{"id":30334,"date":"2013-06-04T06:00:12","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T13:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.mcafee.com\/?p=30334"},"modified":"2025-08-28T00:20:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T07:20:27","slug":"digital-divide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/family-safety\/digital-divide\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Know What Your Kids Are Hiding?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many of you as parents may think, not much when asked this question. But in reality, it\u2019s probably a lot more than you think. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that in McAfee\u2019s 2013 study Digital Deception: Exploring the Online Disconnect between Parents and Kids <\/a><\/em>that examines the online habits and interests of tweens, teens, and young adults, finds there is a significant disconnect between what they do online and what their parents believe they do.<\/p>\n

The phrase \u201cliar liar, pants on fire\u201d comes to mind when I hear this topic and the phrase applies to both parents and kids. Parents are lying to themselves if they think they know what their kids are doing online, since 80% said they would not know how to find out what their kids are doing online and 62% do not think that their kids can get into deep trouble online. As for our kids, let\u2019s face it\u2013kids sometimes lie. The study found that 69% of kids say that they know how to hide what they do online from their parents and disturbingly 44% of them cleared their browser history or used private browsing sessions to hide their activity from their parents.<\/p>\n

While youth understand the Internet is dangerous, they still engage in risky (and sometimes illegal) behavior. Not only are they hiding this activity from their parents in a variety of ways, but almost half (46%) admit that they would change their behavior if they knew their parents were paying attention.<\/p>\n