It seems there is a growing disconnect between Indian parents and the online lives of their teenage children. McAfee‘s ‘Secret Lives of Teens’ survey shows that despite parental concerns and beliefs teens end up sharing dangerous information online. In fact, one of the startling results of the study was the fact that while 70 per cent of surveyed teens believe they shouldn’t share their home address online, 40 per cent of them still do. Correspondingly, only 21 per cent of the polled parents believe teens would have actually done so.
Other results show that while 31 per cent of the surveyed teens have personally met their online acquaintances, only 17 per cent parents are aware of this. A fifth of the surveyed teens had willingly accessed porn and nudity online on a daily basis, but 32 per cent parents think teens willingly access it only a few times a year. Interestingly 37 per cent of the teens polled have visited websites their parents wouldn’t approve of and only 20 per cent parents are aware of this. About 26 per cent of the surveyed teens have been pressured into sending or posting revealing pictures of themselves online.
Melanie Duca, Consumer Marketing Director (APAC) of McAfee, said they commissioned this extensive research exercise to uncover the digital divide that exists between Indian parents and teens today. “It’s very challenging for parents to educate their technology savvy children. We hope this study provides Indian parents with some key insights and learning’s on how to protect their children online.”
Interestingly, 47 per cent of surveyed Indian teens go online and intentionally search for information on answers to a test or an assignment but 46 per cent of parents are aware of this. A fifth of the surveyed teens cheat on a test using their mobile phone and 21 per cent cheat using different techniques they have discovered online. While 30 per cent of the surveyed parents are very worried of this behaviour by their children, 22 per cent are not bothered.
Showing a growing gap between the parental perception and actual reality regarding the online activities of Indian teens, 65 per cent of the polled teens believe their parents know some of what they do online but not all of it. As many as 55 per cent of the polled teens don’t tell their parents about their online activities. On the other hand, 79 per cent of polled parents trust their teens to not access age-inappropriate online content and 70 per cent of polled parents trust that their teens tell them everything they do online.
Source: Nandagopal Rajan, http://businesstoday.intoday.in
