per cent of Aussie kids have been contacted by strangers online.

A shocking number of Australian children are being targeted by strangers in the online world, with some 40 per cent of kids aged between eight and 15 regularly contacted by someone they didn’t know.

More than that, 21 per cent of kids report strangers have tried to move them onto an encrypted chat platform and 49 per cent report seeing something on social media or messaging apps that they wish they hadn’t.

Those are some of the disturbing findings from a global survey from Finnish phone manufacturer HMD, which surveyed 12,394 parents and children from the UK, the US, Australia, India and Germany over January.

In Australia, 32 per cent of children said they had been exposed to or sent sexual or violent content and 49 per cent report they were scared or upset by something they had seen on their phones.

Globally, more than one in three children, or 37 per cent, report a stranger has tried to move them into an encrypted chat.

The survey suggests widespread dissatisfaction in Australian youngsters about the omnipresence of smartphones in their lives.

The HMD survey suggests Australian children are being exposed to widespread harm and danger in the online world. Picture: NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

Almost all kids understand why their parents would want to check and monitor their phone use, the survey suggests, and two thirds said they felt pressured to have a phone because the people around them had phones.

Child and adolescent clinical psychologist Dr Grace Hancock said the results showed the country needed to “better protect kids” and “manage this risk”.

“We have a great opportunity with 94 per cent of Australian children understanding that their parents may want to check their phone use,” she said.

“They acknowledge that this is reasonable. Having a device which is designed to make this easy is important, to allow children and teens to have the independence that they seek while also keeping them safe because they don’t have the cognitive and social maturity to do this for themselves just yet.”

The survey follows the federal parliament’s world-first ban on social media for users under the age of 16, legislated in December last year.

The law bans teens from social media apps like TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat and Facebook.

Prime Minster Anthony Albanese said the legislation would help young Australians develop healthier relationships.

“One of the things I want to see is young Australians, older too, having conversations with each other,” he said.

State parliaments have also moved to clamp down on smartphones, including banning the devices during school hours.

Mr Albanese said those reforms had already delivered positive outcomes.

“There’s more concentration in classrooms, they’re playing with each other at play lunch and engaging with others in a face-to-face way,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland legislated the social media ban to protect children from harm in the online space. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“We’re getting better outcomes, healthier outcomes.”

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas pushed for a state-based social media ban for kids before the federal government’s move.

Speaking at the Adelaide Convention Centre in October, Mr Malinauskas said his wife Annabel had grown alarmed about children locked in to social media after reading The Anxious Generation from US social psychologist Jonathan Haidt.

The book charts the destructive effects of tech on childhood development.

“Bell read the book The Anxious Generation … she read the book and turned to me one night and said, ‘you better effing do something about this’.”