Seven in 10 Parents Fear Their Kids Are Becoming Internet Zombies

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by StudyFinds.

Is all that time spent on social media, gaming apps, and streaming services turning kids’ brains into mush? Seven in 10 American parents are worried their children are turning into internet “zombies,” according to a survey.

The study polled 2,000 American parents of school-aged children and found 64 percent are concerned about the amount of time their children spend on the internet. Another two in three believe their child’s overall behavior has changed as a result of increased time online.

While 71 percent trust their child is mature enough to roam the web unsupervised, a quarter of parents think a child should be in their teens before allowing this. Still, the average parent surveyed let their child browse the internet independently at 11 years old.

Generally, parents think it’s inevitable that their child will see something inappropriate on the internet when they’re not able to monitor them (68%) or while they’re at school or doing homework online (71%).

Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Lightspeed Systems, an online safety and analytics solutions platform, the survey found that it isn’t uncommon for parents to monitor their child’s online activity by asking their child to show them what they’re doing or setting parental controls on the devices (40%).

Similarly, 38 percent conduct random checks on their children’s internet history, and 37 percent make their kids hand over their devices at bedtime. Nearly half the poll have caught their child on the internet or social media when they were supposed to be doing homework (49%) and even more believe their child tells them they’re doing homework or research for school as an excuse to go on the internet (63%).

Source: StudyFinds
https://www.studyfinds.org/screen-time-parents-kids-internet-zombies/