BERLIN, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- More than half of 12 to 17-year-olds in Germany have seen sexual content on the internet in the past 12 months, according to a survey published by the Leibniz Institute for Media Research and the Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI) on Thursday.
"Issues that are regarded as risks in the public debate are not always perceived as negative experiences" by adolescents, particularly regarding sexual content online, the survey said.
Thirty-seven percent of all adolescents in Germany who had seen sexual content in the past year indicated that they had "specifically selected" it. It was mostly boys (61 percent) who searched for such content intentionally.
The survey noted that "the internet is part of children's and young people's lives" and that "they use the various possibilities in different ways."
The report focused on the online experiences of children and young people in Germany. More than 1,000 children and adolescents aged between 9 and 17 as well as parents have been interviewed.
On average, the German children and adolescents surveyed were 2.4 hours online on a working day and 3 hours on a weekend watching videos, listening to music, doing school work, playing games or using social media.
On the day before Children's Day in Germany (Kindertag, Sept. 20), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) stressed the need to "strengthen children's rights in the digital world."
"Children's rights also apply in the digital world. Children and young people must be better protected from harmful and illegal content on the internet. And they must learn to reflect on their own behavior there," said Christian Schneider, managing director of UNICEF Germany.
According to UNICEF, three-quarters of the 12 to 14-year-olds and 90 percent of the 15 to 17-year-olds in Germany would already be "practically permanently online via smartphone," making it increasingly difficult for them to "separate the online world from the real world."
"Target groups and risk-specific approaches" are needed to help adolescents explore the potential of the internet, while keeping the "negative impacts as small as possible," according to the HBI. To that end, providers, parents, schools, extracurricular teachers, the state and also the children themselves should work hand in hand, HBI said.
