An important concern is that posting personal information on social websites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo is putting children at risk of abuse. Our survey of children at Key Stages 3 and 4 shows that a substantial minority (42%) of children regularly interact socially online with people they have not met face to face. This does not, of itself, indicate that children are naive or engaging in behaviour that puts them at significant risk. Rather, it shows that online interaction forms a different, though overlapping, social space to that of face-to-face friendships, involving friends of friends and people encountered in the online world, for example, through multiplayer games.

Schools can have a role in educating children to use the new internet safely and responsibly. Teachers can help children to appreciate when they cross the line from normal and acceptable Web 2.0 activity, which may include posting some personal details online, to abnormal and risky behaviour. Currently, most children are prevented from engaging in any social activity on the web at school. While this may remove the immediate danger to children and protect the school or local authority against lawsuits, it may also store up further problems for society at large. Now that most children have home access, safe behaviours are essential, but a strongly protected online environment at school may not provide the opportunity to learn these.

Online bullying, or ‘cyberbullying’, can be an upsetting experience and a recent phenomenon is the posting of hurtful images and videos on the web. Social networking and media-sharing websites enable children to write abusive messages on discussion boards and contribute to sites that criticise their teachers and schools.

The survey responses suggest that cyberbullying is seen as a frequent or occasional problem by some 15% of children and that approximately half have been subject to unwelcome postings at some point. Schools are beginning to extend their bullying policies to include the internet. They will need to address this issue whether or not they adopt Web 2.0 technologies, since the most likely route to online bullying is for a child to use a personal mobile phone to capture an image and a home computer to post a hurtful message.

A further concern of schools, not given prominence in the press, is cheating online. Children are empowered by Web 2.0 technologies to copy, share and paste materials in ways that may be seen as cheating within the school system of teaching and assessment. They can communicate by text messages within the classroom and, increasingly, they are able to access the web through a mobile phone.

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