Parents do not know how to protect their children on the internet; almost a third of adults do not even try to. The internet and social networks such as Facebook are an inseparable part of teenagers' lives as well as much younger children. According to research by Microsoft, 79% of adolescent children in Europe actively use social networks. This is about half more than a year ago, when 45% of children and adolescents under the age of eighteen signed up for connecting with and maintaining acquaintances online.
What is alarming is that, according to 43% of young social media users, posting personal information online is safe. It is not. Using a real name, posting photos, or describing one’s home address or school can lead to online sexual harassment as well as a real-world attack.
Every parent wants the best for their child, even if that means restricting and monitoring what their child does. That applies in the real world and in the online environment. Children’s trust and curiosity, in contrast to the anonymity that potential predators can exploit online, means that without parental supervision there is a major risk to a child’s happy childhood and adolescence. End of nicknames
From the results of research Microsoft conducts repeatedly, it follows that teenage internet users commonly violate basic safety rules. The most frequent risky step is using one’s real name. The fact that 85% of Europeans under eighteen move around social networks under their real name can be largely attributed to Facebook. As the most popular social network, it directly prompts users to enter their real names. This is very different from older types of community web servers, which operate with nicknames. Among children and adolescents, it is completely common to post their own photos and photos of friends, a practice followed by 71% of the survey respondents.
Much riskier is providing information that allows potential predators to locate the child in the real world, such as a postal address or school name. Within social networks, 44% of respondents mention their school, and 13% of underage users have published their home address online. Most children at least limit access to information they post. More than half of respondents allow access to pages with information about themselves only to family members and friends, while 17% leave their information openly accessible.
The most alarming finding of Microsoft’s research among parents is their lax approach to protecting children from online risks. 40% of parents do not monitor at all which websites their children visit or what information they share online. Half of parents then do not monitor whether their children correctly use privacy settings in social networks. Tools for parental controls to restrict access to inappropriate websites or apps for tracking internet activity are used by only 22% of parents.
Passive parenting behavior is frightening because their awareness and ability to talk openly with children is the best protection from online predators. This is a real threat: 63% of survey respondents had contact from unknown users (messages, friendship requests), and almost half of them even replied to that contact—out of curiosity.
5 tips for greater internet safety for children
- Talk to your children from an early age about what you do on the internet, and they will be more likely to tell you what they do.
- Explain to children why it is dangerous to give strangers your address or tell them which school they attend.
- Monitor your children’s internet activities using parental control tools or specialized applications.
- Explain to children why they must not meet someone they know only online on their own. Offer them a meeting under your supervision.
- Do not hesitate to contact experts if you feel there is something you do not understand, or if your child’s behavior has changed.
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