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WASHINGTON — One in five of the nation's wired "tweens" — kids ages 8 to 12 — have posted personal information about themselves on the Internet and more than a fourth have been contacted online by strangers, a poll released Tuesday found.

One in 10 of these pre-teenagers have responded and chatted online with people they don't know, according to the Tween Internet Safety Survey sponsored by Cox Communications and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The survey of children in this age group with online access was conducted by TRU, which specializes in research about tweens, teens and twenty-somethings.

The survey and a conference with teen and tween participants from around the country described a child's cyberspace world where 90 percent of American kids have used the Internet by the age of 9 and more than a third of the 11- and 12-year-olds have their own profile on social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

Of the tweens with social network profiles, 61 percent post personal photos online, 48 percent admit to posting a fake age online, and 51 percent have received messages from people they didn't know.

The survey showed tweens' online presence doubles or even triples in the age range of 8-10 and 11-12: The 42 percent of 8-10 year olds with personal e-mail accounts increases to 71 percent for ages 11-12, for instance, and 41 percent of 11- to 12-year-olds have an Instant Messaging screen name compared to 15 percent of those ages 8-10. Half of the 11- to 12-year-olds have their own cell phones — used for text messaging and taking and transmitting digital photos as well as for regular calls — while 19 percent of those ages 8-10 have their own cell phones.

Life without the Internet is virtually unimaginable from elementary school to college.

"Without it — goodbye world," said Patrick Lambert, 17, from Little Compton, R.I., one of the young participants in the National Tween Summit on Internet Safety.

The summit included about 20 teens and tweens from places where Cox Communications has cable systems and was led by John Walsh, a children's advocate and host of Fox TV's "America's Most Wanted," and by Lauren Nelson, Miss America of 2007 and a spokeswoman for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Cox Communications.

Walsh warned of the dangers for children on the Internet — calling it a "hunting ground" for pedophiles. He told the kids that parents want to protect their children but "you know that your parents are dinosaurs (on the Internet) and you can get around them."

He asked whether kids should provide their parents with the passwords and user names for their Facebook or MySpace profiles and got an unenthusiastic response. Walsh said he used to think parents should demand to know how to access these profiles but now believes that they should just ask their kids to "show me" the pages.

"I'd start to worry if they said, 'I don't want you to see my MySpace page,' " he said.