On the occasion of Safer Internet Day, Happinetz recent survey revealed that 69% of children aged 12 or older possess a tablet or smartphone, granting them unrestricted access to online content. It emphasized the necessity for parents to regulate and monitor their children’s screen time, especially in households with multiple connected devices. Furthermore, managing and restricting objectionable content viewing poses challenges in such setups.
Approximately 74% of children engage extensively with YouTube while 61% of them are drawn towards gaming. Both uses of screens have parents grappling with keeping their children safe online. Whether it is through YouTube or games, most have ads that target adults. No matter how much care parents take, their children are inadvertently exposed to age-inappropriate internet, leaving them vulnerable to a whole host of developmental issues.
Safety of children online is not one person’s job. It takes a village to raise a child and it takes collaborative effort of all stakeholders including parents, tech companies, educators and government to ensure the internet is a safe playground for our children.
Speaking on the occasion of Safer Internet Day, Richa Singh, CEO and Co-founder of Happinetz, a parental control filter box said, “10 years ago, the problem of the internet was not as urgent as it is today. Every time I have spoken to a parent about gadgets, there has been a unanimous agreement that while the internet isn’t going away anywhere, they wish for a way to ensure their child is judiciously using their screen time and that they are safe online. I’m glad that Happinetz is championing this day in India to talk more about solutions around providing safe internet for kids.”
Happinetz Box continuously monitors the internet for more than 110 million websites & apps and to their shock, they found that of these more than 22 million websites & apps fall under the category of adult & unsecured. That truly showcases how big the problem of unsafe internet is when it comes to kids.
The internet should be a safe space for everyone but some groups are at more risk like kids, women and cultural minorities. Of this, the most pressing one is that of kids as denoted by a recent survey that highlights the increasing trend of children spending significant time on screens. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) has released guidelines on screen time but most parents are unaware of this.
The scale of bad internet cannot be solved without collective efforts from all stakeholders. Governments have to design laws to protect children online, technology companies have to commit to better audits and parents themselves have to be made aware of problems as well as solutions around this subject.
