Youngsters surf for sports, news, gossip
Greek schoolchildren are most interested in sports, news and gossip Internet sites, while almost a third of youngsters polled over the weekend resort to trickery in order to get their hands on their parents’ credit cards for on-line purchases. According to figures released yesterday by the Hellenic Consumer Organization (EKATO), 36 percent of 7 to 17-year-olds from the northern towns of Thessaloniki and Kilkis who – anonymously – filled in questionnaires on Sunday said they visit sports sites on the Internet. Some 27 percent said they surfed sites with a «social» content, 14 percent named news sites and 13 percent gossip sites. Some 70 percent admitted to having visited, at some point, pornographic or gambling sites. Only 10 percent of respondents said they had made on-line purchases using their parents’ credit cards, and 35 percent of these owned up to having obtained the credit card details under false pretenses. Only 6 percent said their parents willingly allowed them to use their credit cards, while 27 percent said their parents strictly banned access to their credit cards. As to web addiction, 23 percent of children with Internet access said they spent less than an hour a day surfing. Some 55 percent said they used the Internet for one to three hours a day, while 4 percent admitted to surfing for between three and 10 hours daily. Another survey, by Eurisko and Research International pollsters, which was released yesterday said men account for 59 percent of Greek Internet users. According to the survey, most on-line shoppers buy books, compact disks and plane tickets.
