To say that the internet and technology are important for business, commerce, travel, and communication is an understatement. The internet is everywhere, having permeated most aspects of our daily lives.

This is true for the younger generation as well, including even the youngest children. Walking by a restaurant table or family picnic and seeing little ones with smartphones in their hands is now commonplace. From the earliest age, children are exposed to and interacting with internet-enabled devices.

As it turns out, not all parents are happy about this trend. 

What a recent survey tells us about attitudes toward kids and digital

In a series of online surveys¹, the ESET team discovered that the majority of parents in four internet-savvy countries—Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States— think children are using the internet at far too young an age. Here is a closer look at some of the key results: 

• 96% of Russian respondents think children are using the internet and tech too early. 70% of respondents strongly agree with this claim, while only 3% think the opposite is true.
• 67% of Americans agree that the internet and various technologies were present too early in the lives of children today.
• 40% of British parents agree that tech is present too early in the lives of their children, with 23% strongly agreeing with this sentiment. 

Interestingly, Brits appear to be the strongest adopters of parental control tools like ESET Parental Control for Android or ESET Internet Security among the four surveyed countries. As many as 73% of Brits  stated that they use such a solution to monitor their children.

This is in stark contrast with the situation in Germany, where our survey revealed that 56% opt for non-technological means to keep an eye on their kids’ digital activities. This means that only 44% of German parents currently use technology to monitor what their kids are up to in the virtual world. By comparison, only 38% of parents in the United States said they don’t use any parental control solutions, followed by Russia at 44%.

Full ESET online survey results

Consider this statement: Children today are using technology and the Internet at too young an age.

Do you:

Do you use a Parental Control application to supervise your child’s online activities?

Where do you stand?

What children can access on the internet is clearly a concern, at least for parents in the four countries we surveyed. While many people think that children are "going digital” too early in life, there’s still a great deal that can be done to ensure their safety. 

Beyond talking to children and manually monitoring their use of the internet, there are technological means to help them stay safe. ESET Internet Security includes a suite of parental control tools that can be used to limit what young children can access on the internet, while also letting them enjoy its beneficial aspects.

Do you think children are accessing the internet too early? After reviewing our survey results, what steps are you taking—if any—to regulate screen time for your kids?

^[1]The Internet surveys used to gather these statistics were carried out in January 2016. A thousand respondents participated in each national survey, which targeted British, American, German and Russian participants. UK, US and German data were provided by Google Consumer Surveys, and the Russian data by Merku.