Peer pressure is having a big impact on how children communicate with each other, making them more dependent on staying connected to the Internet, according to new research carried out by Kaspersky Lab and iconKids & Youth.
Parents provide their kids with connected devices to help them maintain contacts with their friends, and children themselves claim that they use these devices because their friends do so.
The Connected Kids survey found that over half of parents (52%) provide their children with mobile devices so that they can communicate with their peers. The research also revealed that one in four (27%) parents provide their children with connected devices because of concerns that their child would be treated as an outsider without them.
Kids are increasingly using connected devices as an essential means of communicating with their friends and peer pressure is playing a role in pushing modern friendships online. 44% of young people say they use a connected device because their friends do and one third of kids (32%) keep in touch with their friends more often online than offline.
The importance attributed to online friendships is as much as real world friendships for many children. Over two fifths of kids (42%) have claimed that they are equally afraid to lose friends online and offline, and one in ten (11%) are more afraid to lose friends online than offline.
