Call to ban computers in the bedroom

Dr Tanya Byron's report on the damaging impact of video games and the internet, initiated at the request of prime minister Gordon Brown in September 2007, will be released this week.

It is expected that the report will acknowledge the usefulness of the internet, but will urge parents to ban computers from their children's bedrooms and recommend moving them into shared areas of the home to allow parents to monitor activity. This report was prompted by claims that British children had unlimited access to violence and pornography, and were being "raised online".

According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, 57 per cent of children had come into contact with online pornography. A search for the term 'happy slap' on popular website YouTube produced 117 videos posted in the last week alone. Another website, Pure Street Fight, provides access to a video called 'Girl Beat Up In Street' proving massively popular having been viewed over 1,300,000 times.

It is also expected that Dr Byron will warn of the growing dangers that children will be increasingly exposed to pornography, internet grooming by paedophiles, and "cyber-bullying", recommending that free lessons are made available for parents to learn how to prevent children from accessing unsuitable material online. Dr Byron said, "Ironically, parents' concerns about risk and safety of their children in the streets and outside has driven a generation of children indoors, where it could be argued they are being exposed to a whole new set of risks."

Other recommendations will include new codes of practice for the regulation of social networking sites, such as Facebook, with clear standards on privacy and harmful content, and a new law making it unlawful to assist suicide on the internet.