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60 Percent of Parents Spy on Kids Facebook Accounts

By Various Authors 04/25/2012 09:29:00
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60 Percent of Parents Spy on Kids Facebook Accounts

Do you watch what your kids are doing?

A study was just published from AVG Technologies which surveyed 4,400 parents with children ages 14 to 17 in 11 countries. The results: 60 percent of U.S. parents of teenagers, mostly moms, are okay looking in their kids' social accounts, without telling them in advance.

While most parents have "minimal concerns about illegal, inappropriate and career-damaging behaviors" online, AVG says: a large percentage are worried that what their children post on Facebook and other social networks "will affect their job prospects at some point."

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"Is it spying or is it good parenting when parents closely monitor teens’ online activity?”  Tony Anscombe from AVG Technologies

“Parenting teens that have grown up alongside the Internet and with mobile phones in hand requires an entirely new set of rules and tactics. Our research reveals that while parents trust their teens to do the right thing, such as avoiding pornography on the Internet and 'sexting,' they are still concerned about their children’s safety and how teens’ online behavior may affect their future careers.”

As the writer of this column, I think the concern about Facebook and social media is very important, but it's one component in an over all monitoring effort that parents need to be involved with. In a previous column, Protecting Youth from Pornography, I highlighted steps parents should take to protect their children online. My article was written back in July 2011, and was further supported when a secular UK paper recently published Children grow up addicted to online porn sites: Third of 10 year-olds have seen explicit images.

SonLiving is basically me, Bob Van Zandt, and I will always strongly support the idea of monitoring children. Kids just don't get the big picture of how many ways the interent can impact them and shape their future. The big question on my mind is: How do you define of "spying" in your household?

  1. Do you tell them in advance you will be reviewing their activity, which could lead to them proactively hiding things?
  2. Do you monitor it all in secret so you can see what's really happening, which has a level of distrust associated with it?

 

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Various Authors