According to a recent international survey of 2,200 mothers, 81% of children under the age of two currently have some form of online presence — ranging from photos uploaded and shared by their parents, to a full-fledged profile on a social networking site. A full 92% of children in the U.S. have an online presence by the time they are two, compared to 73% in western Europe.

The study, which was conducted by Internet security firm AVG, found that nearly one in four children have an online presence before they are even born. On average, 23% of parents share images from prenatal sonograms on the web; a full third do so in the U.S. The practice is even more common in Canada (37%), and significantly less popular in western Europe (13-15%) and Japan (14%).

After birth, 7% of babies and toddlers have an e-mail address created for them (12% in Spain), and 5% have their own profile on a social network.

When asked why they were inspired to post images of their infants online, more than 70% of parents said it was because they wanted to share them with friends and family; 22% of mothers said they wanted to expand the content on their social networking profiles, while 18% admitted they were merely mimicking their peers. Few (3.5%) expressed concern about the amount of information that would be available about their children in future years.

Do you upload images of your children? Facebook, Blog etc.

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