1. American Library Association
This is your brain on DOPA:
THE DATA
Michele L. Ybarra MPH PhD
Internet Solutions for Kids, Inc.
American Library Association, June 26-July 2
2008, Anaheim, CA
* Thank you for your interest in this presentation. Please
note that analyses included herein are preliminary. More
recent, finalized analyses may be available by contacting
CiPHR for further information.

2. Background
More than 9 in 10 US youth now have Internet
access (USC Center for the Digital Future, 2006; Lenhart, Rainie, &
Lewis, 2001)
One in three teens 12-17 engage in some form
of content creation in 2006 (Lenhart, Madden, Magill et al.,
2007)
 Girls are more likely to post photos (54% v
40%)
 Boys are more likely to post video (19% v
10%)

3. SNS use is growing across time and
increases by age
2% 4%
13%
19%
29% 28%
9%
26%
23%
45%
52%
41%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
GuwM 2006
GuwM 2007

4. Roadmap
Today we will talk about:
 Experiences:
 Internet harassment and bullying
 Unwanted sexual solicitation
 Exposures:
 Unintentional and intentional access to
pornography
 Access of other violent web site content

5. Brief Description of the data
 Growing up with Media
 1,588 households
 Online Survey: Baseline survey in 2006, 14-month
follow up in 2007
 Youth between the ages of 10-15 years
 Youth Internet Safety Surveys 1 and 2
 1,500 households
 Random digit dial telephone survey: First survey in
2000, follow up survey in 2005
 Youth between the ages of 10-17 years
 Conducted by Dr. David Finkelhor and colleagues at UNH
CCRC

6. Online experiences of youth:
Internet harassment
&
CyberBullying

7. Internet harassment
What Youth Said…
 Boy, 14: “I have my own … website and I have
my own page on it and someone posted
something bad about me on it.”
 Boy, 15: “I was playing a first person shooter
game and unintentionally offended this person
who became very serious and began to threaten
me by saying if this was real life he would
physically harm me. [It happened because he]
was unable to accept this was just a game.”
Quotes taken from the Youth Internet Safety Survey – 2 report (Wolak, Finkelhor,
Mitchell, 2006)

8. Internet harassment: Definitions
Depends on the survey..
 YISS1 & YISS2
 Rude or mean comments (YISS1 only)
 Felt worried or threatened because someone was
bothering or harassing them online
 Someone has used the internet to threaten or embarrass
them by posting or sending information for others to see
 Growing up with Media
 Rude or mean comments
 Threatening or aggressive comments
 Spread rumors about youth, whether they were true or not

9. Internet harassment:
Prevalence rates over time
 From YISS1 to YISS2, the12-month prevalence rate
of Internet harassment increased from 6% to 9%
(Mitchell, Wolak, Finkelhor, 2006).
 In the Growing up with Media Survey, 34% reported
harassment at baseline, 34% at follow-up
 Frequent harassment: 8% reported being harassed
monthly at baseline, 8% at follow-up
 Continuity of harassed youth over time
 20% reported harassment at baseline and follow-up
 13% reported harassment at baseline only
 14% reported harassment at follow-up only .

10. Internet harassment: Who is the
harasser?
Based upon data from the YISS2 (Ybarra, Mitchell, Wolak,
Finkelhor, 2006).
 8%: Preadolescent (10-12 years old)
 51%: Adolescent (13-17 years old)
 21%: Young adult (18-25 years old)
 2% Adult (26-40 years): 2%
 18% Don’t know: 18%
The majority (59%) of harassment comes
from other minors

11. Impact of Internet harassment
About one in three youth targeted by
Internet harassment report feeling
very/extremely upset (or afraid) because
of the incident:
 30% in YISS-1
 38% in YISS-2
 25% in GuwM (wave 2)

12. How do rates compare online and
offline? (GuwM)
69%
87%
94%
89% 87%
27%
11% 10% 12%
5% 2% 2% 1%
6%
1%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
School Internet Cell phones Community Other places
Monthly +
Once / a few times
Never

13. Online experiences of youth:
Unwanted sexual solicitation

14. Defining unwanted sexual solicitation
on the Internet
 Someone tried to get me to talk about sex online
when I did not want to.
 Someone online asked me for sexual information
about myself when I did not want to tell the person,
e.g., really personal questions, like what my body
looks like or sexual things I have done.
 Someone asked me to do something sexual when I
was online that I did not want to do.

