Parents monitor online kids

A whopping 95% of US parents surveyed said they monitor their children's online activities, "mainly out of concern for inappropriate content and predators," Newsday reports. Another surprising finding was that nearly 75% of parents "are present when their children go online." One dad told Newsday that he'd discovered "his high-speed connection allows his children to surf the Web using any browser, avoiding MSN and its parental controls" and that a Google search could turn up porn sites (he must not know about filtered searching - see the paragraph beginning "We're surprised teachers..." in my 4/30/04 issue). Among other survey findings:



* "More than a third of parents examine the Web browser history to see which sites their children visited."

* "A fifth use parental controls to limit sites children can visit, and many parents use a combination of monitoring techniques."

* "Most computers that children use in the home are in common areas, such as the den, the report found" (just 13% said their children use computers in their own rooms).

* Less than 25% of parents have imposed no time restrictions on kids' Net use. Restrictions are imposed to create balance in children's activities, for their health, and to give other family members time at the computer.

* Among kids 6-12, nearly 75% go online for school work, "but an even greater proportion for fun. For teens, school-related Net use is No. 1, though "fun" is high on the list.

* 75% of teens communicate via email and 63% via instant messaging.



The findings are from the Board's latest Consumer Internet Barometer, a quarterly measure of who's doing what on the Internet which "covers 10,000 households." Here's their press release.