The survey was conducted with all age group of people. Using Google Forms as a survey method, Childsafenet ran a survey from 17th April to 21st April. The survey link was circulated through social media. To maintain anonymity in the survey, personal details were not collected.
A total of 1,228 respondents (648 male, 576 female, and 4 others) had participated in the survey.
Findings of the Survey:
The survey brought the fact in front of the people. The survey showed that the number of people using the internet for 6 hours a day had increased a lot.
In the same survey, people said that they use YouTube the most followed by Facebook. 79.6 percent of people said to use YouTube, while 74 percent of people said they use Facebook. Nepali News Sites with 44 percentage followed the data usage popularity. 20.8 percent of people said to browse their school/ college website.
In terms of Gaming, 9.9 percent of people said to play PUBG while 3.2 percent reported being playing Free Fire during the lockdown. Similarly, 9.9 percent of people said that they were playing other online games.
Talking about the purpose of the use of the internet, 73.9 percent of people are using the internet for entertainment and 72.6 percent are using for News and Information. 63.2 percent of people said they use the internet to connect with friends and relatives and 57.7 percent of people said to be using the internet for education while 1.06 percent said to be used for other purposes.
14.5 percent of people informed that they received sexual messages, photos, or videos from strangers and 2.4 percent of people said to have sent sexual messages, photos, or videos to others.
On the question ‘Did you ever visit porn sites?’, surprisingly, 41.7 percent of people responded ‘Yes’ although the government has banned porn websites in Nepal.
On the same survey, 71.4 percent of people said that children are at a higher risk of online abuse and exploitation during the lockdown. In the same question, 15.8 percent of people responded that they don’t know about it, while 12.8 percent of people felt this was wrong.
What does the Childsafenet President say?
Anil Raghubanshi, President of ChildSafeNet says, “We wanted to study people’s behavior in the lockdown period. We found that people are still watching porn despite its ban. During this period, children are vulnerable to sexual abuse. “
He added, “In most cases, the images captured by the victim are shared over the internet. So, we not only surveyed but also made people aware that they should not capture nude images just to keep in their phones too. If the image is uploaded to the internet, it creates a long-term impact. Being raped is definitely not good but if the images and videos are uploaded to the internet, it lasts almost forever. If anybody has faced such a problem, we help in removing the images and videos. For reporting child sexual abuse images and videos, anyone can report anonymously through the link on our website, ChildSafeNet, for the removal of such contents. We provide advice and tips on online safety through our messenger hotline. We also provide support in reporting cases.”
