A recently published study conducted by the German national broadcasting corporation ARD/ZDF, spanning the years from 1997 to 2006 and targeting users within the age range of 14 to 50+, shows that initiative in this area is still minor and the leaned-back mentality among German users still prominent.

Among users aged from 14 to 19, Wikipedia is a hugely popular site for gaining information, with 57% of minors using it. While adolescents seem to consider the usage of Weblogs of only minor relevance, they still are the biggest user group in the 14 to 50+ years age group. Additionally, over 70% of all users from age 14 to 19 participate in message boards or use Instant Messaging at least occasionally. 37% of minors show at least a slight interest in creating and publishing content on the web.

Though the study does not depict the activity of minors on the internet in detail, the rapidly growing popularity of broadcasting platforms like YouTube among German minors and the increasing number of German language “clones” is expected to boost usage of Web 2.0 applications as a whole. To address this likely scenario, klicksafe.de is taking its responsibility as awareness node seriously by implementing a new content category specifically providing information about possibilities and risks of using different types of Web 2.0 applications.

Moreover, a scientific approach is being used to capture internet usage trends of minors in detail whilst evaluating the number and quality of safety measures applied by providers.

Jan Koschorreck, klicksafe.de