Most Americans support restricting kids’ access to social media and pornography, this year’s American Family Survey shows. But many parents remain hesitant to monitor their children’s online activity.
Brigham Young University’s annual American Family Survey asks a representative group of 3,000 American adults about economic, cultural and social concerns affecting the family. This year, participants identified “social media, video games [and] other electronic resources” as one of the top five issues families must confront.
Respondents expressed the most concern about porn and social media’s effects on young people. American adults overwhelmingly support government regulations limiting minors’ access to these products.
Per the survey:
- More than 75% of participants support requiring pornography websites to verify the ages of their consumers.
- Nearly 80% support requiring social media companies to obtain parents’ consent before allowing a minor to create a social media account.
- Three in four support holding social media companies legally liable for harm caused by content marketed to minors.
Parents with children under 18 years old living at home also support making technology restrictions part of parenting norms. More than 60% of respondents in this demographic wish other families would implement rules about technology, and half said it would make setting and enforcing their own restrictions easier.
But the survey also shows many parents don’t limit their children’s access to technology at all — let alone discuss strategies with other parents.
Surveyors asked participants with children under 18 years old in the home whether they implement any of five common technological boundaries: limiting their children’s screen time, restricting the kinds of content they consume, requiring them to keep their online accounts private, restricting who they contact and limiting who they exchange private messages with.
One in five respondents (20%) implement none of these restrictions. Two in five respondents (40%) don’t limit their kids’ screen time. Another 40% don’t police the content their children consume.
Though most participants in this demographic claimed other parents’ rules about technology would help them create and enforce their own rules, only 17% said another parent had influenced them to change a screen time restriction.
One third of respondents said they never talk about managing kids and technology with another parent. Only 13% claim to discuss it frequently.
Ubiquitous technology and internet access make parenting harder. Enforcing technological boundaries can be confusing, thankless and overwhelming — particularly when tech companies frequently undermine parental controls with few consequences.
But these obstacles do not change parents’ duty to protect their children from harmful content and technologies.
Parents, you do not have to allow your children access to smartphones or the internet. If you choose to do so, you must be prepared to:
- Police your child’s online activity.
- Educate yourself about parental controls and implement them to the best of your ability.
- Warn your child about online predation and other pitfalls.
- Model healthy relationships with technology.
Joining forces with other parents to limit children’s access to social media and smartphones can help families create and maintain healthy boundaries with technology. Take it upon yourself to initiate these partnerships. Odds are, you will not be rebuffed.
Daily Citizen is a news division of Focus on the Family that provides a faith-based perspective to counter the mainstream media’s anti-Christian bias.
