Aura Study Finds Mothers Struggle to Balance Protecting Kids Online and Giving Them Freedom and Privacy

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May 10, 2023, 08:00 ET

51% of moms worry about their family's online safety multiple times a week, 54% monitor their kids' online behavior at least once a week, but 20% never talk to their children about online safety

Aura's Mother's Day special offer helps moms protect their families from online crime with features that keep kids safe, but independent

BOSTON, May 10, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Aura, the leader in intelligent safety for consumers, today released new data showing how frequently American moms worry about their family's online safety and their comfort levels discussing it with their kids. Aura found that more than half (51%) of moms with kids under the age of 18 think about their kids' online safety more than once a week, and 38% of moms say they worry about their sensitive information being compromised online more than once a week. Yet, even with such concern, 1 in 5 in that same set of moms never start a conversation with their children about online safety and 40% responded that they rely on their partner to manage their family's online security.

As families' lives become more and more connected, their online risk increases. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, children 8-18 years old spend 7.5 hours a day with a screen in front of them. With so much information being shared online, nearly 1 million children had their identity stolen in 2022 resulting in more than $688 million in losses.

"Parents' concerns about security are grounded in reality – children are at risk of everything from cyberbullying to encountering predators and scammers online," said Hari Ravichandran, Founder and CEO of Aura. "But, they want to trust their kids' judgment and give them the freedom and privacy to socialize without a helicopter parent overhead. With Aura's new AI-powered safety tools, parents can now achieve this balance between safety and independence."

Other key findings in Aura's research include:

Moms are worrying more than dads: 38% of mothers say they worry about their sensitive information being compromised online more than once a week, whereas only 29% of fathers say they worry more than once a week.
Overconfidence in internet provider protections: 1 in 5 American families rely on their internet provider as their main defense against online crime.
Money is a big worry: On average, 30% of parents are concerned about their kids spending unauthorized money online without parental consent.
Age matters: Parents of tweens are more likely to think about their family's online safety at least once a week (46%) compared to parents of teenagers (41%) or parents of children under the age of 6 (42%).
Veteran families are at higher risk and are more concerned: Veteran parents are more likely to say they manage their family's digital security (84%) than civilian parents (51%).

To reduce the stress of online safety for moms, Aura is running a Mother's Day special offer providing white glove onboarding support for new family plan customers. Users can get protected with an Aura family plan at aura.com/mothersday then contact Aura's award-winning customer support team at 1 (888) 350-3957 to have an Aura expert security consultant help them set up protections for their family.

This special offer starts at $29/month to protect up to 5 adults and unlimited children with online and device security, identity theft protection services, financial fraud protection, parental controls, safe gaming and cyberbullying alerts. This offer will be available to new Aura family plan customers through June 30, 2023.

About Aura
Aura, the leader in intelligent safety solutions, provides all-in-one digital protection for consumers. We understand that the online safety needs of each individual are unique and require a personalized solution. By bringing together security, privacy and parental controls on an intelligent platform, Aura makes adaptive and proactive digital safety accessible to everyone. Visit www.aura.com.

About the Study
This Ipsos Poll was conducted April 14-16, 2023, by Ipsos using the probability-based KnowledgePanel® – a division of Ipsos. This poll is based on a nationally representative probability sample of 1,029 adults ages 18-65 from the continental U.S., Alaska and Hawaii was interviewed online in English.

The survey was conducted using the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®, which is the largest and most well-established online panel that is representative of the adult US population. Our recruitment process employs a scientifically developed addressed-based sampling methodology using the latest Delivery Sequence File of the USPS – a database with full coverage of all delivery points in the US. Households are randomly selected from all available households in the U.S. Persons in these households are invited to join and participate in the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®. For those potential panel members who do not already have internet access, Ipsos provides a tablet and internet connection at no cost to the panel member. Those who join the panel and who are selected to participate in a survey are sent a unique password-protected log-in used to complete surveys online. As a result of our recruitment and sampling methods, samples from KnowledgePanel® cover all households regardless of their phone or internet status and provide fully representative online samples to the research community.

The study was conducted in English. The data for the total sample were weighted to adjust for gender by age, race/ethnicity, education, Census region, metropolitan status, and household income. The demographic benchmarks came from the 2022 March Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS). The weighting categories were as follows:

Gender (Male, Female) by Age (18-29, 30-44, 45-59, 60+)
Race-Ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic)
Census Region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West)
Metropolitan Status (Metro, Non-Metro)
Education (Less than High School, High School, Some College, Bachelor or higher)
Household Income (under $25K, $25K-$49,999, $50K-$74,999, $75K-$99,999, $100K-$149,999, $150K and over)

The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 7.5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 7.9 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of adults. The margin of sampling error takes into account the design effect, which was 1.11. The margin of sampling error is higher and varies for results based on sub-samples. In our reporting of the findings, percentage points are rounded off to the nearest whole number. As a result, percentages in a given table column may total slightly higher or lower than 100%. In questions that permit multiple responses, columns may total substantially more than 100%, depending on the number of different responses offered by each respondent.

SOURCE Aura