Hyderabad: Hyderabad has overtaken Chennai when it comes to pre-teens using social media during school hours.
As per an annual survey conducted by McAfee, Tweens, Teens and Technology 2014 which examines online behaviour and social networking habits of Indian tweens (eight to 12 years) and teens, 55 per cent of the city’s tweens access social media during school hours.
Read: Tweens defy norms to find space on social media
Facebook is by far the most popular site visited (93 per cent), followed by YouTube (87 per cent) and Whatsapp (79 per cent).The alarming factor is that 10-12- year-old social media account holders access sites like Snapchat, Pinterest, Tinder, Tumblr and Vine more than teenagers though the minimum age to register to these social networking sites is 13 years.
The study shows that a alarming 52 per cent of Indian youth access their social media accounts at school, with tweens (57 per cent) being more active than the teens (47 per cent). More than 60 per cent of youngsters create fake profiles to be accepted virtually. This “risky behaviour” is the highest among Indian teens and tweens when compared to countries like Australia, Singapore, the US and Germany. McAfee polled a total of 1,422 youngsters across Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune.
