Parents need cyber savvy to save kids

11 January 2016 - 09:23 By AZIZZAR MOSUPI

Parents have become more vigilant in monitoring their teenagers' online behaviour but few make use of the technology available to them. This is according to the Pew Research Centre's latest survey of parents of 13- to 17-year-olds.The centre found that:69% of parents checked on which websites their teens visited;60% inspected their teenagers' social-media posts; and56% had "friended" or followed their teenager on Facebook, Twitter or some other social medium.But the survey found that 39% of parents were less likely to make use of technology to monitor, track or block their teenager' s browsing.Arthur Goldstuck, co-author of Tech Savvy Parenting: A Guide to Raising Safe Children in a Digital World, said it was imperative that parents take a more active role in the online social-media lives of their teenagers, who are at their most emotionally vulnerable."Children are generally not emotionally equipped to handle social media, especially on their own at first, because many are driven by wanting to gain friends, followers and popularity."He attributed parents' infrequent use of internet monitoring tools to many of them being "afraid of technology"...

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