Half of all high school students covered in a Grameenphone survey use the internet almost daily, and 70 percent of them feel there is no one to guide them in case of any problems online.
The leading mobile phone operator studied some 1,510 school-going students aged 11-18 years between June and July last year, to understand the internet usage patterns and practices of the youth in Bangladesh. One in every ten people who get internet connections can be lifted out of poverty, said Debashis Roy, head of corporate responsibility at Grameenphone.
He spoke on the findings of the study at a seminar co-organised by Grameenphone, Bangla daily Prothom Alo and English-language newspaper The Daily Star at The Daily Star Centre in the capital yesterday.
Some 49 percent students use the internet regularly, whereas 31 percent use it three to five days a week, some 15 percent use it once or twice, and about 5 percent seldom go online, the study found.
Some 53 percent male students use the internet regularly, while the figure is as low as 33 percent for female students. About 4 percent male and 7 percent female students seldom access the internet.
Khulna performed better, with 67 percent of the students in the region using the internet regularly, and Barisal was found to be a poor performer, with only about 36 percent regular users.
In Mymensingh, about 13 percent learners are among those who seldom go online, while only 42 percent are regular users.
Grameenphone also found that more than 30 percent of all surveyed have either been bullied or received hate messages online. While males received more hate messages, the females have been harassed for personal information.
Almost 70 percent of the participants concluded that they would want to help their siblings or friends in similar cases, and about the same number agree that their teachers or schools are not well equipped to educate on cyber-crimes.
The study results would have been more significant if the economic background of the students was included, said Rasheda K Choudhury, executive director of the Campaign for Popular Education, a non-governmental organisation.
There are 5.4 crore internet connections in Bangladesh as of September, and 85 percent of the total users are in the 17-34-year age bracket, Roy said.
Also, about 95 percent of the total internet connections in the country are through mobile phones, with 69 percent users accessing mobile internet daily, and 60 percent say it is their most frequently used medium.
Accessing social media networks is the primary activity of about 82 percent of the internet users, and some 48 percent use it to access news, sports and weather information.
Some 39 percent use the internet to access e-mail, while 38 percent use it for multimedia and entertainment purposes.
Only 9 percent students were found to access the internet for making purchases, and just 8 percent play online games, according to the study.
About 14 percent students go online for personal reasons.
Roy said the country’s youth seems well-equipped to move towards more internet proliferation, but it is alarming that majority of them are not well informed about cyber-crime and its mitigation.
Grameenphone, in collaboration with Brac, is also conducting internet safety workshops at 500 schools throughout the country.
Tarana Halim, state minister for telecom, and Mahfuz Anam, editor and publisher of The Daily Star, also attended the programme.
Source: The Daily Star
