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SmartGirls Online Report
Smart girls decide for themselves™.
323 SmartGirls took in the survey. The average age of respondents to this survey was 13 1/2 years old with 98% being girls and 2% being boys. SmartGirl users who participated in the survey were from the UK, Canada, India, New Zealand, Australia and the United States.
Most of the respondents use the computers from 1 to over 8 hours a day! As you can see below in the graph, 49.5% (159) of SmartGirl users are online for 1-3 hours per day, 20% (60) SmartGirl users go online from 3-5 hours per day and 19% (65) SmartGirl users are online for an hour or less.
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| Age |
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3% (11) of SmartGirl users responded that they did not have a computer, 49% (157) have at least 1 computer in their home, and 47% (151) have 2 or more computers in their home!
SmartGirls use computers for many reasons, for example, looking up the weather, listening to the latest news, shopping for clothes and other things, researching for homework, building personal webpages and in talking with people miles and continents away! Here are some of the reasons why SmartGirl respondents go online:
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| Reasons for surfing the Internet |
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SmartGirl users access the Internet from various places like home, work, lab, and school. In addition, we found that many SmartGirl users love to chat and talk online with messaging systems...over 252 users reported using a messaging system!
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Face it, there are some things that just pop-up out of the blue or we accidentally stumble across adult material online. How many SmartGirls have encountered this? Over 60% of the respondents say that they have experienced adult online material while online. Here is a chart showing how often SmartGirls have encountered "adult material" while using the Internet:
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| How often adult material pops up |
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count | percent |
adultmaterial
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| never |
79 | 25.16 |
| few |
196 | 62.42 |
| often |
27 | 8.6 |
| always |
12 | 3.82 |
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So, do you think we need laws to protect SmartGirls from online predators who can become dangerous if given too much information? If so, at what age do you think there should be laws in place to protect kids from online predators? We have movies that rate age recommendations to movies, should there be similar ratings for websites? Here’s what some SmartGirl users say:
According to SmartGirls, we need laws against online predators to protect online users under the age of 18! 84% (267) of girl respondents agreed or strongly agreed that there should be laws to protect Internet users under 18 years old.
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| I think there should be laws to protect girl users (under age 18) from online predators |
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81% of (261) respondents strongly agree or agree that there should be laws to help protect boys online!
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| I believe there should be online protection for boy users (under age 18) from online predators |
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So, we know that respondents want laws to protect under 18 year olds from online predators, but what about for kids under the age of 13? About 59% of respondents disagree or strongly disagree that there should be laws protecting girls.
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| There should be online protection laws for girl users under the age of 13. |
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About 61% of respondents disagree or strongly disagree that there should be laws protecting boys under the age of 13.
If SmartGirls think these protections should be in place, then maybe stricter laws should be made to help provide a safe, online environment!
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| There should be online protection laws for boy users under the age of 13. |
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Here are some creative ideas to add to the Internet experience:
“Use a virtual town - kind of like the Sims, and have an account where I can have a little job where I earn fake currency and it can accumulate until I’m able to buy a little virtual house and virtual car and food and stuff. It's a good way to teach young people about investment”
“It would be great to always be able to see who you are talking to. Maybe in the future everyone would have a web cam so you could know if you are talking to a 40 year old man and not a girl your age. It would increase safety.”
“Virtually walk through local malls and browse stores for clothes, shoes, etc. And be able to try it on by having a virtual body on there with your exact measurements, then buying it.”
“Talk face to face using a webcam. You’re screen should just be able to see you .”
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Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts
with us!
Please remember that all web-based polls
are not scientific because the pollsters cannot randomly select the
respondents to participate in the surveys.
All our surveys are anonymous; check out our privacy
policy. All data copyright 1996-2000.
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