Robin Raskin

The CCRC (Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire) was responsible for some of the first studies about children as victims on the web. The oft-repeated statistic about one in five youths reporting being solicited for sex online stems from the Center's research done in 2000. In August, just about five years after the original study, CCRC published the results of a new study that looks at the changes in Internet crimes against youth. The results might surprise you since the biggest increase in "crimes" comes from deeds done by friends and acquaintances, not strangers.

Here's a summary of what they found:

• Sexual solicitations are down. In 2007, one in five kids reported being solicited in some way (send a photo, meet, engage in sexual talk) on the web. Today it's one in seven. This is despite the fact that kids are now social networking.

• Exposure to porn is up. This is despite increased use of Internet filters. This is probably because there is more porn than ever, being marketed more aggressively than ever.

• Peer harassment (cyberbullying) is up. Cyberbullying is done by friends and acquaintances, not strangers. Forty-four percent of harassment incidents involved offline acquaintances, most of them peers, and a significant portion happened "when youth were using the Internet in the company of peers" (group think and peer pressure as noted elements in cyberbullying).