A new Growing up in North Yorkshire Survey has shed light on the online safety behaviours and awareness of young people in the county.
The findings indicate progress in some areas, but also highlight persistent risks.
Public Health Consultant Dr Gill Kelly, says the survey suggests that there has been a "big improvement" in the proportion of younger children who feel they know how to keep themselves safe online.
"we now have four fifths of our youngest children knowing how to keep themselves safe online, and that is a big improvement. It was only, uh, 55% who. Consider themselves knowing how to keep themselves safe, and that is a big statistically significant difference.
However, even though four fifths of them are saying that they know how to keep themselves safe, a quarter are still talking to people online who they don't know in real life."
However, Dr Kelly cautioned that despite this increased awareness, risky online behaviours persist with 24% of children across North Yorkshire who participated reporting that they "know" people online whom they don’t know in real life.
Dr Kelly emphasised the ongoing efforts to address this gap between perceived safety and actual behaviour.
"Even though four fifths of them are saying that they know how to keep themselves safe, a quarter are still talking to people online who they don't know in real life. There's a lot of work that we are now doing in schools around that online safety and getting that message out. And also the fact that we've only got half of them roughly saying that an adult always knows when they're watching YouTube.
There is some very strange stuff you can find on YouTube."
The Growing up in North Yorkshire survey identifies online safety risks for pupils as a key priority for the county. Data from the survey shows that while 86% of Year 6 pupils feel they always know how to keep themselves safe online, 16% of boys and 9% of girls in this age group still communicate with people online they don’t know in real life.
Among older students in Years 8 and 10, 21% reported communicating with online strangers, which Dr Kelly pointed out is a "big improvement since 2022" when the figure was 31%.
Despite some positive trends, the survey underscores the continued need to address online safety, particularly concerning primary-aged children with unsupervised access to technology who communicate with unknown individuals online. The focus remains on supporting schools and partners in mitigating these risks.
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