There’s an alarming disconnect between what teens are getting up to online, and what parents are aware of. Many UK teens are accessing inappropriate content online, despite two thirds of teenagers saying they felt trusted by their parents to do what’s right when surfing the web. That is according to a survey by an IT security firm.
Almost a third of UK parents (32 per cent) live under the assumption that their teen tells them everything they do on the internet, and 59pc of parents trust their teen to not access inappropriate content online.
However, this disconnect is leading to many teens undertaking questionable, dangerous and even illegal activity:
30.5pc of teens admitted visiting websites their parents would disapprove of
31pc of teens intentionally viewed a video of something they knew their parents wouldn’t approve of
25pc of teens are intentionally searching for nude images or pornography online – with over half (54pc) viewing these images up to a few times a month – the highest in Europe
19pc of teens admitted to purchasing pirated music online and 6pc said they had purchased alcohol or drugs over the internet
13pc of teens said they had actually met up with someone they had met online
Half of parents expressed confidence they know how to find out what their child was doing online, however only one fifth of teens said they didn’t know how to hide their behaviour from their parents (the lowest figure in Europe).
The European research for IT security product company McAfeediscovered a majority of teens are taking a number of steps to hide their online behaviour:
47.5pc of teens minimise the browser when a parent enters the room
38.8pc clear their browser history
28pc hide / delete inappropriate video content
17.7pc of teens have created a private email address unknown to their parents
Parental monitoring
Only 12pc of British parents claimed to have had a conversation with their teen about being safe online, but, 28.5pc have done nothing to monitor their teen’s online behaviour at all (compared to a European average of 17.6pc). Of the parents that have put controls in place:
Less than a third of parents have set controls on their teen’s mobile device
12pc know their teen’s mobile device password
11.5pc made their teen give them the password to their email or social media account
Only 3pc set parental controls on their home computer
Just over one in five parents (21.5pc) admit that their teen is more tech-savvy than them and they’ll never be able to keep up with their online behaviours. Highlighting this point is the fact that 11pc of teens admitted to disabling parental controls on their devices.
Online dangers
Despite the much-publicised dangers associated with data and identity theft, many teens aren’t concerned about posting personal details online. More worryingly still, most parents also don’t realise the dangerous implications of this information being placed online for all to see:
29pc of teens are unconcerned about posting their email address online, with nearly a quarter of parents seeing no harm in the action
36pc of teens and 29pc of parents said they were unconcerned about posting IM usernames online
Nearly four in ten teens (37.5pc) said they were unconcerned about posting a photo of themselves online and 36pc said they saw no harm in posting up a description of what they looked like
Nearly one in five teens thought posting intimate personal details of themselves wasn’t a risk, with even more parents unconcerned about the action (21.5pc)
Most disturbingly, 16pc of teens wouldn’t think twice about posting details of a place and time they were meeting someone. 17pc of adults were unconcerned with this action
“We believe the data will come as quite a shock to some parents, and we hope it will encourage them to take immediate action to protect their children,” said Raj Samani, EMEA CTO at McAfee. “It is clear that a huge gap exists between what teens are doing online, and what parents are aware of. Parents must take an active role to ensure their teens are practicing safe online behaviour. Having grown up in the online world, teens are often more online savvy than their parents, making it difficult for parents to provide the necessary guidance, and therefore, reinforcing teens’ online vulnerability. But parents cannot give up – they must challenge themselves to become familiar with the complexities of the online universe and educate themselves about the various threats that await their teens online.”
McAfee recently announced the launch of its Online Safety for Kids programme in the UK, which aims to help children understand how to stay safe online.
“As cybercriminals continue to penetrate through new and multiple attack vectors, consumer reliance on Internet-connected devices and the data stored on them has also skyrocketed,” said Steve Petracca, senior vice president and general manager for McAfee’s consumer business unit. “Cross-device protection, therefore, has gone from being a nice-to-have to an absolute essential.
“Cybercrime exhibits few signs of slowing down,” said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs. “Though we tend to highlight the numbers, the fact is that we continue to see increased sophistication of attacks. Cybercrime, hacktivism, and cyberwarfare are in a continual state of evolution. Everyone from governments to large enterprises, small business and home users are facing a wider range of digital threats from these forces, as they gain more actionable intelligence on their victims, and leverage the newest attack platforms and exploits tools to launch their campaigns. We all need to equip ourselves with basic situation awareness to our online risks and how best to prevent and combat these threats.”
