Parents Blame Internet For Stealing Child's Youth

Bits and bytes are the new birds and bees for today's families

News provided by

Jul 26, 2012, 08:00 ET

CUPERTINO, Calif., July 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- From chalkboards to keyboards, from naps to apps, from teeter-totters to tweets, America's kids may be missing out on their youth according to a new Trend Micro (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704) study.

The Trend Micro eParenting Report, which was conducted among 1,000 parents across the country with at least one child under the age of 15, examined how technology is redefining rules for parenting. The survey found that 76 percent of parents blame the Internet for making their children grow up too fast. One rationale is that 55 percent of parents believe it's impossible to keep kids from seeing inappropriate material on the Internet.

"This may be the most difficult time in the history of parenting," said Natalie Severino, director, consumer marketing at Trend Micro. "On one hand you have technological wonders that allow your kids to open their minds and imagination and on the same playground you have new levels of danger. This is why we're dedicated in bringing the best protection and education to parents so their families can have all the benefits without all the fear."

The eParenting Report also finds that parents are agreeing to give their children access to technology sooner. Some 62 percent believe it's appropriate for a child to own a computer at 13 years of age or younger – the sweet spot being 11-12 years old (17 percent of the 62 percent). Not surprising, that one-third of the respondents said that their children ages 13-14 are more or much more tech-savvy than their parental guardians.

Cyberbullying is the New Sex Talk with Kids

Having a cyberbullying conversation may be more difficult to have with their children than discussing the birds and bees. The majority of parents (55 percent) said they have not discussed cyberbullying with their kids, either because they're waiting to do it in the future (39 percent); they just don't think it's a relevant issue (13 percent) or because they don't understand the technology (3 percent).

"For our family, we didn't talk about cyberbullying until it was too late," said Stephanie Wagner, AndTwinsMakes5 blogger and Digital Joneses family member. "I didn't know how to start the conversation and I wasn't fully aware of some of the technology kids are using today. I've already learned a lot from the first six months of the Digital Joneses campaign that I've been able to apply with my own family and hopefully my readers have been able to benefit from it, too."

Keeping a Close Watch

Parents may be embracing technology and encouraging their children to take advantage of social networking sites, but they're still keeping a close eye on them.

87 percent of parents admitted that they "friended" their child on Facebook so they could monitor their activity on the site.
Not only did 66 percent of parents say they started following their child on Twitter so they could monitor their activity, 60 percent also revealed that they check their child's Twitter feed on a daily basis.

Keeping Up with The Digital Joneses

"It's research like this that supports our efforts with the Trend Micro Digital Joneses campaign," added Severino. "We wanted to examine the issues that truly affect today's modern, digitally-connected households by working with real families around the country to help educate them on what every parent should know to best protect their families."

Trend Micro has selected prominent bloggers children ranging from pre-school to high school to participate in monthly challenges that improve and examine the struggles each family experiences with modern technology. Our Digital Joneses families include:

The Divine Miss Mommy, Stacie Connerty – Atlanta, Georgia
Attention Max, Max Kalehoff – New York, New York
NY City Mama, Carol Cain, New York, New York
A Day in Motherhood, Lori Pace – Houston, Texas
And Twins Makes 5, Stephanie Manner Wagner – Chicago, Illinois
Making Time For Mommy, Alicia Peiffer – Chicago, Illinois
HighTechDad, Michael Sheehan – San Francisco, California

To learn more about the monthly challenges and to follow the families' experiences throughout the year, please check out their individual blogs and the Digital Joneses Family Security microsite.

Digital Joneses Hashtags: #DigitalJoneses, #TrendMicro, and #FamilySafety.

About Trend Micro
Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global cloud security leader, creates a world safe for exchanging digital information with its Internet content security and threat management solutions for businesses and consumers. A pioneer in server security with over 20 years' experience, we deliver top-ranked client, server and cloud-based security that fits our customers' and partners' needs, stops new threats faster, and protects data in physical, virtualized and cloud environments. Powered by the industry-leading Trend Micro™ Smart Protection Network™ cloud computing security infrastructure, our products and services stop threats where they emerge – from the Internet. They are supported by 1,000+ threat intelligence experts around the globe.

Additional information about Trend Micro Incorporated and its products and services are available at Trend Micro.com. This Trend Micro news release and other announcements are available at http://NewsRoom.TrendMicro.com and as part of an RSS feed at www.trendmicro.com/rss. Or follow our news on Twitter at @TrendMicro.

SOURCE Trend Micro Incorporated