Best Parental Control

A new survey by the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and the University of Michigan Child Health Evaluation and Research finds that about half of US parents use Internet parental control software.  A June, 2009 survey found 55% use them, and 2005 Pew survey recorded 55%.  What’s new is the rise in the use of monitoring software, which I think is largely a response to social networking use.  Because filters are “blunt instrument” for social networking – they either block everything from a social network or allow everything, parents seem to be turning to monitors instead:

 Parents were asked if they take specific actions to protect or monitor their children’s use of the Internet. Overall, parents report the following actions:

• • 65% disable pop-ups
• • 62% monitor social networking sites
• • 61% check history of websites
• • 49% block websites they don’t want kids to use
• • 32% use child-safe software

68% of parents report taking 1 to 4 of the above actions, while 19% take all 5 the of the actions listed. However, 13% of parents whose children access the Internet report not taking any of these actions to protect or monitor that use.  

Also interesting is what parents expressed the most concern about, “Predators, Privacy, and Porn:”