A major push to educate children before they join online social networks has been launched today ahead of "Safer Internet Day" tomorrow.

The international event will see major internet companies including Google, Facebook and Twitter taking part.

The initiative called 'My Selfie' is aimed at 5th and 6th class children, and will deal with issues around photo sharing and cyber-bullying.

It comes as a new survey of Irish 9 to 16 year olds found that one in five children were bothered by something they encountered on the internet in the last 12 months - which is up 50% in the last two years.

The survey also found more than 40% of Irish children do not know how to report abuse online.

Researchers from DIT consulted 500 children for the study which also found nearly two-thirds of them believe they know more about the internet than their parents.

Simon Grehan of the internet safety initiative Web Wise.ie says in spite of the findings, Irish schools are ahead of the curve when it comes to educating children about internet issues.