Survey: Parents Need Help Monitoriting Kids' Smartphone Surfing

Cox Communications will be trying to educate parents better about their kids' use of smartphones to access the Internet, something a new survey shows they need some help with.

The company Wednesday released the results of a survey of kids 10-13 that showed parents are monitoring their kids' online behavior on home computers, including setting limits and providing guidelines, but are not doing as good a job when it comes to mobile devices.

The Tween Internet Safety Survey study, a coproduction of Cox and the National Center for Mission and Exploited Children, found that 95% of kids use their phones and game consoles to surf the Web. While 68% of parents said they monitored their kid's Internet behavior on mobile devices, only 17% said they used parental control features on smartphones.

There is also a disconnect between what the kids are doing and what the parents think they are doing. Forty-four percent of the kids surveyed admitted they had watched something online their parents would not approve of, while only 28% of parents knew that was happening. A third (33%) of kids said they had lied to their parents about what they had done online, while only 18% of parents were clued in to that behavior.

In addition, 42% of the kids said they had gotten a personal message from someone online, while only 22% of parents were aware of that.

To raise awareness about mobile Internet use monitoring, Cox was hosting a Facebook chat with child activist and longtime America's Most Wanted host John Walsh Wednesday (June 6), as well as hosting a series of events in June (National Internet Safety Month), including a satellite media tour. Cox is also producing PSAs directing kids to take charge of their kids' online safety and directing them to Cox's child online safety Website.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.