Computer Safety a Growing Concern
For Many Parents
Parents are finding that keeping their kids safe gets more complicated when technology is involved. Moms and dads now have to monitor what their children are watching on TV as well as what they’re doing online. Computers provide many developmental benefits like making it easier for kids to do research for school, communicate with friends and family and explore the world, but computer safety is a big issue. Parents are right to worry about children visiting inappropriate sites, becoming victims of cyberbullying, accidentally downloading malware or even coming into contact with a stranger through social networking or chat rooms.
Pew research statistics suggest teenagers in particular are even more likely to engage in risky online behavior:
- 95 percent of teens use the internet
- 32 percent of teens don’t tell their parents what they are doing online and many would change their behavior if parents were monitoring their activity
- 56 percent of teens hide their online activity from parents by age 16
- 12 percent of teens say they have given their cell phone number to someone they met online
- 72 percent of parents are concerned about how their child interacts online with people they don’t know
How to keep kids safe online
One important way that parents can make their home computer safer for their kids is to instill in them a sense of online ethics, focusing on values, respect, caution and privacy.
“They’re at the age where they’re forming their own values and beginning to take on the values of their peers,” FTC consumer educator Aditi Jhaveri told The Oregonian. “Having conversations early and often, and repeating them, is the best for parents.”
To enforce this, parents should monitor what their kids are doing online. While trust is important, it should be earned. If parents find out that their child is breaking any rules, there should be clear consequences so they learn not to engage in risky or unethical online behavior.
In addition, explained the news source, parents should educate themselves about technologies that their kids are using, from websites their kids are visiting to mobile applications they’ve downloaded. They should take a periodic “digital inventory” of their child’s electronics, talking to them about how they use each device.
Another way that some parents track their kids’ computer usage is through monitoring software that records browsing history and other PC activity. Parents who do this should tell their kids that their activity is being monitored. It’s better to be open about this than for kids to later feel that their privacy has been violated.
Finally, parents need to make sure that they protect home PCs from computer problems their children may accumulate. A product like System Mechanic Pro can help prevent malware and viruses from being installed, even if your household doesn’t always deploy the best browsing habits. A security solution that uses both signature-based reactive and behavior-based proactive detection strategies will work best to protect your computer. System Mechanic Pro offers a security solution that combines both strategies to build two lines of defense to stop known threats and build a general sense of whether a given file intends to harm your computer.
