to “check-in” to places and track their current location. Youth who do not follow online safety precautions may also tend to receive more harmful content than more prudent peers. Similarly, children with publicly available social media profiles are likely to receive more unsolicited messages from strangers via Internet messaging, e-mail and text and experience higher levels of cyberharassment and bullying than those with private profiles.169 In addition to social profiles that are inextricably linked with real world identity, the Internet also offers children the opportunity to create a separate identity, through which they can be whomever they wish and perhaps take risks that they would never take offline. One relatively new channel of access to victims has arisen through the phenomenon of connected, or online, gaming. Online gaming can be adrenaline-charged with depictions of violence, and is designed to engage players for sustained periods of gaming time. Many gamers become attached to points, “assets,” or other markers of gaming success, leading even to cases where children have committed suicide after losing such indicators.170 Some users, including children, become obsessed with online gaming and begin to prefer their virtual life to their slow-paced and less easily controlled reality. As a result, youthful gamers are especially vulnerable to offenders who try to engage them in relationships in the virtual setting. Like other online forums, online gaming communications do not offer the real-world social cues that would normally alert youth to inappropriate advances. Further, online gamers can manipulate their social status by surrounding themselves with virtual friends. Offenders may use this phenomenon to their advantage by offering to help children with their gaming performance in exchange for online or offline sexual encounters, or by initiating a relationship for the purposes of committing such acts in the future. Social isolation Social isolation can have negative repercussions on children’s online behaviour, as well as on their propensity to seek help when problems arise. Research on socially isolated young people suggests that they may face an increased risk of certain 169 Lenhart, A., et al., 2011. Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites. Pew Internet & American Life Project. Pp. 61-64. Available at http://pewInternet.org/Reports/2011/Teens-andsocial-media/Part-3/Introduction.aspx. 170 Bose, A., 2013. forms of exploitation, as well as bullying.171 Rejected or neglected by real-life friends, children who feel isolated may turn to online friends as a substitute. Where social networking sites count and report the number of friends that each user has amassed, children may be motivated to add online friends, even if they are effectively strangers.172 Children may publicly share information with groups of online friends, including potential perpetrators. In some cases, this may include inappropriate or sexually explicit material, with a view to gaining acceptance and attention. Profile of offenders As with descriptions of risk factors for victimization, information on offender profiles corresponds only to broad results from studies of cohorts of identified offenders. Offender “profiles” may contain many descriptor elements, including age, sex, socioeconomic background, nationality, motivation, and past victimization. While factors such as age and social status, offending patterns, and links with “offline” offending, may be used to generate a broad picture of offender characteristics,173 it is also clear that there is no single “­typical” offender. This section reviews relationships between offending behaviour and motivation, gender, age, and technological awareness, as well as the involvement of organized criminal groups in ICT-facilitated abuse and exploitation of children. General profile and motivations of offenders Motives for committing child sex abuse and viewing child sexual abuse material vary. Research suggests that the desire for sexual gratification serves as the driving motivation for most child sexual abuse material consumers. While many “lone” individuals possess and view such material, some offenders may also enjoy the camaraderie they experience through online communities.174 Personality studies of child sexual abuse material consumers indicate a “rejecting and submissive interpersonal style, which preclude[s] effective 171 Schwartz, D., Proctor, L. J., Chien, D. H. The Aggressive Victim of Bullying: Emotional and Behavioural Dysregulation as a Pathway to Victimization by Peers. In Juvonen, J., Graham, S. (eds.), 2001. Peer Harassment in School: The Plight of the Vulnerable and Victimized. Pp. 47-174. 172 See Choo, K. R., 2009. Pp. 7-11. 173 UNODC, 2013. Comprehensive Study on Cybercrime. P. 43-44. 174 Quayle, E., Taylor, M., 2002. “Child pornography and the Internet: perpetuating a cycle of abuse”, Deviant Behaviour: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 23:331-361. II. Evaluating the problem  27