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Norton´s latest Online Family Report, which was published recently, revealed the latest major concerns in the digital age today: cyber-baiting and overspending.

The former is a growing phenomenon where children taunt their teachers, then capture the distressed reactions via mobilephones, which is then posted online.

As for the latter, the report showed a surprisingly high number of kids being liberal with, and most likely abusing, their parents´ credit cards for shopping online.

Based on the report, around 62% of the children surveyed across the world said that they have had a negative experience while interacting online.

Of that, nearly 4 in 10 (39%) have had a serious negative experience online, such as receiving inappropriate pictures from strangers, being bullied or becoming the victim of cybercrimes.

Socially Active
According to the report, kids who are active on social networks (74% from total respondents) expose themselves more to situations that exploit or indirectly abuse them.

Those who stay away from social networking (38% from those surveyed) are more likely to not experience such problems.

One way to overcome these negative areas is to have families employ serious house rules for proper Internet behaviour. Such pro-activeness will make a significant impact in averting negative online experiences.

Having such practices will ensure these children will be relatively safe while they immerse themselves in their online activities.

"Kids are developing their online identities at an earlier age than ever before. As such they need parents, teachers and other role models to help them figure out where to go, what to say, how to act and perhaps most importantly, how not to act," said Vanessa Van Petten, youthologist and author of Radical Parenting .

For more insights on the report, you can go to Norton´s website.