The Covid-19 pandemic has forced families to spend their free time mostly at home. Staying at home usually also means spending much time using different Internet connected devices. For clear reasons, children’s growing online activity can cause lots of worries to their parents.
According to a Kaspersky survey, 41% of South African parents claim that they have come across something in their child’s social media account that seemed suspicious.
Elaborating on what it exactly was, they mention people they interact with (55%), posts that they publish or share (46%), groups or public pages they join (32%), private messages (a quarter) and video on their page (23%).
What is more, 38% state their child has seen or listened to something that seemed suspicious to them, be that videos (72%), music (32%) or photos (29%).
This data appears to shows the need to explore the interests of children, to make sure everything is alright or if it is necessary to take action. However, only 16% of parents befriend their children via social networks in order to be connected with their kids.
“It gets harder and harder for parents to keep up with the pace of the modern evolving world,” says Maher Yamout, senior security researcher at Kaspersky. “They are often left out of the picture as they simply do not catch up with trends that emerge way too fast.
“However, it is possible to stop this backlog by communicating with your child and ensuring your presence on the Internet – to build trust and a good relationship with your child you have to know what you are talking about with them.”