According to a survey, parents are worried about children as young as six being exposed to pornography, gore and virtual violence while they surf the Internet, writes David Duffy.

The poll, carried out on behalf of Reader's Digest, found that nearly half of parents were concerned about their children accessing violent or sexually explicit material.

And 43 per cent were worried about who their children might meet through chat rooms.

Half the parents surveyed said they felt it was necessary to supervise their child most or all of the time while they used the Internet. However, despite being aware of these risks, 77 per cent of parents said they trusted their child to use the Internet sensibly and were confident it was an important educational tool.

Almost all parents were convinced that their child had never been upset or distressed as a result of something they had seen on the Internet and said their children had never bought anything that they could not pay for.

The Readers' Digest survey of 2,000 adults throughout Britain was conducted by Mori.