15. Prevalence rates of unwanted sexual
solicitation across time and ages
2%
8%
14% 14%
23%
25% 25%
21%
0%
5%
9%
10%
15%
18%
19%
15%
6% 6%
12%
13%
23% 24%
5%
13%
10%
18%
22%
7%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
YISS-1
YISS-2
GuwM W1
GuwM W2

16. Impact of unwanted sexual solicitation
Across studies, about one in three solicited
youth report feeling very/extremely upset
(or afraid) because of the incident:
 YISS1: 26%
 YISS2: 31%
 GuwM: 39% (at Wave 2)

17. How do rates compare online and
offline? (GuwM)
83% 87%
14% 10%
2% 3%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
School Internet
Monthly +
Once / a few times
Never

18. Online exposures of youth:
Unintentional exposure to x-rated
material

19. Demographic profile of youth
reporting unwanted exposure to porn
Among 1,501 10-17 year olds surveyed in 2005
YISS-2:
34% reported an unwanted exposure (40%
reported ANY exposure)
 54% were boys
 Most (76%) were older youth (14-17)
Wolak, Finkelhor and Mitchell, 2006

20. Demographic profile of youth
reporting unwanted exposure to porn
Similarly, in the UK…
 57% of 9-19 year olds who use the Internet
weekly have been exposed to pornography.
 As age increases, the likelihood of exposure
also increases: 21% of 9-11 year olds, 58% 12-
15 year olds, and 76% of 16-17 year olds
Livingstone & Bober, 2005

21. Where did the exposure happen?
 YISS2: Wolak, Finkelhor and Mitchell, 2006
 83% happened while surfing the web
 40% occurred when doing online searches
 17% clicked on links within sites
 12% were from misspelled web addresses
 18% came in the form of an email or IM
 In the UK:Livingstone & Bober, 2005
 Surfing the web:
 38% from a pop-up
 36% accidentally founds themselves on a website
 25% received pornographic junk mail

22. What does it mean to be “unwanted”
21% in YISS2 said they could tell it was x-rated
before entering (Wolak, Finkelhor, Mitchell, 2006)
 Perhaps they didn’t understand the term “x-rated” until
they *saw* it
 Perhaps they saw a different type (e.g., more
extreme) of pornography then they were expecting

23. Other important event characteristics
 There is significant overlap of youth reporting
unwanted and wanted exposure
 YISS-2 respondents reporting unwanted
exposure are 2.8 times more likely to report
wanted exposure than those not reporting
unwanted exposure to sexual material online.
 2% report going back to the web site
(Wolak, Finkelhor, Mitchell, 2006)

24. Online exposures of youth:
Intentional exposure to x-rated
material

25. Frequency of intentional exposure
(GuwM)
10%
11%
13% 13%
10%
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
16%
18%
20%
2006 (n=1588 10-15 yo) 2007 (n=1206 11-16 yo)
Internet
Magazines
Movies

26. Intentional exposure to x-rated
material across age and time
0% 0%
2%
6%
10% 10%
12%
14%
1% 2%
3%
10%
12%
17%
22%
19%
1%
7%
6%
8%
22%
13%
1%
6%
10%
18%
13%12%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
YISS-1 (2000)
YISS-2 (2005)
GuwM W1 (2006)
GuwM W2 (2007)

27. Demographic profile of youth looking
at internet porn (GuwM)
Among 1,206 11-16 year old youth in Oct-Dec, 2007:
 80% male (OR = 4.2, p<.001)
 14.4 years old (OR = 1.3, p<.001)
How did they hear about the site? (top 5):
 From a friend: 53%
 Search engine: 30%
 Another web site: 29%
 Typed in an address to see what would come up: 22%
 Pop-up ad: 22%

28. Online exposures of youth:
Exposure to violent web sites

29. Frequency of exposure to violent web
sites (GuwM)
2% 4%
51%
42%
47%
54%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Hate sites Death sites
Yes
No
I don't know what you're talking about

30. Frequency of exposure to violent web
sites (GuwM)
22%
18%
49%
46%
29%
36%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
News sites Violent cartoon sites
Yes
No
I don't know what you're talking about

31. Final thoughts
 The majority of youth who use the
Internet have positive experiences and
report that none of these types of
exposures occur.
 The data do not support the assertion that
youth are more likely to have negative
experiences (i.e., sexually solicited,
harassed) or exposures (i.e., access x-
rated material) online than offline.

32. Implications for professionals working
with youth
 We need to do more to provide support and
intervention for youth who are targeted by peer
aggression, both online and offline.
 We need to focus on the child, not the online
application.
 Most youth do not operate in a ‘vacuum’. What
are we doing to treat children more globally and
provide services that address all of their needs?

33. Acknowledgements
The Growing up with Media survey was supported by Cooperative
Agreement number U49/CE000206 from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC). The contents of this presentation
are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily
represent the official views of the CDC.
I’d also like to acknowledge and thank Dr. David Finkelhor and
colleagues at the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes against
Children Research Center for their ground breaking work and
contributions to the field with the YISS and YISS-2.