Family and Child Online Safety Blog - SafetyClicks

A mom that I know (who will remain anonymous) is one whom I often think of when I am writing this blog. She is a mom of three great kids - an 8-year-old, 10-year-old and a 14-year-old. She uses email, but only under duress. She uses the Internet for research about several things, but only reads articles - never posts anything or uploads pictures because she feels like it will be too hard or she will sound silly. Her kids all want to get online and do various age appropriate things. I am the one who gets a call with a question how to protect the kids from the "bad things". She is pretty savvy with the parental controls on other gadgets like the TV and game systems, but feels intimidated by the same things online. She is also my source for questions about my daughter, so we trade information.

Then, at the FOSI conference, I heard this startling figure: of the top 100 apps on the iPhone, 35% are geared toward toddlers and preschoolers, and 12% to elementary aged kids. I'm assuming they were purchased by the parents who are giving their kids a game to play with while they at the store, on a plane, waiting at the doctor's office, etc.. The person doing this seems like the polar opposite of the mom I first described. Are these parents this tech savvy to use the all of these gadgets and gizmos? Or are they the same parents, but have discovered a way to make the Internet part of their everyday world?

A not so scientific survey I heard about at the conference said that parents who don't use parental controls on their computer don't because they:
- don't feel they need to because the child knows more about computers than they do
- feel "that wouldn't happen to my child" when talking about being exposed to mature content
- are intimidated by the computer

I have a theory that the same parents that use technology to their advantage are the same parents who say they "can't"... they just don't realize they already are tech savvy.

What technology do you use in your life?