One in five US teens cheats online

ACCORDING TO a survey conducted by CBSNews, one in five American teenagers uses Internet to cheat on school assignments.

The findings suggest that 24 per cent of boys and 14 per cent of girls have plagiarised material online at least once. The real question, it seems to us however, is why these figures aren't higher.

A user comment posted on CBSNews.com suggests that schools "need to teach how to investigate various information sources on the net, validate and evaluate the quality of information" and get kids to "provide an analysis of the found material" rather than crack down on this kind of cheating.

"Before the Internet, one went to the library and did the same thing. It was called research," noted another.

The survey also shows that 57 per cent of teens use the Internet for school work research, 34 per cent use it for instant messaging, 33 per cent download music, 32 per cent use email, 31 and only 19 per cent use it for playing games.

Perhaps less surprising is the revelation that nearly 50 per cent of teens post on social websites such as MySpace.

Mind you, CBS only interviewed 449 American 13 to 19 year-olds by telephone. They may have well as made it up. µ

L'INQ

www.cbsnews.com. µ