Unethical behavior of youth in the internet environment

This research examined adolescents surfing characteristics and their behavior in the internet environment. A questionnaire relating to the subject was distributed among 1,048 high schools students in the 7th - 11th grades in secular and religious public schools in Israel. The questionnaire examined immoral behavior on the internet, such as harassment, plagerism, downloading of movies and falsifying personal information. Differences were found relating to gender, religious characterization, years of surfing experience and daily surfing time. About half of the youth who answered the questionnaire reported exposure to pornography, a quarter of them accidently and most of them over the internet. A clear dependency was found between exposure to internet pornography, gender, religious definition and internet experience. Most of the net surfing is done from the home or friends homes on computers without sieve programs. Many of the youth report high involvement in immoral behavior over the net. The parents and the educational system must be provided with tools to enable them to instruct the children on proper internet behavior.