Daily Safeguarding Update - Safer Schools NI

Ofcom findings report a third of children have adult social media accounts

According to research conducted by Ofcom, one in three children lie about their age to access adult content on social media.
They also found that 32% of children aged 8-17 have a social media account on a platform intended for adults.
60% of children under the age of 13 who use social media accounts have their own profiles, despite not being old enough.
For more on this please visit the BBC and Ofcom website.

TikTok has launched a new ‘Mental Well-Being Comes First’ campaign to add to their existing well-being resources.
The resources, which are being presented by familiar TikTok stars, are designed to help spark more discussions around mental health, while also breaking down barriers around community perception.
The initiative also includes links to TikTok’s mental health guides and tools, providing more ways for people to get immediate assistance and advice when dealing with such concerns in the app.
For more on this, please visit the Social Media Today website.

According to research from Sensor Tower, BeReal topped 53 million world-wide installs across the App Store and Google Play and has seen its monthly active users jump by 2254% since January 2022.
However, the study also found that as of the third quarter of this year, only 9% of its active Android installs are opening the app every day.
These figures indicate that BeReal is moving out of “fad” status and is becoming part of some of its users’ daily routines.
However, it still hasn’t yet established itself as an app that is able to drive as consistent usage as its competitors.
For more on this, please visit the Tech Crunch website.