Contact with strangers: Study

About 900 US 14-to-22-year-olds nationwide were asked if they use social-networking sites, and about 60% said yes. About 40% of those social networkers, both male and female, said yes when asked "whether a stranger, not known to them or their friends, had ever contacted them online without their consent in order to get to know them." The researchers asked if they'd ever actually met strangers offline. "Only 3.3% of young people who use social networking sites reported such meetings. However, the survey did not ask about the purpose of these meetings, which may well have had nothing to do with sexual predation," reports the Annenberg Public Policy Center in its paper on the study, adding that "the rates of stranger contact are remarkably similar for males and females." Notable also: "The rate of such meetings [3.3%] was actually quite comparable to those who do not use social networking sites, 2.9%, a statistically nonsignificant difference. Given that online stranger contact is more likely on social networking sites, it appears that the contacts made on these sites are somewhat less likely to result in offline meetings than those that occur because of other Internet uses, such as instant messaging, chat rooms, or dating services," the researchers found.