On the occasion of Safer Internet Day, the Telenor Group said has released the results of its Safe Internet study. It found that more pupils in Bangladesh had experience online peer pressure, bullying or had carried out bullying, than those in Malaysia and Thailand. The study covered 1,510 pupils aged 12 to 18 in Bangladesh, 1,896 in Malaysia and 1,336 in Thailand, mostly in key cities.
Telenor found 49 percent of pupils in Bangladesh said they succumbed to at least one form of peer pressure, compared with 39 percent of Malaysian pupils and 35 percent of Thai students.
Similarly, 49 percent of pupils in Bangladesh had either been ‘bullied or disturbed online’ or ‘bullied by the same person both online and offline’, or have engaged in bullying others online using the anonymity of the internet. By contrast 37 percent of Malaysian and 33 percent of Thai students had encountered cyberbullying, or been involved with it.
A 2014 study in Malaysia found that two thirds of children thought that sending offensive texts, pretending to be someone else online, or posting inappropriate photos, did not qualify as cyberbullying.
Telenor said most pupils felt capable of resolving such issues, whether alone or by consulting parents and teachers. Rates ranged from 67 percent in Malaysia to 59 percent in Thailand.
The study also found that over half of the pupils in all three countries they would not send explicit messages, also known as ‘sexting’. The rates of this response were 70 percent in Malaysia, 67 percent in Thailand and 61 percent in Bangladesh.
Telenor found that 55 percent of respondents in Thailand would take their concerns about online issues to their parents, compared with 47 percent in Malaysia and 38 percent in Bangladesh.
