According to the research carried out by McAfee, majority of adolescents lie to their parents about their internet activities. These days adolescents lie more frequently than two years ago.
Modern adolescents lie to their parents about their internet activities more often. This is demonstrates in the latest report published by the developer of antivirus software McAfee. The research is based on the survey carried out among American adolescents between the age of 13 and 17.
«Approximately half of adult participants believe that their children tell them everything about their internet activities and they believe that they control these activities to full extent. However, the research shows that lies that children tell their parents about the Internet become more frequent.» – says the report.
It turned out that adolescents, despite their relatively good knowledge about internet dangers, often carry out risky behaviors such as publishing personal information or photographs on the Internet and concealing this from their parents.
Many children admit that on the Internet that gain access to “undesirable content”, whereas 73.5% of parents are not aware of this. Specifically, 43% of adolescents admitted the fact that they gained access to various scenes of abuse. 36% said that they viewed erotic content, whereas 32% admitted that they watched pornography. Overall more that 70% of all teenagers in the USA find various methods of overcoming obstacles set by their parents. In 2010 the seminal research showed that the amount was only 45%/
What do adolescents do on the Internet
| Task |
Percentage |
| Watch violent scenes |
43% |
| Watch erotic content |
36% |
| Watch pornography |
32% |
| Break into someone else’s social network profile |
15% |
| Hacking someone else’s email |
8,7% |
| Overcoming protecting software installed by their parents |
70% |
Source: McAfee
The most popular ways of cheating on parents include clearing browsing history (53%), closing browser when a parent enters the room (46%), deleting messages and videos from the computer (34%), lying about their internet activities (23%), using computer that is not checked by parents (23%) and using mobile devices to access the Internet (21%), etc.
Top-10 methods for deceiving parents
| Method |
Percentage |
|
|
1 |
Erasing browsing history |
53% |
|
2 |
Closing browser when a parent enters the room |
46% |
|
3 |
Deleting downloaded videos |
34% |
|
4 |
Lying about their Internet activities |
23% |
|
5 |
Using computers that are not checked by parents |
23% |
|
6 |
Using mobile devices to access the Internet |
21% |
|
7 |
Setting up content in such a way that it is only visible to friends. |
20% |
|
8 |
Manipulating privacy settings of a browser |
20% |
|
9 |
Creating email account that is not known to parents |
15% |
|
10 |
Creating social network profiles that are not known to parents |
9% |
Source: McAfee
«This generation is so good with technologies that they are often more advances that their parents. This allows them to do thing that parents forbid them to do, while risking their own safety» – notes Stanley Holditch, McAfee expert on online security.
Author: Vladislav Mesheryakov
Source: CNEWS
