Kids abusing school computers for porn

Best keep an eye on your child's internet use
Best keep an eye on your child's internet use

The reason for school children's falling attention spans can't be placed at the feet of TV it seems... apparently the amount of porn they're looking at during a school day is what's doing it.

Experts found that hundreds of kids at Greater Manchester primary and secondary schools are not only looking at smut during the school day, but also using the PCs to send abusive and bullying messages as well.

E-safe Education carried out the research, which found the average school triggered between 50 to 100 'serious alerts' per day, according to the Manchester Evening News.

Children being watched

Around 30 per cent of these were because of hardcore pornography being viewed, while the rest centred on cyber-threats.

The survey looked at 40 schools in the Greater Manchester area, as well as 60 schools from further afield, alerting the teachers every time inappropriate content was viewed or sent.

Derek Davies, Head of Stretford High, said: "We've had to update our computer firewalls three times since I've been here. Facebook and MSN messenger are banned, but the students are very inventive in finding ways around this.

"Cyberbullying can be a problem, especially among some of the girls, and can be very hurtful because the comments are just heard by a few people. Even though comments are normally posted outside school, it is something we take very seriously."

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.