Nearly half of parents say they snoop through their teen’s phone

Jan 8, 2016Uncategorized0 comments

Untag that sweet bong-rip, Chad: American parents keep close tabs on their kids’ digital lives, a new survey finds.

Nearly half say they go through their teen’s cell phone history, while a majority check web history and social media accounts. The survey, which was run by the Pew Research Center, collected responses from parents of teens ages 13 to 17. All told, 1,060 parents answered the survey.

You probably won’t be surprised to hear that the vast majority of teens in this age range access the Internet via mobile devices and use social media. Pew found last year that 91 percent of teens use the Internet on a mobile device “at least occasionally,” while 92 percent are online in some form on a daily basis. Most — 71 percent — are on Facebook.

Rather than unleash their kids in the wretched pit that is the Internet, where 23 percent of teens have reported being cyberbullied, parents opt to monitor their interactions. Roughly half of parents surveyed said they know their child’s email password, while 43 percent said they can unlock their teen’s cellphone and 35 percent said they can access at least one of their youngster’s social media accounts.

Pew found that younger parents — those under 45 years old — are more likely to know their kid’s password. And according to the survey, more affluent parents talk less frequently with their kids about how to behave, both online and off.

Pew Research Chart

Pew also found that dads might want to pick up the slack a little bit: Mothers are considerably more likely to talk to their kids about their behavior, per the survey.

You can probably guess what happens when kids misbehave: 65 percent of parents told Pew they’ve “digitally grounded” their kid, meaning no access to cellphones or the Internet.

Which, like, totally sucks, man.

 

By Damon Beres for huffingtonpost.com

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