Teen Online Behavior Riskier Than Many Parents Think, Says McAfee Study
More teenagers engage in risky online behavior than many parents think, McAfee’s 2012 Teen Behavior study said (http://xrl.us/bncu62). “While it is not necessarily surprising that teens are engaging in the same types of rebellious behaviors online that they exhibit offline, it is surprising how disconnected their parents are,” Stanley Holditch, an online safety expert for McAfee, said in a McAfee news release (http://xrl.us/bncvb5). The majority of parents, 73.5 percent, trust their teens to not access age-inappropriate online content, the study said. It said that 43 percent accessed simulated violence, 36 percent access sexual topics and 32 percent access pornography or nude content.
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Teens also participate in illegal activity online without their parents’ knowledge. Fifteen percent of teens admitted to hacking a social network account, 30.7 percent accessed pirated music and videos and 8.7 percent have hacked an email account, the study said. It said that fewer than 15 percent of parents are aware that their children engage in these activities. Similarly, 77.2 percent of parents were not worried about their teen cheating online, but 48.1 percent of teens use the Internet and 16 percent use their phones to find test answers, it said.
Cyberbullying is also a risk on social networking sites: 62.1 percent of teens have witnessed it while 23.3 percent have been targeted, the study said. However, only 10 percent of parents believe their teen has been targeted, it said. The top ten methods teens use to hide their online behavior include clearing browser history, closing or minimizing browsers, hiding and deleting instant messages or videos, and lying about online activity, it said. Many parents keep tabs on their teen’s online activity through methods like parental controls, password sharing, computer and mobile device confiscation, it said.
"Let them know [that] if somebody attacks them online that you are there to help them,” Parry Aftab, an Internet safety expert, told us. “Let them know that whatever they post online stays online forever.” She recommended parents establish with their teens a reasonable number of rules for phone and Internet use, especially for devices with picture and video capabilities. “Teach them some of the tricks about the passwords when kids are going to steal them,” Aftab said.
Twenty-three percent of parents admitted that technology overwhelms them, so they simply hope for the best, the study said. Others claim a lack of time and energy prevents them from monitoring teen online activity, it said. “Parents, you must stay in-the-know,” Robert Siciliano, an online security and safety evangelist to McAfee, said in a blog post (http://xrl.us/bncvij). “You must challenge yourselves to become familiar with the complexities of the teen online universe and stay educated on the various devices your teens are using to go online."
The study was conducted May 4-29, by TRU and included online interviews in the U.S. with 1,004 teens aged 13-17 and 1,013 parents of teens aged 13-17. The margin of error on the two groups is 3.1 percentage points. The margin of error on the entire sample is 2.2 percentage points.