A 2008 survey conducted Harris Interactive for McAfee security found that two-thirds of mothers of teens were equally (if not more) concerned about online safety as they were about typical teen dangers such as drugs or drunk driving. ("McAfee, Inc. Research Reveals Mothers Rate Cyber Dangers as High as Drunk Driving or Experimenting with Drugs," BusinessWire, Oct. 2008) Their concerns are well-founded: the same study found, for example that more than half of kids had given personal information to someone they did not know, and 63% know how to hide what they are doing from their parents, which clearly indicates that their parents would not approve of their behavior.
A new survey conducted for McAfee ("80% of Parents Don’t Turn on Parental Control Software," C. Skinner, PC Advisor UK, June 2009), however, revealed a startling disconnect between the concerns parents verbalized in the earlier survey and the steps they should be taking to address those concerns:
According to the survey, four out of five parents don’t turn on security software. This is a simple way to provide an extra level of protection for kids. While such software won’t solve the problem completely, it will help filter out questionable content and/or help parents track their child’s online behavior. There is a variety of such software for parents to choose from, depending on their particular needs.
Less than half of parents surveyed don’t check what their kids are doing online. Parents who would supervise their teen in a crowd full of strangers need to realize that this is exactly the environment that the internet provides: a crowd full of strangers. The fact that this world is accessed from the perceived safety of the home doesn’t change that. Parents can monitor in a variety of ways, such as direct supervision, using monitoring software, or checking the browser history.
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