Internet Safety for Kids in America: Understanding the Data
Let’s explore some of the key findings of our research in more detail and the factors that influence a state’s position in the ranking.
Top States for Kids’ Online Safety
The results show that no state has a perfect approach to issues regarding kids’ online safety. Performance differed — sometimes wildly — across different categories. However, Utah, Hawaii, New Jersey, North Dakota and Connecticut were the five best-performing states overall.
Utah and New Jersey received perfect scores for online safety legislation and respectable scores for mental health support, but the other top states had a lower prevalence of cyberbullying, online crimes and cyber threats. Hawaii, which was a close second to Utah, did well in every category except mental health, in which it received a score of 25.
Utah made history in 2023 by becoming the first state to pass a social media act ruling that age verification on social media become a requirement, in addition to the restriction of certain features like direct messaging. The state has since repealed and amended the original act in response to a constitutionality challenge by NetChoice.
Several East Coast states also made it into the top 15: New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Vermont, Rhode Island and Georgia. Notably, many of these states received high or at least respectable scores for mental health support, with the District of Columbia taking the lead in this category with a score of 1.
Furthermore, we noticed that several of the states named as the best for child well-being in a 2022 report by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, including Utah, Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut and North Dakota, can also be found in our top 10.
States With the Highest Online Safety Risks for Kids
Several West Coast states — including California, Oregon and Alaska (which is sometimes referred to as a West Coast state for bureaucratic purposes) — ranked at the bottom. The states with the worst rankings overall are Ohio (47), Alaska (48), New Hampshire (49), California (50) and Oregon (51).
Oregon
Our research revealed that while Oregon ticks a lot of boxes when it comes to cyberbullying and online safety legislation, cyberbullying laws do not cover off-school campus incidents. The state also received a score of zero for sexting laws and has not implemented the 2023 Social Media & Children legislation.
Moreover, Oregon’s percentage in the “been cyberbullied” category is 65.2%, one of the highest in the whole ranking. This contributed to its terrible score in the cyberbullying prevalence category, but its scores were unimpressive across the board.
Tech States
Another observation that piqued our interest is that states containing some of the top tech cities in the U.S., like North Carolina (Raleigh), Texas (Plano, Austin and Frisco) and California (San Francisco), are among the riskiest areas for child online safety, according to our data.
The category that brought California down to 50th place is online safety threats, including rates of crimes against children, harassment and stalking, and threats of violence. In 2023, the FBI Internet Crime Report flagged tech hub California as the state with the most cybercrime complaints. Texas, which ranks 43 out of 51 on our list and is also known for its tech prowess, came in second in the FBI’s report after California.
That said, our data shows that California received decent mental health support and child online safety legislation scores, which saved it from coming in last on our list.
In addition, we noticed that some of the states the FBI listed as having the fewest cybercrime complaints in 2023 — including Vermont, North Dakota and Rhode Island — are near the top of our child online safety ranking.
5 Key Internet Safety Tips for Kids
The prevalence of internet crimes against children is incredibly worrying, but there are some steps you and your child can take to help reduce the risk and feel safer online. Here are some key internet tips for kids.
- Be careful about the information you share: Never post details like your address, school, phone number or date of birth anywhere online. The same goes for photos that may reveal details about you, like a photo of a certificate with your full name or your school’s name. Setting your social media profiles to “private” can help you stay safe.
- Never meet up with people you meet online. If someone asks you to meet them in real life, let a parent or guardian know right away.
- Don’t open links you receive via email or private messaging. These could be from people trying to get your personal information.
- Use strong passwords and never share them with anyone. Parents and guardians can increase security by making sure Antivirus software, password managers and multi-factor authentication are up and running.
- If you’re a parent or guardian, regularly communicate with your child about the importance of online safety. Let your child know that they can always talk to you if they have any questions or feel uncomfortable about something online.
