A new survey by BlogHer and Parenting Magazine recently recorded the views of 1,032 moms regarding their attitudes and practices regarding the use of technology by their children. The survey was fielded on two separate populations:
•568 digitally savvy moms aged 18-49 in the BlogHer Publishing Network
•464 moms aged 18+ on the Parenting Mom Connection panel
The survey found high levels of involvement from both samples, including a whopping 85 percent using “parental controls for TV, computers, web browsers.” According to the survey’s author, the digitally savvy moms were slightly less likely to use parental controls, but both used them at very high levels.
Other surveys have found lower rates of adoption for parental controls by parents, typically in the 50-60 percent range. However, these earlier studies focused only on Internet use, while this study focused on both computers and TV. Further, as Adam Theier has repeatedly pointed out, surveys of parental control adoption often underrepresent use because they include parents with very young our grown children who have less of a need for parental controls.
Add this study to the emerging body of evidence that parents with school-age children are very interested in parental controls, and use them in overwhelming numbers.
Filed under: Parental Controls, Research
[...] research. Here’s coverage from the New York Times’s “Motherlode” blog and GetParentalControls.org. // Share| Permalink Post a comment — Trackback URI RSS 2.0 feed for these comments [...]
Why can’t we use technology to our benefit? So much negative publicity surrounds children and their use of the Internet. I’m glad to see so many moms take an active approach to protecting their children.
What if there was more….much more? What if mom could not only have electronic parental control measures and have their kids do academics at the same time? Sound too good to be true? Maybe not. I found a program called Pass2Play (www.pass2play) which integrates academics into my child’s online play experience. When my daughter logs in to her computer, the Pass2Play application takes over and directs her to age appropriate academic content. There she must complete some math problems before being allowed access to the Internet and her friends. At times that I choose, my daughter is taken off the Internet and given more math problems. It’s a win-win situation! She get to play on the Internet for longer periods of time during the summer months, and I know that she is receiving academic reinforcement during her play.
What a great tool!!!!