Do mothers know what their kids are doing online?
JOHANNESBURG – August 18, 2009 – Mothers know that the Internet can provide them with lots of opportunities to save time and money. However, using the Web can invite risks into the home as well; security of a family’s PC and the safety of their children, especially teenagers.
This is according to Andrea van der Westhuizen, McAfee product manager at Workgroup, who says that if families aren’t careful about where they go and what they do online, it can lead to viruses, spyware and other malware.
“Teens are also faced with severe online consequences as a result of online misadventures, including experiences with online predators, cyber-bullying, Web stalking, phishing and identity theft, pornography, videos of violence, crime, interactions with strangers and more,” she adds.
To find out just what is going on with teenagers online and how aware their mother’s are of their child’s digital life, McAfee funded a recent survey, conducted by Harris Interactive.
“The statistics were quite shocking,” says Van der Westhuizen. “While 92 percent of the parents surveyed trust that their child is honest with them about their online behaviour, 72 percent of their children do not tell their parents about what they do online unless asked.
“According to the survey, 72 percent of these kids use the Internet to download or view media, including music, videos and adult content and 22 percent of them would not know what to do if they were harassed or bullied online.
“Conversely, the surveyed parents seem to be pretty jacked up when it comes to asking their kids about their online activity with 71 percent having a verbal agreement with their child around what is and isn’t allowed, 69 percent regularly asking their child what they do online and 62 percent regularly checking their child’s browser history, according to the survey.”
When questioning parents about their biggest fears for the safety of their teens online, 61 percent ranked sharing personal information online as their number one concern followed by infecting the home PC with a virus (58 percent), being solicited by an online predator (51 percent), being approached by people they don’t know in the real world (49 percent) and being a victim of cyber-bullying.
When asked about their general attitude to online safety, 93 percent of the teenagers surveyed said they know how to be safe online. A positive step, one might think, but not when 43 percent of the teens questioned saying they would change their online behaviour if they knew their parents were watching and 67 percent admitting to knowing exactly how to hide what they do online from their parents.
“47 percent hit the minimise button on the PC screen at the sound of a parental step, 40 percent clear their browser history when they are finished, 18 percent have a private email address or a separate social networking site profile (7 percent) and 10 percent have unlocked the parental controls or disabled the filtering controls their parents enabled.”
Van der Westhuizen says the dangers that children are exposed to are varied and while parents may be fooling themselves into believing they know what their kids are up to online, additional security measures must be taken to ensure that they do.
She says McAfee has released five simple tips parents could follow to do this:
Tip 1: Start Early – “As soon as your child becomes active online, that’s the time to educate them about cybercrime and cyber-bullying and how to avoid being victimised.”
Tip 2: Monitor your teen’s use of the Internet – No matter how they feel about it, their online activities must be transparent and monitored. Some of these teens simply don’t know that their new ‘friend’ could actually be a 40 year old man with rather off colour intentions, she says.
Tip 3: Create an open dialogue and set rules – Teaching teens how to behave responsibly and safely online is the same as parents teaching them how to behave in the real world. Talk with them specifically about what is and is not okay online behaviour.
Tip 4: Regularly check your teen’s page on all of the social networking sites they talk about. Let them know to be careful with the information and photos they share with ‘friends’ on social networking sites, like Facebook, as this might draw interest from online predators.
Tip 5: Make sure your family is secure – Ensure you have robust security software with parental controls enabled and that it is up-to-date because new threats are emerging daily. “Parents might consider McAfee Family Protection, which, in addition to parental controls, provides Web site safety ratings to hyperlinks found in emails and instant messages, and allows parents to help prevent their children from visiting risky sites.
Note to journalists:
A copy of the survey’s statistical results is available for your information; please mail Andrea Slater on freelance@polka.co.za and the PDF will be mailed directly to you.
Contact information
Workgroup, Andrea van der Westhuizen, (011) 654-6128, andreavdw@workgroup.co.za
PR Queries, Andrea Slater, (011) 609-7823, freelance@polka.co.za
