Forget drinking, smoking and sex... teenage rebels prefer computer hacking

TEENAGERS used to rebel by smoking, drinking and having sex, but modern 14-year-olds are eschewing such timehonoured forms of acting up in favour of computer hacking.

A study carried out by University College London suggests that more youths of this age have hacked a computer than have had sex or are regular smokers.

Five per cent of teenagers in the Millennium Cohort Study, which is following 19,500 children as they grow up and asks them questions about their lives, told researchers they had hacked a computer in the past year. Just under one per cent had sent a virus.

Two per cent of 14-year-olds of either gender said they had had sexual intercourse, though almost 11 per cent told researchers they had taken part in intimate sexual contact.

Three per cent said they were regular smokers and 14 per cent said they had smoked a cigarette at least once.

Other more old-fashioned illegal activities were also less common than cyber crime. Less than three per cent had scrawled graffiti and four per cent had been involved in vandalism. Around two per cent said they were part of a gang.

The figures follow other statistics which suggest that today’s young people are the cleanest-living in modern times, with record low levels of alcohol consumption, smoking and drug-taking recorded in recent years.

The study found that boys were more likely to engage in most types of risky behaviour than girls, with almost six per cent admitting to hacking a computer, compared with just four per cent of girls. Almost two thirds of hackers began hacking before they turned 16, the report added.

Boys were also more likely to have tried alcohol at a younger age. One in five had drunk alcohol before turning 12, compared with 14 per cent of girls.

White teenagers were more likely to have contact with police and more likely to be a gang member than their black African or Caribbean counterparts.

The researchers said the data suggested children who began smoking before the age of 12 were more likely to have a smoking habit by the time they turned 14.

The questionnaire was carried out in 2015 and 2016, and further surveys are due to take place this year.