Did you know?

 

94 percent of youth (12-17) are online, 63 percent of them DAILY.

 

90 percent of students believe ONLINE CHEATING is never caught

 

63 percent of youth (12-17) have been CONTACTED BY A STRANGER online

 

ONLY 3 percent of youth (12-17) TELL AN ADULT when they have been APPROACHED BY A STRANGER online.

 

 

CyberSafeKY is driven by the following statements:

The virtual environment provides tremendous rewards, but not without tremendous risk.

Without the use of the feedback available in the physical world, we cannot be sure to whom we are speaking and what they are doing with our information.

Kentucky teens report that they only post "for their friends" and feel secure posting photos, comments and videos that demonstrate sexuality, illegal substance abuse and bullying activity.

Sexual predators and identity thieves roam freely throughout online profiles (and easily circumvent privacy settings) to identify and take advantage of our children.

The Internet gives the feeling of being very spontaneous and temporary. It is not. Archiving makes everything that goes up online-forever.

Youth must become empowered to build positive, proactive and responsible relationships with technology and the face-to-face community.

Adults must become engaged in a real and tangible way with the virtual world in which our youth, the digital natives, already reside.

We can't do it alone. Creating a safe online environment will take adults and youth understanding this new world and working together.

While this is a life-expanding and wonderful experience, there are very real dangers which both youth and adults must become aware of and do what we can to eliminate.