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.
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