PARENTS ALERT! CHILDREN ARE HAPPIER IN THEIR ONLINE LIVES THAN IN REAL LIFE – SURVEY CONFIRMS

More than 45% of young people say they feel happier in their “online life” than in their “real” life. This was one of the main data of the study conducted in England on the occasion of the International Internet Security Day held on February 8. The Kidscape organization – dedicated to preventing child sexual harassment and abuse – disseminated this survey about Internet use among 2,300 young people aged 11 to 18.

According to the newspaper The Telegraph, the experts were alarmed and considered it dangerous for minors to prefer virtual terrain over real. “We can not allow them to be happier in cyberspace than in our real communities, otherwise we are creating a generation of young people that does not function properly in our society,” Peter Bradley, deputy director of Kidscape, told The Telegraph newspaper. He added: “These findings suggest that children see cyberspace as something separable from the real world and a place to explore the parts of their behaviour and personality that may not show up in real life.”

In the survey, 60% of minors say they lie about their age in the network and 47% of teens say they behave differently in the network. “We know that safe online behaviour is taught in schools and other organizations like us, but adolescents seem to be unable to relate risks to themselves,” Bradley said.

Another survey published by the newspaper detected that up to 43% of people with Internet access have “friends” online that they never met in real life. 54% of those young people between 18 and 24 years old identify the possibility that today’s boys and girls exchange personal information with strangers.

All these facts collectively alarm parents of young kids and give them a warning to limit their kids’ screen time and bring them back to their real world, surrounded by real people, relationships and love. For the purpose, technology experts recommend parents to make use of the parental monitoring apps such as FamilyTime as these apps can help parents know what keeps their kids hooked in the virtual world. The app lets parents know their liking and disliking along with many other facts. Using the app, parents can see who their kids are friends with, what do they chat about, what interests they share, what sites do they visit, which apps do they enjoy, how much time do they spend on each app and much more. With all this information in hand, parents can decide ways to involve the in the real settings along with putting screen limits on their tech usage using the screen time limit features offered by the app.

It is now time to move smarter before it becomes too late. Get the app now and parent your kids well in the digital world! Happy parenting!